3 year Angelversary

          There is so much to the story that leads up to the morning three years ago.  One day I will get to that point. Right now I will talk about the last day with my mom.

             She had to have emergency surgery two days prior because she had a tumor blocking her airways. She was not able to come out of sedation, nor breathe on her own. My dad called and said that the doctor wasn't hopeful that she would come out of it ever. She was too far gone.


         We need to make the decision to take her off of life support, and ...let...her....go.
 He seemed so sure that it was the right thing to do, so I wanted to support him. In the back of my head, I just wasn't sure. What if we kept her on life support, and she did come out of it? I couldn't let her go.

       The whole recollection of which day was what is blurry. I cannot remember if it was at night that everyone was there to say goodbye, and the next day we waited for the doctor to take off her support.
     I know that my aunt was there to see her and when she came back she just cried.
Then it was my turn to go and my cousin came with me. I didn't know it until later, but he said as I was holding onto him I was digging my nails into his back. I was trying to stay strong for my mom, and not cry.
    I couldn't prepare myself to see her in what I knew was going to be a bad state, seeing how my aunt cried when she came back to the waiting room. I knew when I saw her hooked up to breathing tubes and tubes coming out of her nose and she could barely open her eyes that this is not what she wanted. I remembered then that she asked me a while back, to never let her be on life support.
    We were watching a show, and there was someone on life support and she said, "I don't ever want to be like that, don't ever let me be hooked up to machines".    
   I second guessed myself of course later on that long day, what if now that she is here, she wants us to give her a chance? I still wonder. Did we do the right thing. Could she have lived?
  When I went back to the waiting room I just sat and cried. My mama, my poor mama.
Every time I went  sit with her and I talked to her she would open her eyes long enough to let a tear out.
   It killed me that she so badly wanted to live, and I had no idea if she was hurting and crying because she was scared, or was she at peace? I hated that she felt that way, and for a really long time afterwards I just cried for her because of those last moments for her. It killed me that she had to go through that.
     I constantly feel regret that I did not stay with her that night after they took of her life support. The doctor didn't come until after we had been there for nearly 9 hours, I had Eve who was just a little baby then and was at the end of her rope. So I felt I needed to go home at some point to put her to bed, but as I think now she would have been okay without me one night. My mama needed me for her last. I wish I had just curled up next to her and stayed with her until her last breath.
    But instead she died alone.
The whole night as I lay in my bed trying to sleep I tossed and turned and thought about her and prayed for God to preform a miracle. I prayed so hard. When I finally fell asleep it was still dark but the birds were starting to wake, and what seemed like a few moments later I woke to the sound of my mothers voice saying  " I'm ok, Liz".    
I opened my eyes and it was light outside, I went downstairs to get breakfast and get dressed so we can go back to the hospital but then my dad called. He said the nurse called and said she passed an hour ago. Right around the time I had awoken to her voice. God didn't preform the miracle  I was praying for, but a different one. I got to hear her voice one last time.

     3 years feels like nothing,yet so much has happened since then, And so much more will continue to happen without her here. She visits me in my dreams, and I know she is with me in spirit. Mom, I will love you more still everyday as I appreciate more and more what you did for me growing up. And I am still learning from my  memories of you  how to be a better person.
   Miss you bunches mommy.
  

 

Pranksters

Meet my two oldest children.

Did I say children? I meant to say  Elves. Tricky little elves. Pranksters in training. They have learned from the best. And by the best, I mean me.

You never think your kids are watching everything you do, until they reenact it in public.

We go food shopping at Trader Joes, once a week. Its a small store, in a smallish town, full of friendly people (I travel far from the city to go) and spend about an hour gliding (ok more so ransacking) the aisles in search of healthy ingredients.

As we hit the check out line, I will start bagging into my reusable environmentally responsible bags while Talon fills out this little "ticket" with my name and phone number in the  case my ticket gets picked and we win the 100 dollar gift card to the store. 

The kind check out clerk will give my children (all three) a half a roll of stickers and they will spend the trip home sticking them to each other and to the windows of the car. (I wasn't planning on getting much for the car during the trade in, eh?)

This particular trip as I was bagging our groceries and thinking out a way to keep the babies awake during the trip home so they will nap decently when we get home, I hear a lot of laughter and giggles coming from the oldest elves.  As I pay for my groceries and place the bags into the shopping cart I go to push the cart of groceries and one adorable chunky baby out to the lot when a man stops me by saying "miss? You have a sticker on your, ya know, your butt"

I turn around  to look at the man speaking to me and see that everyone in the front of the store checking out and standing in line, is not only looking at me, but laughing at me hysterically. Cashiers included. The man then laughs a lot, and my trickster elves, are cracking up. Can we say a lunch room scene from scary mean teen movies?

