Hangin' In There

The month is coming to a close with an extra day, but I seem to just be going through the motions of day to day living. Sunday would have been my parents 64 anniversary, so I took Tanya, Kitty, and my Dad to Red Lobster to celebrate. He got all dressed up to go out with his girls! We had a really fun time, and it made the day pass without too much stress for my Dad. He is actually do quite well. I think after living with Mom's constant falling and dementia for over two years, he feels somewhat relieved that he doesn't have to worry about her anymore. He couldn't take care of her anymore, and that lack of control over a situation frustrated him. He also has a new found respect for Tanya which is great. She is pampering him well. Dr. Chang came to check him out last week, and when Tanya described what happened with my Mom, he said he thought she had had a blood clot in her lungs. It was the only answer for him that would take her so quickly. What is strange, is that is the same way Steve's Mother died.
A friend of mine from church, who was dealing with her mother's dementia, lost her mother on Valentine's Day. We hugged on Ash Wednesday, and decided to do lunch around Mother's Day to share our memories. I was lucky tho, that Mom was lucid. Her mother was angry and mean the last months before she passed.
Great Performances last week had the Broadway musical "Memphis" on, and I so wanted to call her to tell her to watch it, because I know she would have loved it. Watching the Academy Awards without her seemed weird too. I think about her fondly, but it is strange that I seem to be doing okay otherwise. I know a lot of people are praying for me, and I feel that support, because I am not wallowing in grief. Maybe it is because we didn't have a service yet. Or, like Dad, I truly feel she is in a better place and didn't enjoy living stuck in bed. I've never lost anyone close before, so I am making my way down this unknown path slowly and carefully. 88 years is a good life. Losing a child would be far harder. I also told Roxi, that in a way, I feel like I had already lost my Mother to the dementia. Once you have to parent your parent, you stop being the child in a way. I'm just moving on, hoping that I don't suddenly fall down the rabbit hole of despair. But right now, I'm hanging in there, so thanks for the prayers, they're working to keep me sane....

Time Flies and I've Lost My Heroine!

Can't believe it's been over a year since I actually have posted anything. It's not like I didn't have anything to post. It was that so much was constantly happening, that I was too tired to put it all into words. As I mentioned before, we kept the last male puppy who we renamed Jager, so three dogs were fun but, time consuming. Holidays came and went, and then suddenly, Roxi, Anni and Evy came home for urgent medical needs for poor little Evy. Jason came later. Thankfully, after too many doctor visits and blood draws to count, it was determined that Evy would be fine, and probably out grow her high fevers and seizures that sent them home to us.

