In June of 2021 I got a phone call from my mom. It was a beautiful sunny morning in Topanga Canyon and I was laying in bed with my then boyfriend playing with his brother’s dog whom we were babysitting. We’d recently moved in together and we were still in that really sweet phase where you never want to get out of bed and you’re happy to luxuriate and take selfies with a fat pug for no reason. My mom called me in this moment and ordinarily I’d have sent her to voicemail. I sent her to voicemail a lot, I think we all do with our mothers. I’d feel guilty except now I’m grateful to have those messages, to be able to hear her voice whenever I really need to. The night before this particular call though, I was meditating on my Higher Dose mat and I got a loud and clear download that said I needed to check in and let her know how much I loved her. My mom and I were always close but we also got at each other and sometimes enacted an annoyed sisterly relationship. I hadn’t been calling her much at this time because she was depressed again and couldn’t kick her obsession with her ex- boyfriend Howard (a 75 year old fuck-boy if you can believe it). I’d just moved in with my new-ish boyfriend and I wanted that time to myself to enjoy it and not take on any sad stories or projections from her failed relationship. But the night I got this download I said “okay I’ll call her tomorrow”, instead she called me. I answered and immediately I could tell it was serious. She revealed she was in the hospital, she’d gone in with a lot of pain and vomiting and come out with the shocking information that there were masses all over her body. They didn’t know yet that it was Cancer but they thought it was. She was going to get more scans. I sat up in bed, what are you saying to me? She asked, “can you come home? I’m going to beat this, I have grandchildren in my future”. We both started to cry. I told her I’d book a flight and get there as soon as possible. As I hung up the phone time slowed way down as though I knew things had just changed direction forever. I sobbed endlessly before I got on that flight. The few days I spent gathering myself felt like months. My shower time became a place to primal scream and cry from my gut to the point where I felt I could vomit. I was living outside my body, I couldn’t process what was happening.
When I got back to New York my mom was in a manic state. She also wasn’t processing and we started fighting. We quickly found out her diagnosis was stage 4 metastatic lung cancer that had spread to her liver, kidney, adrenals, and brain. It was bad. Really, really bad. I wanted to get her to an alternative cancer clinic immediately, I wanted her to slow down and assess the next best course of action. I didn’t want her to jump into oncology. I’d watched my grandmother die a slow terrible death with chemo and it wasn’t a path I wanted my mother to go down. I wanted to first get her off of the myriad medications she was on, including a cocktail of Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Adderall and Vyvanse. The last two of course being a dangerous combination that any doctor should be aware of. I wanted to sue that doctor, someone who was supposedly also her friend. I wanted to take him down for his negligence, for his stupidity. For driving a Porsche and having pharma reps so far up his ass he didn’t even bother to do his due diligence. He didn’t know you shouldn’t mix those medications until I told him. I’m a comedian, he’s a doctor, that shouldn’t have been the student / teacher dynamic. I counted the pills in her pill case, over 20 pharmaceuticals a day. And to what end? What happened to the days of my childhood when she only took supplements? Questions and regrets of how she got so off-course filled my mind. I wanted to detox her before we started any type of treatment. In reality, I wanted to turn back time. I researched cancer clinics in Switzerland and Mexico, all of which seemed much more promising than simply drowning her in chemo. Obviously her body was in a dire and deeply toxic state, I was worried she wouldn’t be able to handle any more drugs. My good intentions were not to come to fruition, she wanted more pills - the quick fix - she just wanted it to be over. She was scared of anything fringe or holistic. I yelled at her, I told her she was a drug addict, I got frustrated. It was heartbreaking and terrible. I apologized, I tried to explain to her that this would be best served as a functional healing excursion, we needed to do it all if she wanted to survive. She didn’t see it and she was too stunned to hear me. The truth is, she never really could in this department. This was a fight we’d been having long before the cancer, the ADD meds, the addictive behavior she exhibited; it had been breaking my heart and eroding our relationship for years. But sadly this would not be the time to address it. She was in pain, both emotional and physical. She was also terrified. She took too many Dilauded, she stopped breathing, I had to make her throw up, I rushed her to the emergency room. I wasn’t going to let her die of a god damn drug overdose. She was in excruciating pain, she was trying to make it go away. She looked at me and said “this is the worst pain I’ve ever been in and I can take a lot of fucking pain”. She was an exceptionally tough woman but this was destroying her. She became nasty and unhinged in between moments of expressing deep gratitude for my presence. We weren’t angry with each other, we were angry at the situation. We had always been able to take on whatever obstacle was thrown our way, but this was different, this was breaking the foundation.
