How Changing the Ending to My Mom’s Death Helped Me With the Trauma of It

by Lauren Barrett

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It’s a Tuesday afternoon as I fumble my way in the dim light to my movie theatre seat in the dimly lit theater. It’s my usual spot, front and center. The previews play, and they’re always the same. There’s the one about the trip to the waterfall where two grandparents, their daughter, and their young grandson visit and spend a day hiking and swimming in the lake. It’s always followed by the weekend trip to the beach with the same set of characters but, this time, a husband joins the daughter. The last one ends with the mom hugging the daughter in the parking lot. I like that preview, but it always leaves a pang in my heart. The movie is about to begin, so I settle in and start munching on my popcorn.

It starts out predictably, cheerful. The daughter and her husband, together with their son, travel up to a cabin in the mountains to spend a long weekend with friends celebrating the end of summer and the daughter’s birthday. The movie gets to my favorite part where the daughter is sipping wine in the hot tub marveling at the view. I smile from my seat.

But, all of a sudden, the movie score takes a dark, sinister turn; switching from a whimsical piano sound to a deep, bellicose organ. I lurch forward and gasp. This plot twist gets me every time. Now it’s a horror film. I remember what is about to happen next and my heart starts racing. I start to sweat. There’s a horrible pain in my chest and my mind fills with terror as it all comes to me in a flash. The phone call. The waiting. The three-hour car ride home. Walking into the hospital. The doctors say there is nothing they can do. Watching her die. The walk back to the car. The primal scream the daughter lets out as the husband drives her back home. Then, the credits roll.

I’ve seen this movie at least a hundred times; it’s a never-ending feature. It plays in the morning. Throughout the day. At night. Each time, I hope the ending will be different. It never is. Each time, I hope that I’m somehow not the main character in the film. I always am.

I watched my mom die thirty minutes before my birthday.

In twenty-four hours, I went from celebrating my birthday at a cabin in the mountains with friends to having to frantically rush home to be with her in the hospital after what we thought was a routine surgery. We then had to decide to end all life-sustaining support as the doctors gave us a grim prognosis. Then, just like that, my mom was gone.

My mom was one of those kinds of people who cared deeply. She was always the first to ask how you were doing and how your children and brother and mother and sister were doing. I loved walking into her house to pick up my son after a long day of work and her telling me just to relax as she got dinner ready. Meanwhile, she had somehow taken my son to the library, and park, did an art project with him, and washed and folded her own laundry and mine as well. She never complained. She was happy to serve others. My dad, brother, and I were always competing to see who was the funniest or most creative. I’ll forever miss the way she would laugh at our jokes. I’ll forever miss her gentle voice reassuring me that I was doing a good job as a mother.

I had already spent the previous two years suffering from intense insomnia and sleep anxiety. I had been doing well. I even told my mom, three days before she died, that she didn’t have to worry about me anymore. I was doing so much better. My mom had been there every step of the way when I had my bout with insomnia. She was there for all the late-night calls. She was there for me when I tried strategy after strategy. She was my cheerleader. Telling her this news made her very happy. It was one of the last conversations we ever had.

Lying in bed the night after the worst possible thing to ever happen to me happened, I popped one of my anti-anxiety pills—the same pills I was about to throw away to prove to myself how unnecessary they now were. Thankfully, the person who had helped me recover from insomnia and anxiety stopped me.

I uttered a thank you to him. The night my mom died, I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and the events leading up to my mom’s death were playing on a loop in my brain like a movie.

“I don’t want to backslide,” I said to myself, “and if I do, I will have to do it without my mom.”

Around four months into my mom’s death, I knew I had some lingering trauma and anxiety stemming from watching her die and how it happened.

I knew I had to pay a visit to my old friend, Michael Norman. Michael is a scientist and therapist who specializes in anxiety and panic. In my view, his methods for relieving panic and anxiety attacks are nothing short of amazing and rival any of the usual deep breathing and meditation I have heard or seen from other therapists.

On the day of the appointment, I tell Michael that I keep replaying the events of my mom’s death like a movie, and the repetition has started to cause some panic.

Taking my metaphor of a movie, he has me close my eyes and visualize the days and hours approaching my mom’s death in my mind.

However, he changes one key element: he directs me to picture myself up in the projector booth, watching myself sitting in my seat in the theater watching myself in the movie.

As I envision each scene playing out, I find that some of my panic starts to dissipate. When I get to the end, he has me play the movie again but, this time, in reverse but really quickly. I relax even more.

He wants me to replay it again starting with the hot tub scene, but this time he wants me to change the ending instead of the usual scene of me screaming in the car on the way back from the hospital. He instructs me to think of a happy time that has occurred since my mom died and ends with that. He then further prompts me to picture my mom and my grandma together watching over us and to visualize a color that shoots out from all around them and everything that my mom has loved and touched. I see pink.

I do these brain rewirings and, almost miraculously, my body relaxes. My breathing slows. My muscles unclench. My thoughts ease. A peace envelops me as soft tears glisten in my eyes.

I have had two more follow-up sessions with Michael, and it’s safe to say I have made progress. The panic, trauma, and anxiety are not so heavy when I think of her death. The sadness will always be there, but there’s an overarching feeling of love now forever present.

Here is my “new” movie:

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and I fumble my way to my seat in the dimly lit theater. I find my usual spot—front and center—while the previews play. They are always the same. There’s the one about the trip to the waterfall where two grandparents, their daughter, and their young grandson visit and spend a day hiking and swimming in the lake. Pink streamers cascade from the rushing water and burst up through the lake.

It’s always followed by the weekend trip to the beach with the same set of characters but, this time, a husband joins. Pink waves ripple in the waves during the ferry ride they all take together.

Finally, it ends with the mom hugging the daughter in the parking lot. I like that preview the best. Especially the part during their final embrace, where pink pours out of their two hearts symbolizing their love for each other.

I know this is when the movie is about to begin, so I settle in and start munching on my popcorn.

The film starts predictably, cheerful. The daughter and her husband together with their son travel up to a cabin in the mountains to spend a long weekend with friends celebrating the end of summer and the daughter’s birthday. The movie gets to my favorite part, where the daughter is sipping wine in the hot tub marveling at the view. I smile from my seat in the theater.

The movie score takes a dark, sinister turn. The music switches from a whimsical piano sound to a deep, bellicose organ. I’m ready for it. I’m calm. The phone call. The waiting. The three-hour car ride home. Walking into the hospital. The doctors say there is nothing they can do. Watching her die. The walk back to the car. The primal scream the daughter lets out as the husband drives her back home. But we know the movie doesn’t end there.

The scene ends and flashes forward in time. The daughter, her son, and her dad sprawl on a blanket in the middle of a vast garden. The little boy and his granddad run around the open field laughing. The daughter lies on the blanket, content, reading a book, and feels the sun stream down her face. She’s happy. Yes, it’s different. It is happiness twinged with deep sadness. But that sadness is a reminder of how thankful she was to have something so great.

The three characters gather up their belongings and walk side by side out of the garden. There, before their eyes, is a yellow butterfly flitting alongside them.

The daughter knows what this means and presses the imaginary button on her heart and out projects an image. It’s her mom and grandma swinging on a swing. They are smiling and so happy. Pink explodes all around them.

The daughter will be okay.

The credits roll.

Pink.

​EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR / EDITOR: Gabriel Nathan | DESIGN: Leah Alexandra Goldstein | SITE ORIGINATOR: Bud Clayman