Mom Again

Being present for mom's transition to another world was one of the most interesting experiences of my life.  We knew the end of this life was pretty close because of all the materials and help we had received from hospice.  They were absolutely great.  I chose to spend every minute I could of those last two weeks with mom.  She went from fairly coherent to a state that was somewhat like a coma in those two short weeks.  As I said, I had read all the hospice materials and mom pretty much followed the pattern.  She stopped eating and drinking, lost interest in pretty much everything and slowly went to sleep.  All my kids and grandkids came to say goodbye which resulted in one of the most precious photographs I own.  It is of my 3 year old granddaughter with her head in my mom's lap and 3 sets of hands loving her, her mom's mine and my mom's.  It is such a tender picture.

The day before mom died I was sitting with her when she suddenly sat up and asked for food.  My daughter was sitting with her too and so I immediately went looking for something to give her.  It took a few minutes and by the time I returned, she was back to sleep.  Later that day, as my husband and daughter were sitting with her, they told me how she sat up in bed and began to vigorously wave to someone in the upper right corner of the room.  I was in the other room talking to the hospice minister.  As I walked into her room, she put her arms out to me, told me how much she loved me and repeatedly hugged me as if she was really excited to see me.  I continue to feel that it wasn't me she was hugging.  I think she was hugging the physical me that she thought was someone else.

She died on a Sunday about noon with all of her children present.  I walked in as she was taking one of her last breathes.  My husband had just told her it was okay to go home.  I told her that dad had been waiting for her a long time and she needed to go to him and she was gone.  It was a peaceful experience for me to know that she had finally gone home.  I have no regrets about the time I spent with her.  It was an amazing experience for me.  Thanks again mom for teaching me another lesson.  When it is time for me to go home, I think I will able to do it peacefully.

Mom's Choice

My mother died in January. She was 95 years old. My dad died 25 years ago and in some ways my mom died with him. She was never really good at making decisions so dad did much of the decision making. Fortunately, that was one of his strong points. Unfortunately that left mom in a difficult situation upon dad's death. After dad died, my sister and I regularly spent one day every week with my mom, usually Thursday. She looked forward to those days with great anticipation. On those days, she had companions most of the day. On those days, we helped her do all the things she was afraid to do alone. On those days, we laughed and cried and shopped and had lunch. Her life took on some meaning on those days.

Most other days for her were spent at home. She was never a "social butterfly". She loved her family, her house and her garden. Her passions were her family and a "white tornado" clean house and yard. That was her work and her glory and she did a pretty terrific job with those things. Many of her days were lonely. She made choices that isolated her from the world. She would not call anyone for the simplest request. She would not initiate a visit with anyone. She would not go with the ladies who invited her to lunch or club meetings or just a ride or movie. She quit going to church because she might not look right and later because she could not hear it. She was so afraid of "looking stupid" that she would not even avail herself of the simple safety devices that could have made her more comfortable as she aged, walkers, alarm systems etc.

I had a particular gripe in this area. I am the mother of 3 deaf kids and thier spouses are all deaf as well. 3 of them really benefit from hearing aids but 3 are so deaf that it makes very little difference and in a sense is actually sort of annoying. Mom started to lose her hearing many years before she died. We dutifully went and got her a state of the art set of hearing aids at no small expense. She wore them for a week or two and then straight to the jewelry drawer they went where they remained useless for the rest of her life. She refused to make the effort to learn to live with them. I would have given anything for my kids to be able to benefit from similar aids and the fact that she would not use them gnawed at me. The plain fact of the matter was that mom did not like to try anything out of her comfort zone and she also thought they made her "look stupid". Did that mean that my kids looked stupid because they wore aids or did they look stupid because aids did them no good so they chose not to wear them? Though she didn't mean anything by not wearing them, I got the message that her feelings about herself applied to my children as well. I'm absolutely sure she never understood the pain this caused me. Why? Because no one, including me, told her.

I learned a powerful lesson from this little hang-up of moms. I learned how little we know about how our choices sometime affect others without our even understanding that they do. A pair of hearing aids did not come between mom and I because I made a choice not to allow that but her world was altered by that choice in ways she did not know. I still have those hearing aids where I can see them occassionally to remind me of this lesson.

Thanks mom. You were a terrific mom and I learned so much from you even if you did have some hangups! The fact is that I even learned from your hang-ups!

Not Another Prospective Author!

Most of my adult life I have wanted to write a book. Not one of those mystery novels or historical fiction or self-help books that I like to read. Not one of those information textbook type books. I have wanted to write a book that says, because I have been through this and survived, you can do it too kind of books, an encouragement book if you will. I have always felt that someone else could benefit from the experiences I have been through myself and with my family.

I have had a few of Dr. Phil's defining moments in my life. I have had more than a few of those days when I truly didn't think I could make it and honestly didn't care. You see, I have this funny point of view about the "alternative". You know, the "alternative" that everyone says doesn't look so good to them when they are sick, discouraged, wasted or just plain tired and don't want to face another day. I kind of think the "alternative" looks pretty good. That is not to say that I would deliberately choose "the alternative". It just means that I don't think it sounds so bad. I choose to stay here with my family and friends right now but I haven't as my husband so delicately puts it, "fallen in love with this world." I don't think I ever will. Today is my birthday and as I get each year older, I fall less in love with the world, especially as it is today. You see, I can clearly remember being 15 or 16 and having these moments when I felt like this was not my real life. Those moments were so vivid and I remember thinking I was living a dream. Not an amazing, wonderful dream, not a nightmare, just a dream.

I live here because of my amazing family. I graduated from college and yes, shortly after that, I got a tall, dark and handsome, kind, gentle and virtuous, returned missionary college student for a husband. We followed the advice of a prophet and didn't put off having a family. Our first daughter was born 9 months and 2 weeks after we were married. Thank goodness for those 2 weeks or every old lady's tongue would have been wagging instead of just a few! 12 months and 10 days later, we had our second child, a son. My husband worked 30 hours a week on 2 jobs, took 18 hours of credit every semester of school until he graduated and we built a house during that time. Kids now hear us say that and they think we were just plain crazy or lying. It is the plain and simple truth. Funny thing is, we just thought we were the average normal couple because all our friends did pretty much the same.

My world then began to fall apart. One piece at a time I began to lose my idea of what a perfect life was. I have since redefined that "perfect" world. At the time though, my world was defined mostly by pain and anger. Actually, my world was coming together in a different way than I had planned. Don't all our worlds do that? I was about to learn some of life's most valuable lessons. Looking back, I have changed my choices and my passions and my definitions have become more broad. Now, I find "perfection" is what is perfect for me and see that all these elements of the past have come together to make my life "perfect" for the person it has made me. Paraphrasing Eleanor Roosevelt, "The lives we lead are a result of the choices we make."

Right Place, Right Time!