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It's hard to believe that just one month ago, my mother, a vibrant and loving woman, was talking and interacting with me.
Even though she had her battles with dementia, I had learned to understand her so well over the years; it was like I was her personal interpreter.
I would have never thought she would be gone just one month later. I knew that it was inevitable; we all live to die, but I wouldn't have thought that in less than 30 days, my mom physically would no longer remain in my life.
I believed we would have more time left. It's accurate when they say not to take your time with someone for granted, for it may be your last.
Her changes were so rapid that one concern led to another, and we went from her living with her roommate to being placed in hospice to her moving in with me.
It finally hit me after the fact of seeing an empty hospital bed in my son's former bedroom. My mom did not come to my home to enjoy her last days; she came to my house to die.
Even though they diagnosed her with senile degeneration (dementia) as her first diagnosis of why she was placed in hospice, it was the second, COPD, that overtook her. It was not the climactic movie scene. My mom did not look so peaceful, and an angelic light was gravitating to my mother to cross over.
I thought back to the younger years when my parents were smokers and I said to myself, if Mom could see herself now, would she still smoke cigarettes?
I remember the many times that she would tell people as she aged and quit smoking, never to start it because it would make you sick and ruin your life.
It reminded me of when I was a little girl and my next-door neighbor, Sheanita. I snuck a pack of my parents' cigarettes, and she found the matches. We went down to her basement, hid them behind the washing machine and tried to smoke as our parents did.
At the time, we never knew that the smell of cigarette smoke sticks to you so you can smell it on a person; she and I just thought we were playing grown-up.
After six cigarettes were used and my friend's mom started to question us why we kept going down into the basement, we gave up.
We dug a hole in our favorite spot in our neighbor's yard where we used to play in the big patch of weeds and buried the remaining cigarettes and matches.
After the battles with asthma over the years, I am thankful that my actions did not cause me to have much more severe consequences.
I also remember the day the doctor told Mom she had the beginning stages of COPD. It was years ago and she cried for days instead of rejoicing that it wasn't worse news.
I tried to help her understand that she could have had lung cancer and her days could be so much shorter than what she was being blessed with and that people would trade her in an instant.
On Nov. 11, 2024, she became just the example I tried to insist all these years of how blessed she was to have another day of life.
My mother was my very best friend. She was the one person who had always seen the good in me and would constantly tell me how proud she was.
I was not the best child I should be as a teenager and a young adult. So when my mom would say to me how proud of me she was, I took it very seriously because I knew what we had endured together.
I told her many times before that when she leaves this earth, I will never again hear from someone who would see such good in me.
Now, because it is still so fresh, I sit numb. It seems everything feels at a standstill. It is hard to believe how much my life has changed since the last time I wrote a column for you.
Roberta Cykon is a Youngstown State University graduate and a licensed social worker and gerontologist. Roberta is in her second three-year term with the Trumbull County Senior Service Advisory Council. If you have any topics or questions you would like Roberta to discuss, email her at rmcykon01@gmail.com.