You see, there is no mistaking it: when the lights go out. I held her right foot. 

“Eyes on me, okay? When you feel like you’re fading, eyes on me.” 

“Okay!” She choked out in between cries of  

Help me!

Help me! 

She wasn’t ready. 

Mom tried. 

I smiled at her and then she was gone. Dying is more anticlimactic than I imagined, but watching your mother die isn’t something one envisages regularly. She was fighting and still within a second. Like she had literally been snatched from me and Dad while we stood horrified in the Emergency Room. The nurse to her right shook her. 

Nothing. 

She was quickly transported to the trauma room to begin life-saving measures. Everyone around us had hope, but I knew. It was the mother/daughter connection—intuition, if you will. Earlier that day, I helped her choose her outfit for her follow up appointment after having quadruple bypass. 

She stood and looked at herself before she stepped in the shower and admitted, “I hate my Frankenstein body.” A knee replacement from two years ago joined by the new chest scar made her feel self-conscious. Her “friends” weren’t helpful with her self-esteem, either. 

“Mom, you just had open heart surgery. The scar will fade.”  

I hope so, she answered in a sullen tone like she knew what was coming. I sat patiently in her vanity chair waiting for her to finish, listening to her labored breathing as she washed her hair, attempted to shave her legs, and washed her body.

When I got her dried and seated, she put on her undergarments as I gingerly applied lotion to her legs trying to avoid the scar from the saphenous vein removal. As I applied the lotion, her breathing became labored. Her eyes had sunken in.

She aged. 

She finally looked her age. 

And she died the same day she looked her age. 

I guess when one ages 15 years in a single month from a heart attack followed by open heart surgery, it’s no surprise one’s body breaks down. 

Her hair was thick but as soft as duck down; the same as her father’s, my grandfather. I remember washing and drying his hair in his hospice room only three years prior. We Ragsdales care about our hair up until the end.

Her literal last instructions were how to style her hair better than yesterday. “Flick your wrist with the medium round brush a couple times.” “Pull that top part forward like this.” It’s no surprise, her entire God-given talent was directing. Whether it be her dollhouses, her siblings, her parents, my father,  my life, she was always directing us on what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how many times to do it, and what to check over before you’re done. This was her gift and her curse. My dad nor myself could sometimes measure up. The night before, after her pain medication, she said,

“Y’all need to learn to clean better. Y’all ain’t too good.”  

Mom was a perfect southern lady on the outside. Whatever one can conceptualize as a “southern belle,” she embodied it. That sometimes meant the good and the bad. If you believe in astrology, she was a Gemini through and through. She was moody. She had really good days. She had really bad days. She was gentle yet extremely stern. She was warm, but her rage burned hot.

In this particular moment, she was her hilarious, sassy, more easy-going, self that grew larger as her life got longer. No one could make me laugh harder, no one could piss me off more, no one could make me cry harder.  

I laughed hard, then. 

She placed her hand on her hip, as she scowled. Her beady blue eyes flicked up and down as her mink-like lashes on her left eyelid twitched. She was serious.

“You need to walk.” I yelled back down the hall. 

“I don’t want to. I’m laying back down and watchin’ the Crown.” Percocet made her Mississippi Delta accent outrageous.

I sometimes wonder if I should have put down the pile of laundry and insisted she walk since she’s been lying down in bed all day. 

Even though she fought me, yelled, and screamed, “I WANNA LAY DOWN. Will you cut me an apple?” I cut the apple and added an individual size caramel cup in hopes she eats just a few more calories.

She hasn’t been eating much since the surgery. I called the surgeon about her nausea and lack of appetite. I should have called again when my message was left unreturned. 

She had selected a black maxi dress I was kind of jealous of, and a denim jacket. She chose her black Fly London wedges she adored and swore were the most comfortable pair of shoes ever made. She selected her jewelry she wanted to wear, and put on her Prada sunglasses I’d gifted her.  

“ A little makeup?” I suggested. 

“No. I want them to see how bad I look.” She knew her vanity didn’t matter any more.  

“Okay, let’s get you to the car. We have to be at your follow-up in 45.” I said as I slipped her faux fur bag over my shoulder and eased her out the door. I helped her into the passenger seat of her beloved Cadillac SUV, and immediately demanded we turn the air on full blast. It was February and cold, but Mom has asked for lower temps on much colder days, so this wasn’t “wild” per se. Dad did just that. He turned the air on, and wrapped myself up tighter in my cheetah print wrap. 

Didn’t I read something somewhere about death fans in hospice? People run hot when they’re dying. How did I not notice? 

We heard her moan. 

“Stacy?” My dad said. “Stacy! STACY!” Dad yelled progressively louder until she snapped to.

“I… can’t breathe” her whispered stammer, though barely audible, was frantic. 

“Okay, Stacy, I’m hurrying,” Dad spoke as he pressed harder and harder on the ignition.

I placed my hand on her shoulders and massaged a little to perk her up. I instructed her to box-breathe, and we made it through a few cycles until she fainted again. I panicked and immediately called 911. Considering we were only a mile from home, the dispatch was able to tell us which hospital was closest. Dad made an executive decision to stop at the small-town free -standing E.R. 

I jumped out of the car, and ran inside. The ladies at the desk were a vision of concern mingling with amusement.  I loudly and sternly said, “We were on the way to Little Rock for my mother’s follow-up appointment from open heart surgery. She is in distress and it’s urgent.” 

Who do I become in moments of chaos? I don’t know her, but we just met.

