I held her hand. I told her not to worry about me. I told her she had raised a strong independent daughter who could take care of herself. I told her to go to dad. Then I made one final request of her. I asked her for one last Christmas gift. She and I had been together when I came into this world  – I asked her for the gift of being together with her once again when she left this world. Her breathing became shallower and shallower. Soon the breaths were so shallow I knew they could not sustain life. One last small breath, a tear ran down her left cheek and she was gone. Peaceful, quiet and eerily beautiful. At that moment, my mom gave me the most precious gift of all.

I cannot think of a better way to honor her than to reprint what I blogged the day after she died. It captures all of the emotions I felt and continue to feel to this day.

WRITTEN NOVEMBER 15, 2006 

Euphrasia Dolores Miksis Drabik – born September 23, 1922 – died November 14, 2006. How do you even begin to put into the words this very special life?  She was one of four children (the baby) of Apolian and Marcella Miksis (Victor, Genevieve and Bernice), born in Chicago and lived under very modest means on the south side of Chicago (a large Lithuanian stronghold at the time). She married Edward Joseph Drabik (1915-1998) and had two children, Robert (1947) and Janice (1951). She lived in Chicago until she retired with her husband to Clearwater Florida in 1982 and moved to Colorado to be near her daughter in 2004.

The Last Picture of My Mom taken September 22, 2006

Mom, I miss you terribly already, but I am at such peace because you are not suffering any longer. I had two + great years with my mom here in Colorado. We went shopping, went to movies, saw plays had regular ladies nite out dinners – and I was blessed to have had the opportunity to really spend some time with her after living far away from her for so many years once she and dad moved to Florida. She always felt I was going to follow them down there, but little Jan who always had a boat load of independence decided that Florida was not for her and lived in Chicago, Dayton, Ohio and now Boulder, Colorado.

I had never experienced a death before and so I was really not sure what to expect and how I would feel about it. Yesterday started with a call from Hospice. They asked if I wanted a nurse to stay with mom all day, because they had one available. I jumped at the chance, because I had planned to be there all day as well, and knew I would appreciate not only the company but also the professional assessment of mom’s condition.

We sat all morning and chatted about mom. There were some changes in her condition since the nurse spent the day with her on Sunday, but nothing to indicate eminent death. The nurse was quick to remind me that those conditions could change at any time, and could change rapidly.

At about 11:30 am, the nurse suggested that I go out for a while and grab some lunch. I decided to do so – nursing homes are tough environments to be in when you are sitting at the bedside of a dying person.I was just finishing when I got a call on my cell phone – some things appeared to be changing, they recommended that I come back. I got back relatively quickly, and to my untrained eye I could not notice any type of change. But they told me that her heart rate had increased significantly and that her breathing was changing.

So, I sat by her bed and held her hand. I told her that she was the one who was there when I entered into this world and I asked her to give me a final Christmas gift – to let me be there when she left this world. I kept encouraging her to go, I told her daddy was waiting, I told her that I would be ok, and I told her that she should give in and be at peace. Over the course of about 20 minutes, as I continued to talk to her and to hold her hand, her breathing became more and more shallow. It finally got to the point where her breaths were so insignificant that it made me wonder how that little amount of oxygen could sustain life. Then there were a couple of more very shallow, very small breaths, and nothing. A tear streamed down out of her left eye, and it was all over.

When I came back from lunch, not only was the nurse there who was assigned for the day, but mom’s regular nurse, the hospice social worker and a nurse being trained to do bedside assessments. She had a room full of people, pulling for her to be out of her pain and wishing her a speedy journey to dad. I have to say, although I was fearful of what to expect, it was the most beautiful experience of my life. My mom gave me the ultimate gift, and I will always be grateful to her for sharing her last moments of life with me.

Since last Wednesday you could see that she was accepting what was happening and preparing for the next phase of her life. On Friday she asked me what was happening to her. When I asked what she thought was happening to her, she said, “I’m dying”, and I told her yes. With tears in her eyes, she told me that she would not be able to go Christmas shopping with me, and with tears in my eyes, I told her that she would always be able to go Christmas shopping with me, because for as long as I live, I will always have her in my heart wherever I go and whatever I do. She smiled.

