GREGG DOYEL

Doyel: Fist pumps, then peace for my friend Maureen

Gregg Doyel
gregg.doyel@indystar.com
Maureen Burakiewicz died Monday, May 4, 2015, after a battle with ALS.

Maureen Burakiewicz never looked as beautiful as she did the day she died.

It was Monday and the morphine had calmed her down, slowing her heart rate from a high of 177 beats per minute to the 120s. Her heart wasn't the problem; it was her lungs. That's where Lou Gehrig's disease attacked hardest, and while this godforsaken disease had spread everywhere — at the end she couldn't walk, talk, drink, eat — it made her lungs its final battlefield. Each breath was an effort that left Maureen with panicked eyes and a racing heart. The morphine and other medication, small doses for this tiny woman, helped.

And so it was on Monday night when I said goodbye to the strongest woman I've ever known. She had slipped into her final sleep hours earlier — I'd last seen her awake that morning, and you'll love what she did; I'll tell you that story in a minute — and as she lay there in Room 4119 of Community Hospital South in Greenwood, her beauty was astonishing.

This was a Maureen I'd never seen, because I'd known her only since her amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, diagnosis on Dec. 12, 2013. From the start the disease showed itself in her left hand and on her face, attacking the muscles in her throat and near her mouth. The Maureen in Room 4119 on Monday night was at peace, 59 years old and looking a decade younger than I'd ever seen her.

This story is not a goodbye to Maureen, who died at 11:50 p.m. Monday. She lives in her husband, Jim; her children Andy, Matt and Ashleigh; her two grandchildren. This story is written in awe of an amazing woman. At the end Jim Burakiewicz looked into me with red-rimmed eyes and said, "Make sure people know how wonderful she was."

I can do that, Jim.

***

Maureen died to the sound of "Grease."

She loved that movie. Most of the times I visited her Greenwood home these last few months, she was watching it in the den with one of her best friends, Annette Quebe. In the movie Kenickie says the line, "Nobody's jugs are bigger than Annette's" — and poor Annette Quebe, Maureen wouldn't stop saying that around her.

I'd let myself into the house, see the two of them together watching "Grease," and Maureen would grab her $23.99 Boogie Board writing tablet and use the middle finger of her right hand — the only finger she could use at the end — to write, "Nobody's jugs are bigger than Annette's." How we'd all laugh at that.

The "Grease" soundtrack was on the iPod pumping sound into Room 4119, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta and Sha Na Na mixed with some Fleetwood Mac on shuffle. Every time I visited, it was "Grease" or Stevie Nicks.

They paused the iPod for the wedding.

Ashleigh's wedding to Brad Newbold is set for October, but a ceremony was held Saturday in the hospital's chapel. Maureen was there in a dark purple gown, and she was beautiful, and she slept in her dress that night, peaceful with the knowledge she had seen Ashleigh married.

Here's what you need to know about Maureen: She had the strength to live for her husband and children, and then she had the strength to die for them. Not a doubt in anyone's mind, mine included, that she was in control of that much.

Her strength was obvious from the start, when she studied this opponent in December 2013 and decided she'd found a weakness: There were people who lived 20 or 30 years after an ALS diagnosis. Most die within 2 to 5 years, but Maureen hung onto the number 25, told everyone she was going to do it. Nobody really believed it, but knowing Maureen was attacking ALS — not giving into it — gave us something to hang onto.

We tapped into Maureen's strength, is what I'm saying, this little woman carrying her burden and fueling everyone around her. Nobody was as strong as her husband, the handsome Silver Fox, who in the final months was cleaning the house, tending the yard, feeding Maureen, carrying her up and down the stairs, cooking for himself, cooking for guests — Jim insisted on making me scrambled eggs and sausage every time I stayed over — while working 40 hours a week as a senior applications manager for Widia. Maureen's strength was something to behold, but let me tell you something: Behind this great woman was a strong, strong man.

Maureen, though. If only you knew her. She did everything she could to fight off ALS, and she did it with a fist pump and a high-five. She communicated with those gestures, and if you were within reaching range, you got the high-five. Across the room? She gave you a fist pump.

She walked Greenwood Park Mall with Jim until she could walk no more. She swallowed so many pills to slow this disease, they filled her stomach until she wasn't hungry. When she couldn't swallow anymore, she had a feeding tube inserted and had Jim feed her. She fought ALS, and she fought it with ferocity and ambition.

Until she couldn't fight it anymore.

Her lungs started giving out last week. It was time to stop fighting, and this is when Maureen was her most heroic. Knowing her family needed to believe she was ready, she gave the go-ahead. When they told her about the move to hospice, her heart rate dropped from 135 to 120. She was at peace, with just one question to scrawl on the Boogie Board:

"What funeral home?"

***

The last time I saw her awake — the last time she saw me — was Monday morning. "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was playing when Maureen said goodbye with her eyes and raised her right hand, curled by atrophy almost into a fist, and pried open her fingers.

One last high-five.

She was sucking in air with effort, a few hours away from the morphine drip that would rock her gently to sleep one last time, when I reached the door of Room 4119. On my way out I looked at Maureen for the final time. God help me I was crying — there was one strong person in that room, and it wasn't me — and when I looked back at Maureen, at Mighty Mo, at the strongest woman I've ever known, her right hand was back in the air. And then it was coming down, over and over and over.

To the end, Maureen Burakiewicz was pumping her fist.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.