The six months continued on like this. I’d come to New York for a few weeks at a time, I’d try to take care of her and she’d resist. She emotionally terrorized anyone who dared try to help her until she’d eventually burn out from resistance and surrender. She’d never been good at asking for help and watching her stubbornly slide up and down the stairs on her butt with hands full of god knows what, instead of allowing me or her at home health aide to assist her was infuriating. Finally when she’d successfully isolated and exhausted herself she’d break down, admitting she’d fallen deep into depression and actually needed us. The cycle of resistance and acceptance was brutal. On top of which, the side effects of the treatment she was prescribed far outweighed any potential benefit. She’d get chemo, then they’d tell her it was the wrong one. She’d get a different kind and it would be cataclysmic; she’d lose 10, 20, even 30 pounds at one point. They’d offer a new treatment and her hands would swell so large she could barely use them, she’d get so nauseous she couldn’t eat. She couldn’t get out of bed, she couldn’t focus, her quality of life was rapidly diminishing even though the doctors kept promising positive results. She wanted to believe them but her faith was wearing thin as her physical disharmony increased. It became tough to tell if her body was fighting the cancer or the treatment. Oncology became a game of whack-a-mole that nobody was winning. She was being crushed under the weight of fighting in every direction. Fighting the diagnosis, fighting herself, fighting with us, fighting the cancer. The ping pong of highs and lows was happening in such rapid succession we all felt like we were sucked into a vortex where any move we made was wrong. We’d arrived in a place we hadn’t given our permission to enter and we were being pulled further and further towards the point of no return.
When I was with my mom I felt like I was in the presence of greatness. A few months before she was diagnosed she was in LA for what would turn out to be the last time. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year because of the pandemic so this visit was even more cause for celebration. We went out to dinner and then linked up with some friends to keep the party going. This was in her honor because everyone knew she loved to party, especially with her kids and their friends. We played a game of Celebrity which is a guessing game in the vein of Charades in which you put names on pieces of paper and go about the play of guessing who it is based on hints. I picked my paper out of the hat and her name was on it. My hint was simple, “she’s a legend and she’s in this room” and everyone screamed at the top of their lungs “JILL SIMBARI!!!!” I’m so glad we got to have that moment.
Our relationship was complicated and volatile at times but it was also hilarious and wonderful. There was so much love there, a strength of love I only came to fully understand after she was gone. She never doubted my chosen life path of being an artist, she never demanded I have a back up plan like so many parents. She believed in my talents and my tenacity and knew it would pay off. Even after years of falling short, of needing her to bail me out of financial and emotional holes, of not being able to pay my rent or my car bill, of doubting myself and my path, she didn’t flinch. She saw me clearly and she knew I would make it. Amazingly, when I got the call that I sold my TV show, we were together. It was during that last LA visit and she had just gotten me violently high to the point where I couldn’t drive. We’d spent the afternoon driving to various dispensaries because she had a long list of types of edibles she needed to ship to New York. Over the last few years she’d become the underground <boomer> edible dealer of Northern Westchester. On our dispensary journey she made me try five different edibles and I clearly couldn’t hang. Hence, we were pulled over on the side of the road so I could gather myself before operating heavy machinery. Laying there with my eyes closed trying to sober up while she made fun of me for being a lightweight, my phone rang. It was my producer, “the network said they’d like to do it”. “Do it??” I asked, recklessly stoned and potentially hallucinating what I was hearing, “like they want to make the show?!” I was staring at my moms face and she was absolutely beaming. We were ready to scream! After 15 years and so much struggle, this was really happening!! I hung up the phone and she grabbed me and with so much conviction just said “MY GIRL”. In those two words everything was clear, she knew the whole time. Zero doubt, all faith. I’d done it. I’d sold the TV show of my dreams, the one she always knew I would. I told her right then and there, “without you this wouldn’t have been possible. Thank You”. “Of course baby”. I used to be embarrassed of how proud of me she was. They way she glowed with pride and wanted to be my best friend. “OMG Mom, chill!” I would say ad nauseam growing up. But now I miss being embarrassed by her, I wish I celebrated that more. I didn’t realize how special and pure her love was until the space was no longer held, when I no longer had her to mirror my existence. I wish I just let her be quirky, and allowed her radiance to be a reflection I was proud of. Your mother is the first witness to your life, your sense of home, your grounding, and the place where your identity is formed. You know these things intellectually but you feel them to your core when she’s gone. Even though I was 36 when she died, I swear I didn’t become an adult until after she was gone. Over the last year, I’ve struggled and sought connection, sometimes sloppily because the void in my heart was a raw and gaping hole. I’ve pulled it together, gone deep into myself and into the world and found a way to connect more graciously and intentionally with both spirit and other humans. This is something I’ve done both for my own survival and in her honor. She was always wildly engaged with every single person she encountered, the girl who worked as a hostess of a restaurant, the nurses on staff at the hospital, the guy selling her weed, or the man I loved — it didn’t matter, everyone had equal value to her. She was the biggest supporter of the underdog and would listen to anyone’s story to try and help them through it. She was always seeking the silver lining. No matter if she knew a person for five minutes or five decades, she wanted people to be happy, to feel connected. I really wish she could’ve done that for herself.
