By Marissa Bader 
I always assumed death was something that happened in an instant. Here one moment, gone the next. At least that’s how it was with Dad. His death, though awful, followed the natural order of things: he passed away, and then we mourned.
Yours was different.
Hours before you died, I sat beside you under the glow of your bedside lamp, grasping your limp hand. I squeezed it tightly, unsure if you could feel it, but desperately needing you to know you weren’t alone.
I glanced at the digital picture frame I’d bought you after you got sick. “It’ll help her remember us,” I had told my siblings. Except it didn’t. You often stared at the endless stream of images blankly, perhaps wondering if they were actors on a little TV screen.
For me, the photos were painful reminders of a distant past, one where you were vibrant, sharp, active—my mom. I’d been missing you for so very long.
In the fall of 2020, just after my 40th birthday, you were diagnosed with a blood cancer called Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). You’d had no symptoms; we only caught it because of a routine blood test. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed the worst.
A few weeks later, we met with a hematologic oncologist. You were given three years to live—maybe longer if the chemo worked. From that moment on, I knew we were on borrowed time.
Our lives became an endless cycle of doctor’s appointments, blood draws, and chemotherapy. But amid it all, I noticed something else: your declining memory. At first, it was subtle—repeating stories, small lapses. But over time, it worsened. Cognitive testing and brain scans confirmed our fears. You had dementia.
If there was a disease we dreaded more than cancer, it was dementia.
Yet here’s the cruel irony: the chemo worked, putting your cancer into remission. But dementia hijacked your brain, stealing your essence, leaving only confusion and sorrow behind.
I thought nothing could hurt more than losing Dad suddenly, but the long, slow burn of your mental decline was brutal. Every day, I said goodbye to a different part of you.
Then, suddenly, the end came. You developed an infection and spent two weeks in the hospital. Though the infection healed, your white blood cell count skyrocketed—a sign your MDS was transforming into Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Palliative care met with us. “We’re looking at months, weeks, or days,” the doctor said.
Those hospital days were awful, mixed with moments of sweetness. One afternoon, you looked at me with a mischievous grin. “So . . . do you have a boyfriend?”
I giggled. “I do! He’s my husband. You were at the wedding. You helped me plan it!”
Your smile grew wide. “Well, if we planned it, it must have been beautiful.”
It was, Mom. It really was.
Later that day, I left for a short trip with my family, guilt-ridden but knowing I needed time with my husband and kids. When I returned, everything had changed. You were barely conscious. Hospice confirmed you were dying, likely within 72 hours.
I let out the breath I’d been holding for years and fell to the ground. I had grieved this loss in so many ways for so long, yet the finality of it was gut-wrenching.
My daughters came to say goodbye. They held your hand and told you they loved you. One of my twins made artwork for your room; my eldest shared her favorite memory—when you accidentally dumped an entire shaker of pepper on your eggs at brunch. My other twin danced for you.
The next day, I visited alone. I held your hand, told you stories, and sang “You Are My Sunshine,” the way you used to sing it to me.
I was with you when you took your final breath. It was peaceful. Surreal.
The weeks that followed were a blur. But a friend said something that struck me deeply: “Maybe your grief doesn’t live in this final loss, but in all the losing that happened along the way?”
Yes.
I’d been grieving for years—the loss of my mom and confidante, the person who remembered my birthdays, who I called with exciting or heartbreaking news. Each missed holiday, each forgotten moment, had been another wound.
I felt gutted knowing your presence in my life and my children’s was truly gone. That I was parentless.
My friend was right. Each of those small losses had punctured holes in my heart. Accumulated, they felt unbearable.
But with this final loss, something unexpected happened: I began to heal.
I could breathe. Be present in my own family’s life. Relinquish anxiety. Withdraw from the painful generational sandwich I’d been wedged in.
At last, I could finally say goodbye.
by Madison Sabados 
