Standing Strong

by Teresa Giudice

  She had the tube in for two or three days before they were able to take it out. She was doing better and, at one point, even got moved up to a floor for patients who are stable. So we were telling my dad that she was fine. We just wanted him to envision her in rehab doing her physical therapy! Joey and I couldn’t bear to upset him anymore.

  Sometimes, I feel like things happen for a reason. I’m not sure what those reasons are when it comes to everything I’ve had to endure, but I do know that my father could never have handled seeing what happened to my mother in the last two weeks of her life. He wouldn’t have been able to watch her die.

  So, I suppose, for that I am grateful.

  I’ve learned you have to find the ray of light in the storm.

  11

  * * *

  THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

  The two weeks leading up to my mother’s death were the hardest two weeks of my life. Of course, I didn’t know what was in store for me, so once they’d taken the breathing tube and trach out and it seemed like she was doing better, I couldn’t help but feel optimistic.

  One day my brother and I made our parents talk to each other two separate times on the phone. Joey was with my dad and I was with my mom. We knew they needed to hear each other’s voices. They were always so in love and barely ever spent a moment apart. Joey and I hoped that by their being able to at least speak to each other, it would help both of them get better. My father needed to know that my mother was doing okay. Remember, he still thought she was in the rehab facility, and my mother had no idea my father was in the hospital—thank God they didn’t put two and two together!

  Soon after that, there was one night when my mom slept straight through without waking up in pain. It was the first peaceful rest I could remember her having, with the exception of a singular night a while back when the Ambien they’d given her actually worked. That’s what would happen, any given medication would work the first time they gave it to her and then, beyond that, it would make her hallucinate and say crazy things.

  So that night, she slept all night. I kept looking at her. You know, like when you’re checking on a newborn baby to see if his or her chest is rising and falling. I thought, She never sleeps all night. What’s the problem? The next morning, her blood pressure dropped again and the doctor said, “We have to bring her back to the ICU. She has an infection.” I said, “An infection? Are you sure? She had a great night. She finally slept!” And they said, “That’s what happens when you have an infection, it makes you sleep.” They brought her back to the ICU and found out she had sepsis. They didn’t know where it came from. The only thing they could think, was that it might have come from the PICC line in her neck. She was in so much pain that whole day because of it. I was scared, because sepsis can be life-threatening, yet I still thought she was going to be okay.

  Sepsis can also cause confusion, so once she had it, she started saying some crazy stuff. She was telling me she wanted her own mom to come get her. My maternal grandmother passed away when my mother was twelve years old. She also mentioned her uncle Antonio in Italy, and I was thinking, Oh my God, what the hell is happening? She was asking for my brother all the time, so I called Joey and said, “You need to leave Dad and come to this hospital. She wants you here. You are not leaving the whole day; you need to stay with us.” And he did. My mother has always had a special place in her heart for my brother. Sons are different. They’re not with their mothers a lot like daughters are—I saw my mom almost every day when she was alive—so she was continually asking for him. My mom adored Joey. Of course, she adored me, too, but it was different with my brother, which is kind of funny, because my dad definitely likes girls better!

  We both slept there with our mom for two nights, and then my brother said, “You are going home today. You’ve got to go be with your kids.” I knew he was right. I went home to my girls, knowing that she was in capable, loving hands.

  So, my brother slept there with her, and when I called him in the morning, he said, “It was a bad night.” We would always call each other in the morning to check in on both of our parents. I said, “I have to get the kids to school. I’ll be over soon,” because Joey had to leave for a little bit to go set up his guys on one of his jobs. Before I could get to the hospital, I got a call from one of the nurses saying that my mother had stopped breathing for a few seconds, her blood pressure had dropped, and she’d gone into cardiac arrest. I said, “WHAT?!” My whole body started shaking, and my heart was beating at my chest. They said, “You need to get here right now.” I honestly thought I might have a heart attack. I get the chills just thinking about it.

  The best way to explain it is that it felt like an out of body experience. The kids were still home, so I said to them, “You have to take the bus to school today. I can’t drive you. I’ve got to go now.” And, with that, I rushed to the hospital. I was driving like a maniac. I was even driving on the shoulder at some points. I called my brother from the car and told him what had happened. I said, “Joey, you need to get there. Mommy stopped breathing for a few seconds.”

  Once we arrived, she was back on the breathing tube again. They told us they’d given her a medication to try to alleviate the pain, because it was so horrible. I’m telling you, every medication they gave her didn’t work. I don’t understand why, but—if you can believe it—I still thought she was going to be okay. I thought she would eventually come home to us.

  That’s when they told us that she’d stopped producing urine. When you don’t produce urine, you have to go on dialysis. That’s also when things really began going downhill, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. They asked me, “Do you want her to do dialysis?” And I said yes. I wanted them to keep trying everything. So they put a line through her leg and attempted, but it didn’t work. They said, “We can’t even do it. Her blood pressure is dropping.” They had her on four different medications for blood pressure and still couldn’t get the line in any higher. She was so swollen because they’d pumped her with all this medication. It was absolutely awful.

