This post was written by our friend The Hammer of God.
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It's
with a very heavy heart that I write this, which is a passage that I've
been dreading to write for a few years now. But I hope to ease the
heaviness of my burden or perhaps ease the burden for someone else who
also carried the same burden.
My Mom passed
away recently, early this month. It's hard to believe and sometimes
doesn't feel real, even though her death was not entirely unexpected.
(She was elderly and had not been in good health for years.) Perhaps her
death was more shocking to me because, up until the very last few days
of her life, she had been mentally sharp and had never lost her reason
or memory. The doctors say the cause of death was heart failure from
respiratory complications. So it says on the death certificate. But I
know that the real cause of death was complications from osteoporosis.
She had thinning of the bones and had lost a lot of weight in her final
years.
I had taken care of her myself and had
refused to put her in a nursing home. Let me tell you: it was incredibly
difficult. It was a 24 hour a day job, with no vacations and snatching
some sleep and rest whenever I could manage.
I
remember the day and even the moment when this ordeal started a couple
of years ago. It started with low back pain that progressed to severe
levels. The back pain waxed and waned. There were periods when it almost
seemed to disappear, but it always came back. Laying in bed all day is
really bad for the back and for the entire body, but that's what
ultimately caused a total bodily health deterioration. When the body
weight reaches a critically low level, the body won't be able to
overcome any seemingly minor crisis, like a bout of diarrhea.
In
her final days, she was hospitalized because she had been weakened by
sudden diarrhea over a few days. The severe pain from osteoporosis was
back again. Doctors gave her high level pain medicine to ease her
suffering, which seemed to make her sleepy most of the time. I thank God
that she passed away in her sleep without feeling any pain. She passed
away in the afternoon, so a family member was there and noticed
immediately that she was not breathing. If it had happened at night, it
might not have been noticed until morning by the nursing staff.
I
look back on the years and there are so many things that I wish I'd
done with Mom or for Mom but never got around to doing. In the end, you
simply run out of time.
My Mom was a Yankee
fan. As a matter of fact, I introduced her to baseball myself. No one in
my family had been a baseball fan until I started following the Yankees
in 1981. I remember watching the 1996 World Series with Mom and seeing
the final out when Charlie Hayes caught the pop up in foul territory.
Somehow, I don't even remember 1998 or 1999, but I remember we saw the
last out of the 2000 World Series when Bernie Williams caught the Mike
Piazza long fly ball in left centerfield to end it. And I remember the
2009 World Series, when Chase Utley terrorized Yankee pitching, but for
once in the postseason, the Yankee bats were overwhelming and A-Rod,
Matsui & Co. were too much for the Phillies. Robbie Cano threw out
the last Phillies batter on a grounder to second for the title.
It
would have been awesome if the Yankees had won last year in 2024, but
there's nothing fans can do, except give psychological support or offer
up some mental toughness advice.
Here's to
hoping that this time, the Yankees make it to the Promised Land in 2025.
I know Mom would be very happy for me and the Yankees.
I
debated in my mind whether to write this or not. In the end, I knew
that I had to do it. Mom would've wanted me to write this.
I
know that there are a lot of older people on this website. Without
doubt, some will be at risk of developing osteoporosis. The good news is
that this is an entirely preventable disease with the right lifestyle
choices. I will write more about this in the future, but there's no
better time than now to get on your feet and pump some iron. No matter
how old you are, weight training can save you from osteoporosis. If you
build muscle, your bones will get thicker and stronger. If you haven't
been physically active, of course it is recommended that you consult a
physician before starting an exercise routine. But even small amounts of
exercise can be tremendously beneficial. It's not about extending your
time on earth. That is up to God. But it's about improving your
quality of life during the time you have on earth. Proper weight
training is the answer to maintaining an excellent quality of life. If
you're not working out two to three times a week, start very light and
small. Get educated by reading (I highly recommend Arnold
Schwarzenegger's book "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder") and
watching youtube. Get motivated and get moving, soldier!
Posts
17 comments:
First off, sorry to have posted at nearly the same time you did, Hammer. I had no idea that yours was coming...
...Second, thank you for this moving tribute. I can only imagine what it has been like for you, despite your very poignant tribute. My mom slowly declined from Huntington's and Alzheimer's over the space of some 15 years. It was awful—but thank God I had a sister who lived much closer to her, and then we had the nursing home.
I can't imagine doing what you did by yourself; thank God there was another family member around, at least, but still it sounds like a terrible burden...
...And even when, as was the case with your mom, as was the case with my mom, death will be a mercy—it's still heartbreaking. Just devastating.
This is a beautiful tribute to your mom, and to fanhood. Thank you.
Hammer,
My deepest condolences. It sounds like you were a wonderful son.
We all grieve differently but the sadness that we feel is in direct proportion to how important the person was to us.
That you are devatated speaks to how much you appreciated her in life.
All I can offer is this, while the feeling never goes away it does change and soften with time...
I still reach for the phone to call my dad during games and always watch Opening Day with a picture of him sitting in his recliner. I can't look at Oswaldo Caberra without hearing my mom saying how much she likes his smile.
At first, the above made me cry. Now I just smile wistfully, glad that we saw so many games together.