As tragic as it was, her end of life journey brought us closer and ultimately affirmed what was always true, we were certainly soulmates. Eventually her doctor did take her off the psych meds and I saw her come back to herself a bit. With lower doses of all chemicals we caught glimpses of who she would have been had her path been different. Had she never been roped into the meds trap, had she found a way to love herself and to feel like enough. She was funny, irreverent, and cutting. She had the most wry sense of humor and a deep access to truth telling that I only hope I am able to bring to all that I do. She saw things, she said things, she didn’t give a fuck. Both a blessing and a curse throughout her life, but there were times in the last six months where I felt so happy to know her. So happy she was my mother, and so blessed to have been raised by someone so vibrant, so funny, and so totally mental. In August she had a laser brain surgery to remove a tumor from the front of her brain and when we picked her up from surgery she wanted to go to the bank. The bank! But why! With her head wrapped looking like a war veteran with a bullet wound to the head she made me take her to the fucking bank. I tried to resist but she was fierce and she was going to get her way. She breezed into that Wells Fargo energetic guns blazing, making conversation with the tellers explaining her situation. About the cancer, about how she was trying to get through it, about how annoying her daughter was. She was ribbing me but that was our dynamic, she needed this normalcy even when there was blood dripping down her forehead out of a microscopic hole. It was such a scene, I was forced to surrender and just laugh along. She was charming the tellers in the most magical and chaotic way and though they were obviously concerned they couldn’t help but enjoy her. Even in the most dire circumstances, she remained herself. Personality in tact, until the very end she had her wit. Looking back, I’m sure having cash on hand made her feel in control, tethered to the material plane and like she was still her normal self. I wanted to protect her and make it stop but there was no telling this woman what to do or how to operate. If you think I’m stubborn and intense, multiply it by Sagittarius sun and Aries moon and you have my mom. She was independent and wild to her core. (See below, this is ten minutes after picking her up from brain surgery).
September, October and November went by in a deranged and painful flash. I was flying back and forth across the country, two weeks on two weeks off, I was absolutely shredded with grief and exhaustion. I wanted to stay but she would tell me to go and I knew I needed to re charge. Caring for her was a full time job and she wasn’t make it easy. I’d go back to LA to try to return to normalcy but immediately feel a sense of longing to be with her. I’d essentially sleep for a week, try to have a little fun and then turn right back around back to New York. It was an impossible blur, I wanted to do the right thing, to straddle both worlds - mine and hers - the one I’d cultivated and this hell we’d been dropped into. When someone is this sick you start to pre mourn, you can tell there’s no turning back but you try with every fiber of your being to convince yourself otherwise. You keep showing up, you keeping arming yourself for the battle alongside them, even when it’s not yours to fight, even when you know you can’t win. I came back to LA for my birthday in early November and when I spoke to her on the way back from my trip to Big Sur she seemed to be doing better. She was on a new anti depressant, she didn’t feel so sick from her cancer treatment. But she wasn’t better, in four days I would fly home for the last time and a month after that she would be gone.