  My brother came, then Melissa, and then Gia. I’d told the girls not to come to the hospital, even Gia. I’d said, “I don’t want you to go through this. Nonna is going to go,” but she came. She insisted. Her boyfriend, Nick, brought her. Then my other kids wanted to see her, but I just felt like it wasn’t the right thing. It would have been too much. Everyone was a wreck. My mother kept saying to us, “Tell your father that I love him,” and I kept saying to her, “No, you are going to be fine, Ma. You are fine.” Other times, she would just say that she couldn’t take it anymore. She would say, “Pull the plug,” and I’d reply, “Ma, there is no plug here. Stop saying that.” I knew my mom would never want to live her life hooked up to a machine. I was heartbroken.

  Eventually, they took the breathing tube out and the doctor said, “There’s nothing else that we can do. It’s going to happen.” We all just held hands—with her, with each other—and spoke to her. That was all we could do. We embraced her and kissed her. She was kind of out of it, but we were still saying things to her. We sobbed nonstop. It didn’t feel real. I just sat there looking at her. My mother. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t think she was ever going to leave me. My brother said he wishes that he knew she was going before the very end. That if he’d known he would have said certain things to her. It was all so sudden. This woman who had been everything to all of us was leaving us in an instant. How do you say goodbye to someone like that? She was so young. So full of life. Until she wasn’t.

  We stayed with her for more than an hour, just crying our eyes out. It didn’t feel like long enough, but we knew that, at some point, we had to let go. Despite the unimaginable sadness, I was so happy that I could be by her side while she took her last breaths—for myself and for her. Walking back to the car was a complete blur. The only thing I remember thinking was that I couldn’t believe my mother was no longer on this earth. When your grief is that deep, it’s hard to wrap your mind ar
ound anything else. It was truly surreal.

  March 3, 2017, was the last day I got to see my mother alive.

  I couldn’t believe that my dad wasn’t there and didn’t know anything about what was going on. We were numb and also terrified to tell our father. Joey and I kept saying to each other, “How are we going to tell Daddy?” We truly thought that there was a chance he might die when we told him. We were sick to our stomachs. We were going out of our minds. My whole body was trembling.

  We didn’t tell my father that night. We couldn’t. All we wanted to do was go home and lie in bed and cry. I had to tell my other three daughters, which was heart-wrenching for all of us, and I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just went through the motions, because I was completely numb.

  The next day my brother picked me up. We actually had Gia come, too, because my father adores her, and she wanted to be there. Also she was his first grandchild, so we felt like maybe he would be strong because she was there. Joey and I were completely petrified, because we knew that this was going to be a shock to our father. Here he was in the hospital and he believed that his wife was still in the rehab facility getting better. We went to get some breakfast first, because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat down for an actual meal. My brother said, “You’ve got to eat something. You’ve got to be strong for your kids. You can do this.” So, we went for breakfast, and then we met the lung doctor at the hospital, because we thought, God forbid we tell our dad and he stops breathing. We wanted his doctor in the room with us for safe measure.

  You have to understand that the staff at St. Joseph’s in Wayne, where my father was, all knew that my mother was at St. Joseph’s in Patterson. But nobody told him. We made them swear not to. There was one day, when a doctor slipped and said, “I just saw your wife in Patterson,” and my dad got so upset that his blood pressure went sky-high. Fortunately, he later got confused and forgot about it. That was when my mother had been taken off the breathing tube and we made them talk, so it worked out well.

  Anyway, the doctor was due to meet us at St. Joseph’s in Wayne at 8:00 a.m. Joey and I felt like little kids: we were terrified to make our dad upset. It hadn’t been an easy decision to keep him in the dark the whole time. We just figured there was no point to worry him and possibly make him sicker, since our mother was going to return to rehab and ultimately get better. I wish our hopes had been reality. Even though she was back and forth between the hospital and rehab, and the status of her health was very up and down, there really was no indication that she was going to die until the very end. So, what was better: not telling him, and then if, God forbid things go south, shock him with the news? Or telling him, just in case she did die, and unnecessarily stress him out, since he could not be there by her bedside? There was no right answer. We did the best we could. Through everything I’ve endured, I’ve learned that’s all you can do.

  Next to seeing my mom pass away, telling my father that the love of his life was gone was the second hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. The entire car ride to the hospital, Joey and I were just trying to figure out the best way to do that. Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately—he did that job for us.

  As soon as Joey and I walked into his room, he said, “Where is my wife?” That was the first thing out of his mouth—not even hello. He knew something was up, because my brother and I had never been to visit him together. How could we? My brother would stay with my dad, and I would stay with my mom, or vice versa. We were, literally, never in the same place at the same time, except with my mother in the end.