On Monday I had both my aunt and my brother talk to her. I held the phone by her ear and they told her it was ok to let go. When she heard my brother’s voice, she opened her eyes and I got cognitive recognition. I said hi to her, and she very weakly and softly said to me, “I love you.” Those were the last words I would ever hear her say.

Today we will finalize the arrangements and my last job is to get her back to dad. I can’t believe that it is over, and yet I am so happy that she is finally out of her pain. This journey was a tough one, but she handled it with grace and a positive attitude. I truly believe that until this last week, she thought she would beat this thing and walk out of that nursing home. She was a fighter until the end.

Euphrasia Dolores Miksis Drabik – born 1922, died 2006. I love you with all my heart, mom. And until the day that I die, you will live on in my heart. I am counting on you to be my guardian angel now. It’s a dirty job, but I know you are up to the task. Thank you for everything, mom. I will always love you.

Your baby,

Janice Marie

My mother was a perfectionist and that is where we differed the most. Everything had to be perfect – from her penchant for ironing underwear and socks, to using a toothbrush to clean the baseboards around the floor to folding military-style corners on bed sheets to having perfect attendance at work. She was very disciplined and tried to instill that into her daughter. Unfortunately her daughter was just not wired that way.

I have to say that eventually some of it did rub off and I am grateful for that. I learned the discipline to get things done and to work hard but the rest was just not for me. I would watch as she would meticulously clean every corner and dust every inch of the house and have everything in place in her cabinets, dresser drawers and closets. You never had to worry about what our house looked like if you stopped by for a surprise visit. It was always immaculate … except for my room. My mother finally resolved that issue by simply closing the door of my room whenever she felt it was necessary. Every house she lived in was always that way until she became very ill at the end. Her homes were always sparkling clean and company ready.

She tried and tried and tried to instill the same desire for meticulousness in me, it just never worked. She thought being disciplined would motivate me but it did just the opposite. It made me not want to be a perfectionist. I will never forget my first high school report card. Going to high school was a very scary thing for me. I excelled in grammar school but was uncertain if I could cut it in high school. I remembering giving my mother my first high school report card and being very proud of what I accomplished. I had one B and all the rest were A’s. My mother looked at my report card for a minute, turned to me and said very seriously, “so what’s with the B?” I was crushed but she did not know it. She thought by saying what she said she would motivate me to try harder. I took it to mean that I was a failure. And that was the beginning of me being harder on myself than anyone else ever could for many many years. I know now that was never her intention. In later years she told me how proud she was of what I achieved academically. When I told her the story of the report card she didn’t even remember saying it although she did admit that it sounded like something she might say. One of the many push-pulls of a mother-daughter relationship.

Two pictures of my mom

She was also a stickler for my school attendance record and single handedly saw to it that I had perfect attendance for all four years of high school. My mother worked nights at Harris Bank in downtown Chicago when I was in high school. My dad had the responsibility for getting us up in the morning, making our breakfast and getting us out of the house. Mom usually came home after breakfast and just about when we were ready to go out the door. One morning I woke up and had bad cramps, I was getting my period. I really felt lousy and my dad said I could stay home. My mom got home, saw I was still in bed, got me up and made me get dressed in the car while she drove me to school. After all, we couldn’t spoil my perfect attendance record. I have to say once I got to school and started moving around I felt better, but to this day still find it hard to understand why she thought perfect attendance was so important.

My mom was famous for speaking first and thinking second, especially when it came to me. I think she felt so comfortable with me that she never felt she had to mince words – and she never did. Once we were on the phone and she was talking about an article she read in a magazine about John F. Kennedy Jr. Without thinking she blurted out, “and guess what, Jan. He’s a slob, just like you!” By that time I was more mature and not so easily crushed by some of the things she would say and when I called her on it she immediately backpedaled and said, “the article talks about how it is common for slobs to have a lot of money and I know you have a lot of money so I was making a financial comparison between the two of you.” To this day that logic still escapes me, but somehow I feel comforted knowing that John F. Kennedy Jr. was a slob.