They did stay long enough for Katy to graduate from U of I, and then they went back to Zanzibar, and Katy moved to Atlanta for her new job, with Merial. Our summer was rather lonely, as no one really came up to the lake but us and the three dogs.
The fall brought a different concern. My dear Mother who kept falling was finally forced to move out of Windsor and into a home Robbie found for them, so they could live with a 24 hour caregiver. So, we packed, unpacked, found Tanya and Nejari, to live and care for them. Daddy had a collapsed lung while we were hunting in Michigan, and before we had actually moved them into their new house. All was well for a few weeks after we got him out of the hospital, and Katy came home for Thanksgiving! Then, started a downward spiral of circumstances that I don't even want to recall. Mom fell again, got aspirational pneumonia because her dementia worsened from the fall. This cycle was repeated twice between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hospital, rehab, hospital, and then the dreaded word-hospice! Don't get me wrong. Hospice workers are the most caring and incredible people I have ever met. It was the only way, Mom was able to come home for Christmas, and after weeks of confusion, she was lucid most of the time. I was no longer her sister, but her daughter again. We spent hours going over the pictures from her life, and sharing stories. Tanya and Nejari would play games with her, and Katy and Robbie had a chance to be present with her too. Thanks to Skype, she was even able to talk with Roxi and the girls. We celebrated New Year's and Daddy's 90th birthday! Even though she was confined to her bed, she was doing much better, and the doctor thought we might be able to take her off hospice.
So in January Steve and I, Robbie and Mel, met up with Katy in Florida for the annual DVM convention in Orlando. It was a time to get away, as well as see Katy at work. We visited with our dear friend, John, and my Mother's real sister(not me), Jerry and her husband, Bill. Two weeks later, Steve and I had his SCI convention in Las Vegas, and again we thought we could go, since Mom was doing so well. However, Daddy had been getting more depressed, and was drinking more, which in turn caused much stress for Mom, Tanya, and me.
So, on Groundhogs Day, a day I never want to repeat, my wonderful, loving, creative, heroine suddenly passed on without me being there. Luckily, I had called her an hour before, and talked with her. She was fine. Then I got an urgent, frantic call from Tanya. She said Mom couldn't breathe even though she had given Mom morphine, the nebulizer and oxygen. Mom told her to call me, and I only had a few minutes to tell her I loved her and then she was gone! It was like a whirling nightmare! Poor Tanya and my Dad were devastated and I was in shock in the middle of a convention hall! How could the woman who gave me life, just be gone without me there to kiss her goodbye?
Today was Super Bowl Sunday for the rest of America, for me, it was the long trip home to reality. I was comforted by many, and distracted by the convention during the day, but at night, the quiet brought tears and such a feeling of aloneness. I know she is in a better place with her Lord. I know she did not want to live in the circumstances she found herself in. She had always been a fighter; a stubborn, German Dutchman! While in the hospital she was pulling out IVs, trying to talk anybody to help her get out of there, and after she was home, she dreamed of throwing her old, worn out legs over the bed so she could get up! I think her heart just gave out trying to fight with her circumstance.
Besides all the wonderful things she did in her life to make me a proud daughter, the one that always made me see her as a heroine was the story of her getting thrown off a public bus in Memphis after the war. She had given her seat to an elderly, black woman during the time of segregation, and both were forced to get off the bus. My Father's Father was a racist. My Mother taught me the sin in that way of thinking. She also taught me that if someone gives you lined paper, to write the other way!
I find it comforting and curious that the woman holding her hand as she entered Heaven was Tanya, a loving and caring black woman who loved my Mother as her own, even though she only knew her a few months. When I first met her in the interview, we both felt God's hand in bringing us together. We called each other "sistas", and strongly felt that we were intermingling our lives because it was God's Will. Her son Nejari, has become apart of my family too. He fills the void I have from not seeing my own grandchildren, yet I can't wait for him to meet them.
God works in strange ways, and we should not question His wisdom in directing the choices we make.
Pastor Patrick from Hospice came immediately to be with Dad and Tanya, and he called me in Vegas to pray with me. He said that often times people can choose when they leave, and they go when they think it will be less stressful on those they love. I don't know if I completely agree with that, but I am grateful I didn't have to witness what poor Tanya did. I can remember the last month of conversations with Mom, not the helplessness of trying to save her, or see her after she was gone.
My Mother was artistic, creative, compassionate, especially towards animals. She loved to read, see plays and movies. The last movie Kitty and I took her to, was "The Help". Ironic, I think. She loved flea markets and antiques! She loved beautiful things of any kind. She loved roses and lavender. She was strongly conservative, and hated what has been happening to our country lately. She was worried about the future of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Having lived through the depression and four wars, she thought we were on the verge of loosing America, and it scared her. Her friend from Collinsville wrote me to say, "she was a remarkable, loving, and caring person. She shared smiles, and her happy outlook on life made you happy to see her." That was my Mom!
The following are two beautiful emails of comfort sent to me while I was in Vegas:
One Door Closes..Another Opens Revelations 3:8 When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, trust Him fully and let go, only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He'll catch you when you fall, or He'll teach you how to fly! 'The power of one sentence! God closes doors no man can open & God opens doors no man can close...
~DEATH~ WHAT A WONDERFUL WAY TO EXPLAIN IT ..
A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to
Leave the examination room and said,
'Doctor, I am afraid to die.
Tell me what lies on the other side.'
Very quietly, the doctor said, 'I don't know..'
'You don't know? You're, a Christian man,
and don't know what's on the other side?'
The doctor was holding the handle of the door;
On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining,
And as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room
And leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.
Turning to the patient, the doctor said,
'Did you notice my dog?
He's never been in this room before.
He didn't know what was inside.
He knew nothing except that his master was here,
And when the door opened, he sprang in without fear.
I know little of what is on the other side of death,
But I do know one thing...
I know my Master is there and that is enough.'
May today there be peace within you..
May you trust God that you are exactly
Where you are meant to be.
I believe that friends are quiet angels
Who lift us to our feet when our wings
Have trouble remembering how to fly.

They both give me such comfort because I know Mom knew her Master was in the next room, and like all the dogs she loved, she was ready to leap into the room and fly with Him where she was free of her bed, and she could soar like the angel she was! She told the pastor weeks ago she was ready to meet God, and to see her Father and her friends that went before her. So I envision her decorating her new location, and preparing it for all of us to follow. I love you Mom, and will miss you so....until we meet each other again in His home for us.....