The End May Be Near

Updating all who have sent their thoughts and prayers for Marissa and her Mom, my friend, Anne, with this not MPP metered story

9 min readOct 12, 2023

File ID: 33448261 by vladvitek licensed from depositphotos.com

“And now the end is here
And so I face that final curtain”

Those lines from the song popularized by Frank Sinatra, written by Paul Anka, though I have a special place in my sometimes demented mind for the Sex Pistols version, came to me as I embarked on the journey that this post will become.

The best way to tell this story, with a bit of a recap, is simply through Anne’s texts to me, starting in May:

“I have some tragic news that happened to my daughter Marissa. On Mother’s Day, she was brought to the hospital with extreme dehydration — her potassium and magnesium were almost nonexistent. One of the cockroaches that she dragged home from rehab took her to the hospital. She started to seize and then went into cardiac arrest. For 30 minutes! The scum that was with her called me and started the conversation by saying Marissa had no pulse. … I have never felt this kind of fear or pain in my life. Please pray for her! I was going to call you and let you know, but it’s so hard for me to talk about it and it’s also not wanting to put this kind of shit on you.”

…

When I got home that night I started to curse God like I have never cursed out anybody in my life and believe me I have had my moments. I started to cry hysterically and I wasn’t able to stop and I didn’t want to stop and then I said to Marissa, ‘I know you are in heaven’ and I heard her say as if she were in the room:
‘I am not in heaven anymore Mom I am back in my body and it hurts, it hurts so bad.’

Marissa's soul still remains, but Marissa has not returned, but for a few moments of grace:

She is now on a trachea. The ventilator was taken off yesterday. She’s sitting in bed, and we are trying to get her to focus on us. It’s almost like a newborn baby that learns how to hold its neck up turn its eyes to those who are speaking, but her, progress will advance because it’s already in her brain and that’s only if she can. I know she can hear me. I don’t know how much she can understand when I say it’s mom. She always starts to cry.

That was the end of May. We all had hope:

The doctors’ take on this is she could be like this forever or they wouldn’t be surprised if next month she was starting to talk so you can’t really write that in a report and what they’re saying is that she has made slight improvement. With brain injuries like this, though it is not uncommon to have the brain asleep for months, and then it will come back.

All our hopes for neuroplasticity to bring Marissa back, appear to have been to no avail. Last month I received this text (I’m not editing the talk-to-text to allow the rawness to come through):

We started her on hospice which is end-of-life care that could August but we would not aggressive because Jenna her sister could not handle what was going on so I went slow. Marisa who is now about 100 pounds and 5 foot nine has no ability to ever come back even on the slightest level, and we all except that now. I don’t know if you remember who Karen Ann Quinlan is and I don’t know if I ever told you that she is my cousin but her family built the Karen Ann Quinlan hospice center and we are in the process of deciding whether she should go there or not. I believe she will, because I want her to. When she is there, we are going to remove her feeding tube, as well as her trach and return her to her natural state so that God will take her when he is ready.

Two weeks ago I texted Anne (there were many other texts in between):

People are still reading and highlighting the first pray for you and Marissa piece I wrote back in May. I had pinned it to the top of my profile, where it shall remain for now. How are you?
I am so sorry I did not see the last text and I just saw the one you sent me today. I feel terrible that I haven’t been able to connect you with Lindsey. Please forgive me. My mind is not the same. I feel like I’m living a different world now and there’s a heavy fog machine in my head. Due to so much complication and incompetency. Marisa has not been diagnosed with a terminal illness yet she is on hospice, which is so confusing to me. In order for me to make the decision to bring her to her natural state, I need a guardianship which will cost Several thousand dollars. However, my cousin John Quinlan is into seated and it looks like they will be a doctor that will take on that responsibility to re-diagnose her. It feels like it’s going to happen tomorrow or Tuesday but I will keep you posted. When I am disassociated, and none of this is happening, I am able to function fully and work. I am able to engage in conversation and sometimes even laugh with friends. The mind is a very confusing and complex thing. I hope you are well and please thank everybody that continues to pray for my baby girl.💖 [emphasis added]

Then a couple of days ago:

We are at the end. All feedings and fluids stopped last night. Of course this could only happen to me but the day we got to the Quinlan center. They told us that Marisa’s Medicaid would not cover room and board and they’re billing me 375 a night. Can you imagine my own cousin and he is the one who told me to never worry about money. My daughter Jenna’s best friend started to go fund me and, it is going to help tremendously. I can’t even put into words the stress of having to worry about anything else other than being with Marisa at the very last minute of her life. It feels like my soul is dying with her. Before the pain and grief came in waves, and I was able to relatively function, but now I am in the wave and I wonder if it will always be this way. as I wait for her to go to heaven, I feel like I am waiting in a cell block for the guards to come to take me for my execution. I know it sounds dramatic but that is exactly how it sounds. I hope you are well.
We arrived last Tuesday late evening. She is outside right now. I will have to take a picture of the view because she won’t believe how beautiful it is. I feel like she is at the foothills of heaven. She is in her bed in a very deep sleep, but she can feel the air on her face and she can smell the grass. Her brain no longer works but I know that her soul has memory and intelligence and senses. I was laying in bed with her last night really her head and talking to her and she looked up at me and she actually saw me because she’s in body now all the time. As I was talking to her, she looked up at me, and she had the saddest expression on her face, and she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t.
I believe what she wanted to say to me was I am so sorry mom. I heard her in my head and I told her this was the book of your life written by you before you came in for whatever reason you needed to live in so much pain. It was something that you put together yourself. There is no judgment there is only love, and if love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.

Here is the go-fund-me page:

Help with Marisa's Hospice Care, organized by laura meyersburg

Dear friends, family, and kind-hearted individuals, We find ourselves in a... laura meyersburg needs your support for…

www.gofundme.com

OMG, she’s so fucking beautiful.

[The page is now closed because she passed peacefully on Tuesday night (10/17)]

Marisa Boarded the Rainbow to Heaven

A downloaded poem

medium.com

Tagging those who responded to my previous stories and received words like these from Anne and me:

Much gratitude to all who have prayed for Anne and Marissa and with extra special thanks to those that have reached out to me for updates. I shared these words from Anne with many of you that she wrote me after I shared many of your responses with her:

“I have no words for this. I am touched in the deepest places in my heart and my soul. I can barely speak. I am crying from a place of peace and surrender. I will do exactly what jules said about touching her heart and I am trying so hard to absorb the love and the light from these wonderful people that you sent to me. Please let them know that I am humbled and touched beyond words. Thank you so much, my friend… I love you.🌷”

In Rama I create, with soul energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,

Marcus (Gregory Maidman)