Kelly Peters took a vow of silence for her Aunt Jackie:
My Aunt Jackie (my mom's sister) died on June 24, 2015 as a result of ALS. She was the heart of our family, a true Wonder Woman. I still hear her laughter, see her smiling face and feel her warm hugs. We lived down the street from each other my entire childhood. During my teen years, she was my confidante. She was the one who brought our family together on holidays and non-holidays. She made the best, most perfect deviled eggs. She gave incredibly meaningful gifts full of color. She was always there for all of us when we needed her.
In my memory, her beginning symptoms occured approximately three years before her passing. The first symptom was her voice wearing out after talking for a while. I remember talking to her on the phone one day wondering if she had been drinking because her voice was wavering. Then, we went to lunch one day when she was visiting from Florida and she choked a little on her drink, but she was still able to eat solid foods. Her voice had become more difficult to understand, but everything else about her seemed regular. Later, I remember my cousin telling me that my aunt would start laughing and be unable to stop. The same thing happened if she was crying. After she choked on a vitamin and had to be given the Heimlich by my uncle, doctors' appointments started getting expedited.
The kids and I went to visit her and my Uncle in Florida in April of 2015. I knew in my heart it would be the last time we would see her. By then, only about a year after her official diagnosis, she was walking with a walker, her voice was barely understandable so she used a robotic voice on her i-Pad to speak, she ate some solid foods and drank some liquids, but was supplementing with a feeding tube to her stomach, and she had to take naps and use oxygen at intervals. These are all of the physical symptoms I noticed (and mind you, she did ALL of these things with a smile and a sense of humor, because that is who she was). The amazing (and at the same time sad) thing was that internally, her brain--her personality---remained the same! She could still "tell" funny stories, played a part in our games and conversations, wanted to take silly photos with the switching faces app on my daughter's phone, etc. A week or two before she passed away, her lung capacity had drastically reduced and if she had a laughing or crying spell, got frustrated or upset in any way, she would not be able to get enough oxygen and then panic. That is when she was taken to Hospice to get her stablized, and then get her comfortable at home, where she wanted to be for her final days. My last text message from her was just five days before she died.
