On Friday, September 10 at 7:30 am, my mother, Caryl Marie Reilly (nee Fritsch) died of natural causes. She was 8 days passed her 78th birthday. She is survived by her husband of almost 59 years - John Reilly; and her 5 children: Kathleen, Maureen, Timothy, John and Michael (me). Professionally, she was a Real Estate broker who founded her own agency and ran it till just months ago. But that was just a job.
What she did with her life is an extraordinarily inspirational story that needs to be told. I will attempt to do just that and to do justice to a truly amazing woman whose passing leaves the world a lesser place.
I will not try to recount my Mother's life year by year, for her early life was much like that of many young woman of her time. But that was to change at the age of 16, when she was diagnosed with rheumatic fever, She would spend her senior year of high school in bed recuperating. It was a preview, unknown at the time, of a lifetime battle which she would ultimately lose.
She married, had 5 children, and worked full time to help support our family. In 1971, while working as a manager at a department store, she complained of a severe headache and then collapsed before she could leave work. Diagnosed with an aneurysm in an artery in her brain, the doctors attempted to reduce the swelling by closing off the blood flow. Unfortunately, though the procedure prevented the aneurysm from bursting, a blood clot broke free, lodging in the brain, and caused a major stroke. She lied in a coma for a week.
She awoke in a body that was paralyzed completely on the right side and unable to speak. She had no memory and didn't recognize her husband or children. Frightened and in shock, she couldn't even ask for help or answers about what had happened to her. She had gone from a robust and seemingly healthy super-mom to an invalid overnight. The effect on us was staggering! To this day, I can't imagine going through what she did.
It is here, though, that my Mother's story truly begins. For it was here that she found inside herself a tremendous store of personal strength and determination. And she began the long road back.
First, she learned to walk again. Then she learned to talk. She kept working and she kept improving and she wondered why there was no blueprint to follow; no set of standards in treatment and rehabilitation; no support group to help the survivors and their caregivers. She volunteered to help others similarly afflicted in an outpatient program at Dekalb General Hospital. "I was amazed at how much helping others helped with my own recovery," she recalled years later.
She and her organization helped thousands of stroke victims and caregivers over the ensuing years, but her own health began a long slow decline. Weakened by the initial stroke, her system could not fight off the myriad of diseases that came her way. Her heart, weakened by the rheumatic fever, required surgery and new valves implanted. She developed emphysema in her lungs that in time became Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Crohns disease, arthritis, and psoriasis ate away at her, bit by bit.
What she didn't let any of her ailments do was dampen her spirits or her desire to continue helping fellow stroke survivors. She saw every day as a gift that should be cherished, enjoyed, and lived to its fullest. So she did, and in 2006, at the young age of 74, she accepted the challenge of walking 13.1 miles in the Kona Half-Marathon to help raise money and awareness for the American Stroke Association's "Train To End Stroke" program.
Amazingly, she did it! She completed the half-marathon in 6 hours, 19 minutes, and 11 seconds, refusing even for a second to consider quitting before the finish line. The slide show above contains some images from that glorious and extraordinary day. I was fortunate to walk every step of it with her, and watching her cross the finish line was the proudest moment of my life. That her blood flows in me is a constant source of inspiration.
In the end, she ultimately lost the battle, as we all will someday. To her last breath, her joy of life and her sense of humor remained. The picture to the left was taken 5 days before she passed. The smiles all around were not forced. We spent her last days as we had all others together - enjoying the closeness and love that binds a family together like no other force in the universe. She was surrounded by family and friends to the very end. She gave us all our start. We were there to the end.
Good bye, Mom! May your spirit soar forever free.