When I flew home in mid November I didn’t know it would all be over in three weeks. She’d been emitted to the hospital again and we were at a crossroads. Would she try a new treatment or would she receive palliative care? The latter being a nice way of saying “remediate pain while someone slowly dies”. We decided no more treatment and it was time for her to come home. The palliative care doctor made it clear to me she was at the end and though the hospital would recommend more treatment he strongly disagreed. Hospitals get a financial kickback for cancer treatment and this sweet pain management Doctor named Eugene, whom my mom loved to flirt with, knew she couldn’t take it and didn’t want her to be a pharma lab rat til the bitter end. Hearing him say “your mother is at the end of her life” was soul shattering, but ultimately his frankness was his kindness and for that I was very grateful.
She came home in an Ambulette and was carried in by three large men, she would never walk again. Being at home this time would be different. It wasn’t wrapped in the energy of “let’s fix this problem”, it was all about making her comfortable, simply tending to her needs and just spending time. We all went from thinking there was a chance she could get a little better and resume some quality of life for a few years, to realizing that this was never going to change, the only change would be her death. I had her bed moved downstairs, she’d become immobile and if we took her upstairs she’d never come back down. I wanted the house to feel welcoming for guests, for people to come over and hang out with her and make it feel as normal as possible. I started referring to her as My Queen because she loved telling me what to do from bed and I loved being able to serve her. The time at home had some great moments, she had her Botox doctor come over because she couldn’t stand how old she looked, she made her nurse Dawn find someone to come highlight her hair, we watched Les Mis and she trolled Russell Crowe’s performance the entire time. We cuddled and we ate cannoli’s and pot brownies. She forgot how strong they were and she looked at me and said “uh-oh I think we are going to get really high”. We laughed so hard when she shrugged and said “oh well, it’s not like I can go anywhere”. I asked her for the recipe and she told me she’d gotten it from a “guy she picked up one night”. She was so wild, it was inspiring. Here it is, in her own words and specifically to be eaten as a sundae with Vanilla Hagen Daaz (Jill’s orders):
20 grams of pot
Brownie mix
1/3 cup oil
Cook down in ghee on the stove top for 3 hours - simmer slowly -
Strain and pour, pressing it down like you’re mashing it in until you have enough of the butter / oil
Take the mix + put in one egg 🍳 per the instructions. Add the butter to the mix
Keep checking the pot butter as it’s cooking down
(They’re really strong and really tasty so buyer beware!)
At some point in the last three weeks she was laying in bed and reached for a tub of Lucas’ Paw Paw ointment. It was hard for her to lift her body up so I leaned in to help her, she yelled at me, “I can do it Stephanie”! With all of her strength she lifted herself up and with so much pride in her achievement she exclaimed, “YEAH BABY”! But as she grabbed the tub she knocked over a giant water cup sitting next to the ointment. She looked at me with the most naive eyes and said, “Sorry I’m such a noodle!” She then looked around the empty room and goes, “anybody, anybody?” My mom was doing bits for God, SO LOL, even in these awful circumstances she could make me laugh. She told my brother the diagnosis broke her brain. She asked us so many times what type of cancer she had. She could never fully understand what was happening. Or if she did, she didn’t want to admit it. I think somewhere her spirit was protecting her, it was all just too much too fast. The entire experience was a psychotic swirl moving one million miles an hour and we had no time to register it. I don’t think I fully have until now, a year later — a year since she’s been gone and it’s all just coming into focus. It’s only now that I can really begin to talk about it. That I even want to.
Dying of cancer is horrendous. Dying with western medicine is sickening. Somehow on the journey though, the two become inextricably linked and in the end my moms death was peaceful because hospice had her on drugs that made it easier for her to let go. The twisted irony is impossible to rectify. The feeling that it was my responsibility to talk to her about death would keep my up at night. I wanted to help her not be afraid, I wanted to know what her wishes were, I wanted to be clear so we could prepare for the world where she was absent. At some point near the end she asked me how she was going to get on with her life, I took the question as my way in, as an opportunity to talk frankly about her imminent exit. I reflexively said, “Oh mom, I don’t think you can”. But when I said that she looked at me with tears welling in her eyes and said “Oh my god, even you don’t think I can make it” and I immediately retracted my words. I said, “I do, I think you can make it”. And I pulled her in to me so tight and we hugged as hard as we possibly could. I wanted to remember the feeling of her body against mine, I wanted to remember her touch, her motherly love. I never wanted this moment to be over. I had wanted to be truthful, to confront death head on and take her with me in that awareness but I couldn’t. I had to give her my faith, I couldn’t be the one to break it to her, she needed me to help her believe. And maybe her life wasn’t ending, maybe just this chapter. Who was I to say, I’ve never died before. In the days before she went unconscious she turned toward me in bed wincing and asked “Why?” Why. Now isn’t that the ultimate question.