Again, my condolences.
Thank you, HOG and, even though we have never met in person, I'm sending love along with my condolences. My mom - who is long gone - was a Yankee fan. She grew up two blocks from the Stadium in the late 1920s through the 1940s. My dad was a NY baseball Giants fan, but he migrated after they left town, so the two of them made sure it was a Yankee household. Anyway, you only get one mom and I'm sorry for your loss. As Doug said, time does heal. And thanks for the reminder about weight training and exercise. God knows I need to up my game.
It was like running a marathon, whilst carrying an elephant on your back. The worst part of it was not being able to sleep properly. (You know how older people sometimes have to urinate frequently during the night.) I felt like I was part of some crazy military experiment where they don't let you sleep, in order to explore the extreme limits of sleep deprivation.
Yes, thank you, Hoss. It was merciful, in the end. Mom was always talking about how she had to pass away quickly to save her family from all this trouble. And with all the pain, all the problems, it was heartrending. All the more so because there's nothing you (or any doctor) can do about it, except making her feel a little better. And yet I still feel guilty about being able to sleep soundly now. The first time in a year and a half that I've been able to get decent sleep.
Thank you, El Duque.
Thank you, Doug K. All these posts from you guys are definitely comforting.
Yes, Mom and I were very close. Even though she is now free from pain and in a better place, her passing is still devastating. It's going to be hard to get over this.
Hammer, you were an angel to your mother just as she was to you when you were born. Blessings on you both.
Thank you again, 13bit. I appreciate it! Thanks to all you guys for sharing about the passing of your loved ones. God bless them all!
Thank you, DickAllen. God bless you.
Hammer - Again, my heartfelt condolences.
I'm sure that many of us here (myself included) can relate in one way or another to your experience with your Mom.
My father passed away eight months after I graduated from college, but had been ill for several years before that. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to drive cross country together (CT to SoCal) just before the start of my second to last fall semester.
That drive out west brought us closer together, allowing us to get to know each other and bond as adult human beings, and thankfully gave him the comfort to confide in me during his last few weeks in Hospice.
And the flip side to all of that is it inspired me years later to have the inspiration, confidence and desire be a stay-at-home dad to my daughter.
H.O.G. – I hope that the Yankees are able to push past Boston and continue deep into the post season and that your Mom has a reliable cable provider to enjoy every moment of it in Heaven.
Lets Go Yankees !
My condolences, HoG.
My dad died from Parkinson’s in 2013 after fighting it (as well as multiple bouts with cancer stretching back to the mid-80s) for over a dozen years. It was a slow descent that just … never … stopped, which my mother managed mostly on her own until the last year, when she conceded to a visiting nurse. It ended in a facility that, mercifully, lasted only a couple of months). Something that will haunt me for the rest of my life: one evening as we prepared to leave, & he was strapped into his bed, he called out my name & said not to leave him. He was barely coherent at that point & I’ll never know if within seconds he’d forgotten my name, or where he was, but it still tears at me.
We buried him with his weathered Yankee cap.
Stang, thank you for posting this article! I had no idea whether you would receive my email, whether you still had that email address.
I hope what I wrote will make a positive difference in someone's health. There's no better time than now to start improving our bodies.
Like the ancient Greeks always said, if you want a strong mind, you have to have a strong body as a foundation. The positives from daily exercise are innumerable. And as Arnold Schwarzenegger will tell you, the older you get, the more important it becomes to do weight training to keep and build muscle and bone. When you're young and healthy, you can get away with zero resistance training. But as we get older, if the process is unchecked, our bodies lose muscle. And when you lose muscle, you lose bone density too. If you end up in bed partially disabled from tiny compression fractures of the spine, a result of osteoporosis, it could be too late. The key is to strengthen your body before osteoporosis sets in.
It should be everyone's goal to stay in top physical condition. Resistance training is a big part of that. Calisthenics, like push ups, are good too. But pushups don't allow for progressively increasing resistance. That's where a good weight training program really helps. You don't need to join a gym, unless you want to. You can get a great workout at home in half an hour a day. All you need to start is maybe a sturdy utility bench and some dumbbells. Or you can start doing calisthenics and then graduate to weights.
My advice is to take it real easy if you haven't been active for a long time. Don't overdo it. Take a very conservative approach, especially with weights, for at least a couple of months. Weight training is great, but also carries a lot of danger from repetitive stress injury. These repetitive stress injuries to tendons and ligaments never really heal. Beginners should do very light weights, for low repetitions, say in the 4-6 rep range, only 1 set. Allow your tendons and ligaments to get stronger. (This takes much, much longer than building muscle, which is why athletes are always getting hurt lifting weights. Their muscles are out-developing their connective tissues.)
Listen to your body and always use common sense: one of the positives from working out properly is that you'll develop much better awareness over your body. The book by Arnold is excellent. Tells you pretty much everything you need to know to get started.
Another good reference book is "The Men's Health Home Workout Bible" by Schuler & Mejia. Although there are some exercises in there that can be dangerous for your connective tissues. Like I said, you can never learn too much. Always try to develop good judgment and common sense, especially with weight training. You'll not only be developing your body, but you'll also be exercising your brain.
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