A Family Reunited.

Luis Mendoza didn't get to know his mother until two weeks before she died. Sitting in the garden outside Serenity House on a bright spring morning, 16-year-old Luis confided, “I feel sad about meeting her when things are like this, but at the same time I feel happy, because I didn’t know her before.”

Luis was just six months old the last time his mother, Isabel Mendoza, had held him. Isabel, estranged from her husband, Luis’s father, had not seen Luis or his two brothers for over 15 years. He had no memory of her. That changed in April during Isabel’s final illness, when Luis met his mother again at Serenity House.

A petite brunette who didn’t show her emotions easily, at 45 Isabel was one of the youngest patients the Serenity House team has cared for. She had been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and two years later, after a two-month stay at Cottage Hospital, her prognosis worsened: Isabel’s doctors had exhausted all treatment options. Realizing that Isabel’s sister, Ana, would not be able to give her the specialized care she needed, hospital staff referred Isabel to Serenity House.

Serenity House nurse Jannele Gonzales recalled that Isabel’s younger children, Margarita, Rosa and Tomás, 14, 11 and 9, “would come here every evening to keep the family feeling. They would sit in her room with her and talk to her.” While she was at Serenity House Isabel told the spiritual counselor on her hospice team, Mario Cepeda, that she also had three older sons living in another state.

“It was a surprise to learn about the other children,” he said. “I asked Isabel for permission to let them know that she was dying. When I talked with them on the phone I realized how much pain they felt about not knowing their mother.” Over the course of a week Cepeda and Isabel talked about her estranged family. Eventually she gave him permission to invite them to come to Santa Barbara to see her.

But the family did not have the funds to make the trip from Arkansas. A volunteer at Serenity House with contacts at the Dream Foundation was able to bring in financial help from that organization.

The family was reunited at Isabel’s bedside, surrounded by her beloved images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Sacred Heart. Her children saw a mother who, despite her illness, had delicate hands and the complexion of a 20-year-old.

Serenity House staff were touched by the interaction between Isabel and her children.

“The sons were so respectful to her. They were able to come in here and give her the love she was looking for from her children, which was really beautiful. They had the maturity to give her what she needed without holding any grudges,” Gonzales said.

The siblings, who had never met, were keen to get to know one another. “The children clicked from the beginning, as if they’d known each other for a long time. You could tell by the way they were talking to each other,” said José Velazquez, a licensed vocational nurse at Serenity House.

During the ten-day visit the Serenity House team guided the family through a forgiveness process, helping them to talk about “things from the past that have separated them,” Cepeda explained.

Luis and his siblings accompanied their mother for hours on end, occasionally taking breaks on the patio outside her room.

Serenity House nurses and physicians provided the 24-hour medical care Isabel needed.

The older children did not want to go back to Arkansas while their mother was still alive, but she firmly told them that they must. Middle son Adrián, 21, had already given up his job when he was denied time off to come visit his mother.

Once the grown children had returned to Arkansas for work, Babetta Daddino, VNHC’s Hospice Director, suggested that the family stay in contact with the help of a visual computer connection. John Dougherty, VNHC’s Director of Information Technology, installed a laptop and camera in Isabel’s room, and the Arkansas siblings set up a system with the help of neighbors back home.

Through the computer they were able to visit with their mom on her last day.

Four days after her sons had gone home, Isabel slipped into a coma. The next day the two sets of siblings were talking together all afternoon and keeping watch on their mother, the older ones through the computer camera. That evening, against great odds, Isabel passed away surrounded by her family. She had been at Serenity House 31 days.

“I have no words to describe the way my mother has been cared for in this clinic,” said Isabel’s oldest son, Miguel, 26. “It is wonderful that you have something like this. At home we don’t have the medicine or the equipment you need to take care of someone in this situation.”

On the day he was leaving for Arkansas, Adrián said, “Even with things being the way they are, I am grateful that I got to see her. It’s better than never seeing her again. Thank you for helping us fulfill our dream of seeing our mother again.”

Source: vnhcsb.org