I can’t believe it’s been a year since she died. A year ago today. December 7, 2021, just two days shy of her 72nd birthday. In the weeks that preceded this moment I took on duties I’d never imagined possible. I lifted her off her bed and onto a commode in her living room, I changed her diaper. I stayed up all night adjusting her sleeping position, asking the angels for their support. I carried her into the shower because I wanted her to feel warm water on her skin. The nurse was shook and worried she’d be held liable if I dropped my mom on her head, but she was dying, I thought fuck it — let her senses be celebrated. Let her smell soap and feel clean. Let her experience something other than bed sores and being wiped down with chemicals. I would have done anything for her. I kept getting the feeling I wanted to jailbreak her out of this, she just needed a new body we could find that. It’s wild that even when you’re unmistakably watching someone die, you still believe a miracle is possible. I knew it would come to an end but I was having a hard time letting it be true.
I wish I could smell your skin forever
I wish I could climb back inside of you and start again
A baby and a new mom, the whole journey —
I’d be more awake if I knew it would come to this
Your sun stained skin smells like powder and Gucci
Smells will bring you back to me
“Oh come on” she keeps saying with her eyes closed,
She’s in a rush but she’s not sure where she’s going.
She wants them to help her, she’s battling in conversation.
She lifts her arms to leave her body, “help me” she begs.
Watching someone die affirms the difference between body and spirit. Two different entities merging for this one powerful experience we call life. My mom lived her life as an atheist and in the end she was begging God to help her. I saw spirit with my own eyes the night before she died. A sparkling rainbow above her body, something so magnificent I felt as though I was on drugs. I think it was being in the vibration of unconditional love that allowed me that moment of vision, a rare peek into the other side. Was it her spirit? Was it the group? Are we all one? I don’t know, but I now know for certain we are so much more than this body. That there is always more than meets the eye. Seeing this affirmed to me that she would be okay, I felt extreme love all around her and a deep knowing that she was protected. I knew she wasn’t going to leave until I was in acceptance. I had a Reiki healer come work on her in the days leading up to this and I held the container for the session. In that space I received the download that she needed me to let go too. It was the moment witnessing spirit that I was finally able to do so.
My brother DJ’d her death. We had a playlist of songs she loved for her transition, she died to For Good from Wicked.
“It may well be that we will never meet again in this lifetime,
so let me say before we part so much of me is made of what I learned from you,
you’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart…”
As soon as it was over, the song changed, it was her favorite Karaoke song of all time. Paradise by the Dashboard Light. The song she was famous for singing at the top of her lungs, pitch perfect at every big party our family ever had. I covered her body in a fur and crystals and Stephen and I started singing, crying, dancing, celebrating. Knowing she was free from the pain of this half years journey, and knowing she wanted us to live our lives joyfully, out loud, together. After the undertaker came to get her, and my brother fell asleep I was alone in in the space. Sitting where I’d been sitting with her for last month, but this time she wasn’t there. I heard a deafening silence and felt an energy bigger than anything I’d ever known. It was like the entire house was vibrating. Every sound was more pronounced, the aether around me felt thick with chi, I was alone and yet I wasn’t. This is the life and death moment, silence, and presence. Existing and not existing. I’m stunned and awed by the experience and I’m broken hearted that I won’t share any more physical life experiences with my wild hearted mama.
I know she’s somewhere, offering me connection if I ask for it. She isn’t on the other end of the phone and can’t help me with my dismal domestic skills, but I can tune in more deeply and she can guide and support me in ways that weren’t possible in life. I think of her every time I stub my toe (which is often and was very her), or say something before thinking about it. I see Turtle totems everywhere, I know she’s with me offering peace in ways I never had access to before. When I ask deep heart centered questions, she responds. She is pure wisdom, she is unconditional love. She is certainly here with me still and I also miss her so fucking much.
This is unbelievably beautiful, raw and filled with so much love and reflection, I’m brought to tears. Thank you for sharing this with us. Much love. ❤️
So beautiful. I love her! I'm deeply inspired by how you continue to move through this. 💗