Dear fans of Rae Russel (my Mom),
I have sad news today. My mother died last night, Thursday, October 16, 2008, around 6pm at Petaluma Valley Hospital. My sister-in-law Karen, devoted to my Mom, and I were both with Rae before and during this time. She died peacefully, without pain, and with great love and many tears in the room.
Although she didn’t make it out of the hospital and back to her house just one mile down McDowell Blvd. in her adoptive California home town of Petaluma, as she and we all wanted, her dear friends Cecilia and Rick got to say goodbye, as did Andy (Rae’s first son and my brother) on Wednesday, the day before.
How you receive this news is up to you. I’m enjoying the stillness and relative quiet I feel, in between waves of sweet and gentle grief. (I may not answer the phone for a while as I go in and out of wanting to do all there is to do.) I see that I can tell a happy story about all this, or a sad one: the sad story is she opted for elective surgery over a month ago, to get more time awake and alert at home among friends and she never recovered to enjoy this. The happy story is we all said said goodbye before her surgery and she didn’t slowly die over months or even years, as many people do from cancers, brain or otherwise. We “kept her alive on machines,” something she expressly did not want—but who does?—only long enough to know with certainty she could not recover.
I’ve written a much longer account of last night, a very powerful and emotional experience for me, that I may post in the future as it feels right. I thank all of you for keeping my Mom, Rae Russel—strong and feisty and honest and straight talking, pretty much endlessly talking, in fact—In your hearts during this time. I see no reason why this shouldn’t continue.
Last night I got even greater clarity about how much I loved her and how lucky I was to have her as my mother.
We know we’ll have a memorial service in the near future in Petaluma, we don’t yet know when.
With love and appreciation,
Jack (still not Jack "Russel") Gescheidt
1 comment:
Though I hadn't seen her in over ten years, she was more than an aunt to me, she was a truth-teller. Fearless, wild, loving, loyal. I hope I'm half the woman she was and that I live as long and as fully.
Peace dear Rae.
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