  Right away, we all started crying and hugging him.

  Joey said, “Papa, now she is free. She was in so much pain. She was suffering. Now she can run.” We sometimes call my father Papa, because he likes it better than Daddy.

  My dad shook his head and said, “I didn’t get to say goodbye.” So I told him, “Papa, I think Mommy planned it this way. She didn’t want you to see her suffer.” I really believe that. I think, like us, she knew that he wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing her pass away. I said, “Mommy didn’t want you to see her leave. She never wanted you to see her leave. Joey and I were there. It’s just the way she wanted it.” He kept saying, “I want to see my wife.” He was inconsolable.

  We cried all day. We didn’t leave him. I slept there that night.

  We decided not to have a showing at my mom’s funeral. I didn’t want the kids to go through that. Only my dad wanted to see her. We had to pick out her dress and everything, which was something I hadn’t thought about. She wore the dress that she wore to my wedding, which she always loved. Even her best friend told me it was her favorite. She said she’d always wanted to make it shorter, so she could wear it somewhere else, but that she just never got around to it. It was gray silk underneath and then black lace over it, to complement my bridal party, who wore mercury gray. She looked so gorgeous that day. I was so happy that she got to wear it again, but—at the same time—I had this huge pit in my stomach. You never think about having to dress someone after they’ve passed away, so while it felt like the right choice, it was bittersweet and painful all at once.

  I’d never arranged a funeral before, so this was all new for me. My brother was the one who went to the mausoleum to find her spot. He called us on FaceTime, so he could show us the options. We selected something at eye level and then Joey picked the casket.

  I can’t explain how strange the whole thing felt. When I was at home, I kept thinking, Why am I here? I’m supposed to be with my mother. I need to be with her. I was driving myself crazy. For the past three months, I’d been so accustomed to being with her all day, every day, with the exception of a few minutes here or there to take the kids to school or their activities or when I was filming. I would literally run out of the hospital to get things done, and run right back as fast as I possibly could. And now she was in the hospital all alone, waiting to be buried. To me that was devastating. I just paced back and forth in my house. My legs were shaking. Joe’s family came over, which was nice. But they were just looking at me, because they didn’t know what to say or what to do. I didn’t want to cry or scream with other people there. That’s not my way.

  I just wanted to be left alone.

  My nerves were shot.

  My mother was gone forever.

  I posted a passage called “Your Mother Is Always With You” two weeks after she died. Here are a few lines that spoke to me and everything I was feeling. There aren’t many moments I am rendered speechless, too numb to function. This was one of them.

  YOUR MOTHER IS ALWAYS WITH YOU.

  She’s the cool hand on your brow when you’re not feeling well. She’s your breath in the air on a cold winter’s day. She is the sound of the rain that lulls you to sleep, the colors of a rainbow.

  She is Christmas morning.

  Your mother lives inside your laughter. She’s crystallized in every teardrop. She’s the place you came from, your first home, and she’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love; your first friend, even your first enemy, but nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, not space, and not even death.

  —Author Unknown

  12

  * * *

  THE AFTERMATH

  In recent years I’ve had my share of difficult days. I’ve had days where I’ve woken up and hated my life. Days when I’ve asked myself how I was going to remain strong. For myself, and for my family. There are more of those days than I can count on both hands.

  But those days were nothing compared to the day we buried my mother.

  Not being sentenced to prison, not going to prison, nothing.

  It was truly the worst day of my entire life.

  After my mother passed away, it felt like I was surrounded by a thick fog. I was receiving so many texts and voice mails from friends offering their condolences that I literally had to shut my phone off.

  I could not talk to anyone.

  My biggest fear was that my fat
her wouldn’t be released in time for my mother’s funeral, which was scheduled for the Monday after she left us. We’d made all the arrangements quickly because my dad had told us that they said he would be ready to go on Sunday—so of course we listened to him, which we shouldn’t have, especially since that’s not exactly what the staff had told him! He hated being in the hospital. Who doesn’t?

  The doctor actually got mad at us. He said, “Your father is not prepared to leave.” That sent me into a full-on panic. I said, “What are you talking about? My dad can not miss my mother’s funeral!” I was thinking, Do I need to change everything now? All of our family and friends have already made arrangements! We told the doctor that everything was scheduled for Monday morning. But he remained firm and informed us, “I need to see how he’s doing first. Otherwise, I am not discharging him.” We said, “We thought he was doing better.” He said, “No. His oxygen level has to stay up. If it doesn’t stay up, he’s not getting out of the hospital.”

  I was in such a state. I had no idea what to do. My father didn’t end up leaving the hospital until eight thirty on Monday morning, and we had to be at the church by ten o’clock. We were all flipping out. All he had time to do was go home and take a shower. My brother helped him get ready. Fortunately, the funeral home was right next door to their house. Joey picked it for that reason, which was smart.