Dad's Letter to Friends Explaining Mom's Death
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| Shortly after Mom and Dad starting dating |
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I wrote this to perhaps
bring some dignity and put context to the method of Margaret’s passing.
Margaret and I were married 35 years, and we started dating 41 years ago when
we were 20. She was breathtakingly beautiful, but it was her phenomenal
intelligence that really attracted me. We loved, we built a life together and
raised three smart, beautiful, independent daughters who have made us proud.
She had the brains and discipline to be anything she aspired to be in life; she
chose motherhood. In that calling, by any measure, she knew great success.
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| Shortly after Mom and Dad found out they were pregnant with me |
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Over the last year of
her life, Margaret multiple times said, "I feel like I am losing it."
Isabella, our first grandchild, was born in June and had unexpected
complications. She died 30 hours later. This was a devastating loss for the
whole family, and, of all of us, Margaret seemed the least able to experience
the process of grief and healing. Over the last four months of her life she
often became frantic, sometimes shaking, pacing the house saying, "What am
I going to do? I'm losing my mind, and it's only getting worse." She began
making odd decisions and her cognition was increasingly compromised. When I
would ask her how she was feeling, she would say she was living breath to
breath. When asked what she was thinking, she would often recite a looping list
of fears or anxieties related to intruders, saying the wrong thing in
conversations, or failing in her work responsibilities. She largely stopped
answering the phone because talking to nearly anyone was overwhelming. This
last Christmas she abruptly chose not to join the family in the Midwest because
there would be too much activity and social interaction for her to handle, and
she did not want to be a damper on the festivities. She needed solitude.
Margaret wore earplugs nearly constantly; sound, light, touch, and scents could
put her into sensory overload.
She had been seeing a
psychiatrist who prescribed several antidepressants – some in heavy doses. She
was doing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy with a
psychologist. She used Eastern medicine, acupuncture, and aromatherapy for
depression. She also had weekly massages where Margaret told me her massage
therapist would sometimes cry over the state of her heart chakra. Margaret
tried everything she could find – short of in-patient treatment – to fix
herself. Her family tried everything we could do to help her, her friends and
coworkers would call or try to talk, but social interaction was exhausting, and
she said the cost was too high. She lost weight and became progressively more
withdrawn. I urged her to see a neurologist, and we discussed the possibility
of her problem being a brain tumor. She had bouts of depression over the last
dozen years, but what she was experiencing was far, far beyond anything we had
seen before.
Margaret took her life
in March. It was a shock to all and a surprise to many. Given her increasingly
uncharacteristic behavior, we asked the Office of the Medical Investigator to
do an especially thorough examination. The pathologist called me on Friday with
their findings. He told me she had a disease called amyloidosis, and it was in
an advanced stage. This disease causes unusual folding of proteins that build
up in the arteries, thickening them and restricting blood flow. It was found in
her heart, kidneys, and liver. It was also found in her brain in significant
amounts. In the brain, amyloidosis causes tiny cracks in the artery walls where
blood leaks into the surrounding tissues and kills adjacent brain cells. The
cause is not well understood, there is no cure, and it is fatal. Given her
advanced stage, it likely would have killed her in the near future by heart
attack or stroke. The pathologist also said this would explain the changes in
her behavior as one of the symptoms of amyloidosis is dementia.
This diagnosis was a
comfort to me. Her brain, this vessel that held the very essence of Margaret
here on Earth, failed her. It was not Margaret, family, friends, acquaintances,
or caregivers that failed her, it was her brain by way of her body since the
disease originates in the bone marrow. The EMDR therapy assumes the brain can
learn and incorporate new pathways and the structure of Margaret's brain was
organically compromised. Even though I watched it happen, the diagnosis also
helps me understand on a deeper level how terrifying it must have been for this
brilliant woman to lose her mind.
As one of the most
fervent Christians I have ever known, Margaret took her faith seriously and
studied the subject extensively. She built an enviable library of biblical
commentaries and historical sermons. She would pray with complete strangers if
she sensed they were in need. She had complete trust in God, His plan for her,
and the certainty of Heaven. She believed that Jesus atoned for her sins and
God would view her through the lens of Christ in the final reckoning. Some of
her friends have expressed concern for the state of her soul given that her
final act of taking her life may have put her sideways with God. I can say she
believed without reservation that all of her sins would be
atoned for through Christ. I have no doubt she is right with God and has found
peace in Heaven. She is also in the presence of her granddaughter, family
members, and many friends.
Over the last while, the
person Margaret knew herself to be was rapidly disappearing. When she said she
was losing her mind... she literally was; and the progression was accelerating.
In hindsight, with the diagnosis, the way events unfolded make far more sense.
Many with whom I have talked have expressed they wished they would have done
more, called more, or come to visit. I want to reiterate, there is nothing
anyone could have done to fix her. We all tried, Margaret most of all. I loved
her, we loved her, and we will miss who she was in life, that vibrant,
fiercely-independent woman who touched so many people.
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| Dancing at my wedding |
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