I share all of this because I want to create a realistic picture of my mother. Like any other mother and daughter relationship we certainly had our ups and downs. Things weren’t perfect, often messy but there was always love. Although I wish my mom had done things differently in certain instances, I have yet to meet the parent who found the book that tells you how to raise the perfect child and be the perfect parent. As a matter of fact I am glad a book like that didn’t exist as my mother, in her never ending quest for perfection, may have memorized every chapter of it. And although my mom and I were both headstrong and opinionated, it was she who taught me to believe in myself, she who made me believe I could be whatever it was that I wanted to be, she who made me believe that I could compete with and be better than any man, she who gave me the independence to strive and achieve far more than I ever dreamed. In an era where women were still expected to play a more subservient role, she was the first woman in her peer group to go back to work and the first female head of the bank’s charge card division. I learned from her that women could play whatever role they chose to play in life and not necessarily the role that society had perennially designated for them. I grew up not fearing competition and not ever settling for being subservient to anyone – one of the greatest gifts I think my mother ever gave me. The role model that she was and the unending love that she gave were and still are today the things I cherish the most about her.  They are also the things that I continue to miss the most.

Three weeks from today is Thanksgiving better know as Turkey Day when I was growing up. For quite some time the stores have been looking past this event and stocking their shelves with Christmas items. Now that Halloween is over retail is officially in holiday mode. All of the stores are pulling out the stops with bright colors, ornaments, food gifts and of course the elfs, snowmen and all the other traditional holiday characters. I think we have come to merely validate Thanksgiving and have it serve as a placeholder for what is to come next – Black Friday.

But these next few weeks are an important and very bittersweet time of year for me. The holidays have always been the time of year I look forward to with great anticipation. And in some respects I still do. But now it is a time of year that will always have a mark of sadness attached to it as well. It was this time of year, five years ago, that my mother was living out her last days. And although I was happy she was going to be relieved of her pain and suffering, I never anticipated the emptiness I would feel and continue to feel since she died on November 14 2006. So as I was thinking about the five year anniversary of her death I decided it was time to focus on the gift that was her life. To that end, I am going to devote my next couple of blogs to remembering one of the most influential women in my life, my mother. And instead of wallowing in sorrow that she is no longer here, take time to share the memories that I have of her and rejoice in the life of Euphrasia Dolores Miksis Drabik.

My mom at 18 years of age

So, let’s start with that name. Yes her name was Euphrasia. My mother always told me that my grandmother found that name on the last page of the bible. But no matter how many bibles I have looked at over the years I have never been able to find that name on the last page or anywhere else for that matter. Although I do remember an old Elvis Presley movie where he claimed to have an aunt Euphrasia but that’s about the only context I could ever associate with her name. My mother was a very beautiful woman. I know you think I am prejudiced but just look at her picture for yourself and then tell me if you disagree. She was the baby in her family – she had an older brother and two older sisters both who became nuns. I once asked my mother why she didn’t become a nun and she said she just liked boys far too much and the thought never entered her mind to live the life of a nun. She was just too worldly. She always imagined herself famous – she even created a stage name for herself. At that time Hollywood stars rarely kept their real names and she didn’t think Euphrasia had marquee appeal. So, she was going to be Dolores Woods star of stage and screen. (Now do you see how I was destined to be involved in theater arts).

She never went to college. She graduated from high school and immediately started working as a secretary in a law office. Her looks did not go unnoticed by her employer. He continually made sexual advances to her. My mother had lived a very sheltered life and she was not sure how to deal with the situation at the time. She told me that these uncomfortable advances went on for a while and then finally stopped. When I asked her why they stopped so suddenly she turned to me and said, “Honey, never underestimate the power of a good strong fart!” Yep, that was my mom.

So in the coming days I will share some of my most precious memories of her. I look like her, I talk like her, I am no doubt her daughter. And she was by no doubt the best mom a girl could ever have.