As I turned back towards the door, I saw her in a wheelchair with my dad behind propelling her forward towards an open bay. As they passed me, along with the little burst of wind, I heard my mother yell, “I HAVE TO SHIT!” “I’M GONNA SHIT.” As I placed my left hand over my mouth in disbelief, I giggled a bit. 

When one is dying, don’t they lose bodily function? Is that real? Wives’ tail? Is that what’s happening? 

I quickly grabbed her foot. 

Her yang moment of chaos collided with the yin woman in black, sitting with her hands in her lap, struggling to breathe, looking at the ceiling with pleading hands in her lap. I begged her to keep her eyes wide open, on me.

I should have called the ambulance when I watched her in the bathroom. 

She tried. She died with her eyes wide-open, looking at me. She tried to split herself between us and heaven. The Gemini couldn’t direct this last transition, she couldn’t be in both places at once. Heaven won.

I stayed drunk from February 14th to the middle of June of 2024. I was an adjunct English instructor on a per-semester salary, had no access to FMLA, disaster leave, anything. One school was gracious enough to give me three weeks away, the other school’s administrator used this as an excuse to humiliate me through remediation after teaching for nearly a decade and a half and then give my scheduled classes away to someone else. Hell, who knows, isn’t enrollment always down or whatever? 

Of course I did a bad job. I watched my mother die. 

I finally sobered up a bit when Brad broke the news his company, his job, the majority of our income, would be sold at the end of May. 

Cool. 

The crushing boulder of grief pinned me by my neck to the ground, and my ass-end was yanked into space by tension and fear literally pulling me apart at the seams. What leaked out was poisonous anger, vitriol, and resentment. Easter was the nearest holiday, so I made the drive from Alabama to the Little Rock suburb, Cabot. I haven’t returned since we left for her funeral being held in my family’s hometown, Helena, which is hours closer to Alabama. I arrived exhausted, but I ran to the wine store to make sure we had better stuff than the sad Franzia Chillable Red in the fridge. At the wine shop I selected a mid-range Sauvignon Blanc. I’d been drinking more whites lately because somehow, I manipulated my mind into thinking it was purifying balm that soothed my battered soul. As pretty as those words are, it did not. The long weekend with Dad was a blur, and what I can recall is bleak. 

All the while, I struggled to balance my job which, in that very moment, dropped an enormous bomb with a deadline.  I knew this was going to sink my career that I “loved” and that I truly worked hard for. I messaged my other director back who was kind, but insisted the project be done by end of day.  I would not be back in Alabama by end of day.  My body locked in panic and I just drove straight down Interstate 40 towards Memphis, in my new Audi that Mom bought me the past December to Remember for which I cannot register it because it’s a bitch getting her name off of the title. All of this snowballed into labored breathing and sweat, then the tears came, then the screaming, then howling, then my iPhone ringtone through the CarPlay. 

I had a phone meeting with my trauma therapist at noon. Thank you, Mom. 

First, Anna helped me catch my breath, then she instructed me to pull off the next exit.  I blindly took the next exit because I was desperate to slow down, catch my breath, and work through all of this in my session. There is an exit in Eastern Arkansas with a big sign that says XXX: Miranda’s Love Store. I had failed to see that unholy behemoth sign in my tear-saturated eyes, as I probably nearly got my new car on two right wheels taking the exit. Yet, here I was and this will be as good as it gets for right now. 

The parking lot was large and gravel like most truck stop establishments. The lot was outlined by concrete barriers that denoted what was “inside” the lot and “outside” the lot.  I pulled up on the “outside” and parked my car and had a good laugh with Anna over my unconventional, yet hilarious therapy venue. About 25 minutes into our session, we are making good progress on tackling the work dragon that sent me into a tailspin, when I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. 

Assuming it was an eager patron, I minded my business and kept my head down and in my physical paper planner. That’s what hot girls used to track periods with in high school, but I made little bullet points for events instead of little red hearts to keep track of the times I had sex that month. Another flash brings me out of my stupor and I look up ahead of me to see an unexpected figure. I quickly let Anna go by telling her my service was bad and I was losing her. I slowly turned off the ignition, and then silence because the oppressive only relieved sporadically when I remembered to breathe.

So this is how I’m going to die.

I was looking at a male in khaki pants with a plaid shirt slowly slipping a black mask over his head and cinching it closed. I laughed a bit because surely this was a bit, right? “Haha Scared you! Leave my lot.” Yet, the masked man stood there and stared into my windshield. Nothing was really happening and I was thinking of nothing. I just stared back. A few thoughts crossed my mind, each darker and darker. 

You have two hundred dollars cash in that Louis Vuitton. That is an absolute farce because you both will be unemployed in may, you greedy bitch. 

He continued to stare and I stared back. 

You might as well just freak him out. What the hell do you have to lose, now. You lost it all. You will lose it all in a matter of months. Now is your chance to do something insane. Run at him. Wave that money. Scream at him, “I’ll pay you $200 cash to make it quick and blow my brains out.”

Either way, you’ll leave here or he will. 

I replayed the scenario in my mind as I looked at a man who resembled the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. Involuntary giggles bubbled from my root all the way to my throat, which erupted from my mouth sprinkled with the occasional “Have at you!” “Flesh wound!” I realized I was sitting in my car staring at death in my black dress, with my hands in my lap, I sighed. 

No. No I move For NO MAN. My breathing intensifies. I became the second set of ears.

“HOLY HAND GRENADE OF ANTIOCH!” 

I erupted in a laugh, a scream, and then tears. If it was a bit, I proved to be absolutely insane like everyone says and I  scared him off. The masked man turned on his heel and walked back through the shop doors. If I was staring in the face of danger. And, in that moment, I was afraid of nothing.