Mom's Last Joke

It was a Friday night and I’d been given the weekend off. My brothers were upstate, and I decided to go down to New York City. I thought a change of scenery might help — maybe a drink with a friend, a walk through a familiar neighborhood, something normal. But from the minute I got on the road, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom. It wasn’t the usual kind of worry. It was physical. My body felt like it was humming from the inside out, like every cell knew something I didn’t. I kept trying to brush it off, but it followed me everywhere — through traffic, through conversation, through every attempt to distract myself.

That night, something strange happened. One of my Mom's sisters, my aunt, suddenly decided to come to New York with daughters. They just showed up. None of it was planned. There had been tension between them for a few years, but something pulled them here anyway. Even though they all knew about my mom’s cancer, this was different. It was like some invisible thread had tightened around everyone connected to her, pulling us all closer at the same time without a single phone call or conversation.

The next morning, I woke up and knew I had to drive back. I can’t explain it logically. I just knew what was going to happen, even if I wasn't able to say it yet. I’d never felt anything like it before and I wish I had been paying more attention to it because it was fascinating - It wasn’t a thought or a fear — it was a certainty, deep and low, like a bell I could feel ringing in my chest, a subtle hum I could almost feel. And with it, my brothers and my aunt. I could "feel" them, and we all knew.

When I got to her house, I could tell immediately that everything was wrong. The house felt heavy, like the air itself had changed. Both of my brothers were there. My aunt and her daughters were there, trying their best — moving around the room, asking if my mom wanted anything, trying to make her comfortable. But it was too much. Too many voices, too much movement. My mom’s eyes were open but far away, and every noise seemed to unsettle her.

I asked everyone to slow down, to step outside for a minute, and somehow we all just knew that was the right thing. No one argued. No one questioned it. It was like we were communicating without words, like something in our shared blood understood what needed to happen. Ive always wanted to ask them if they felt that strange silent hum too.

Then came the moment I’d been dreading but couldn’t prepare for — the realization that she was actually dying. Not someday soon. Not in theory. Right then. She knew it too. I could see the fear in her eyes — not panic, but a kind of deep, exhausted awareness. I remember thinking how cruel it was that she had to know. To be that awake to your own ending - it was the sound that gave it away.

Her breathing had changed. It was uneven, ragged, the sound hospice calls the “death rattles.” I hated that term. She couldn't speak anymore, her body was shutting down. The most she could do was a faint gargle. For hours I saw her panicking, struggling with all of her might to just speak one word and out of nowhere I did the one thing I know how to do: inappropriate humor:

 “Jesus CHRIST Mom! You’re so controlling, you’re even trying to tell death how to do its job!!!.”

The air in the room froze for a moment, and then there were a few chuckles and the air quality got softer. I like to think she laughed. Maybe she didn’t, but something in her face softened and she seemed to relax.

The hours that followed are blurry and clear at the same time. The light outside the window kept changing, shifting from afternoon to dusk, and all of us just seemed to know what needed to happen. We called everyone we could think of so that she could hear the voices of the ones she loved. 

My aunt and cousins left quietly. We knew what was happening. My younger brother? She didn't want him to see this. My Older brother? She didn't want to give him that trauma. It would be me. Fuck you very much and Thank you very much. We didn’t plan any of this — we just somehow knew who belonged where. It felt like instinct. My younger brother left and my older brother fell asleep on the couch and I quietly closed the door and held her hand. 

I stayed with her. I sat by the bed and tried to do whatever I could. Soothing music, gently speaking. I had an urge to check my phone and saw that Cristian had texted me.  He had unblocked me that day, almost like he’d felt the same pull I did. He knew something was wrong and in his rapid spanish reassured me he was there for me and he stayed with me until she took her last breath.  

I made sure and I said my goodbyes as best as I could. I woke up my older brother and called my younger back. I marveled at all of the new experiences I was having, like this would be my first time calling a coroner. 

While we waited, my brother’s girlfriend and I dressed her. We wanted her to have dignity. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to. There was this quiet understanding between us, a shared reverence for what had just happened. When the coroner came, it was both surreal and brutally real at the same time. Watching them zip the bag closed was one of the hardest moments of my life.

My older brother, who rarely shows emotion, hugged us while we all quietly sobbed and he turned to me and said, “You’re not staying here tonight. We’re getting a hotel.” He booked separate rooms for all of us. It was the first act of protection I’d seen from him in years, and I was so grateful. I don’t think I could have survived sleeping in that house that night.

The fun started the next day as we tried to do the business of "death" and had to keep explaining to people that she technically had two death dates. She died right before midnight on the 10th, but the coroners couldn't come until early morning on the 11th. My Mom would've been thrilled to be such a complicated case like that. 

When it was over, the house felt completely hollow. The space she had filled — the sound of her voice, the weight of her presence — was just gone. And even though part of me had known it was coming, I don’t think anything truly prepares you for that kind of quiet.