I stop myself from blushing, remove the sticker from my behind,  thank the man for his sparing me of life long trauma, give my elves my best "your in trouble" look, then I march as quick as I can down to the car with the kids in question in tow.

The minute I stop at the car, I swing around and in my most authoritative voice demand "Who stuck that sticker on my HINEY?!" As I say this, a few of the costumers who were laughing at me moments before, were walking past, and then proceeded to stifle laughter.

The kids giggled again and I realized, I created these two. This is my own doing. Had I been given the stickers, they probably would be walking around still today with them on THEIR hineys.

The end.

Hobbit Beagle

We have a dog. His name is Henry, and he is a beagle. Beagle means floppy ears, sweet disposition, dances for food, barks in his sleep (and only in his sleep) eats everything, chews your favorite things, and destroys dreams of ever having a clean home.

This is what leaving your house for thirty minutes will do.

Then you go to say "Henry did you do this?" In a stern voice, and you get this face. and those floppy ears, and he will most likely bow his head and put his tail between his legs slowly approaching me as if to say "I was just trying to search the trash/chew your shoes/eat your dinner to show you how much I love you!" And all is forgotten as I am cleaning up, or preparing myself something else to eat.

Last Christmas I was blessed with some pennies from heaven by an anonymous group of friends. So I was able to go to the store and actually buy a toy for each of my children to wrap and gift for Christmas morning. The blessings kept coming because as I shopped around the toy store, everything was on sale. I mean not a few dollars off, but a ridiculous amount off. I managed to get two toys each for my children and a toy for my  nephew. One of the toys I got for my daughter was a Breyer horse set. It came with a barn, and four horses. She didn't seem as elated about it as I did, so they haven't really been played with much, but a few months ago, my baby Luke found one of the horses, and has claimed it as his own. He carries it around, he kisses and cuddles it. I think after seeing a real live horse, finding this miniature toy version made him happy.

The other day he found his beloved horse, on the floor, with gashes all over him, and his poor foot gone. The horse, had been beagled. Little baby Luke took the horse to everyone in the house, and grunted while shoving the foot in our faces and pointing to it. Franticly he was telling us, his horsey was maimed! 

 

 

 

 

He still loves his horse, but now we all are a bit more careful about leaving it on the floor.

So Henry, the furry hobbit, the beagle bandit is certainly a loveable dog with flaws. We love him anyways. He fits perfectly into our little household and definitely fits in as one of our hobbit children whom I will introduce you to, tomorrow.

 

Until then,

Mother of Hobbits

The Motherless Mother

       It is coming upon the third anniversary of my mothers death. Three years. I try to digest just what that time means. It means something different for everyone. Those who have gotten used to her not being here, those who have taken the steps to move on. Those who have mourned, healed and went on to accept her death. Then there is me, who is still living that time, like a record skipping. I think I took a step forward, only to be snatched back into the horror of her being gone. 
    I think this is because I have spent the time since her death, trying desperately to appear "put together" for those who were also greatly affected by her death. I have been the rock, the sturdy strong woman who will put the pieces back of everyone else.
    While most everyone else has moved on, and have been taking steps forward, I've been stuck in this reel of thinking I can step forward but only to be thrown back into the darkness. 
      I think its time, I tell our story. It will be told in sections, as much I can tell at once. Bare with me.
       The photograph above is so special to me. It was the photograph that literally held me together when I had to be away from my mom. She gave it to me during my first day of all day school. To comfort me since I wouldn't be with her all day, and for me that was so very hard.
      As a youngster I sure did love my mother. I wanted to be around her all the time. I wanted to help her out and know everything that she was doing. If she was in the kitchen, I was there too. If she went to the bathroom to get something, you bet I was right there asking her what she was doing.
     Friends? Who needed friends? I was hanging with my mommy! Brother? Who is that?! I was hanging with my mommy! Going to school all day was a very hard pill for me to swallow. She would literally beg me to get out of the car in the morning and walk into school. "How could I just leave her like that?" I'd think. "Who would follow her around and hold her hand? Who would help her in the kitchen?"  
      I worried that before she could come back to get me from school something terrible would happen to her and I would never see her again. Even as a small child I had major anxiety about everything. One morning as I sat in the car crying, and she sat beside me ever so patiently trying to build my confidence up so that I would get out already and get a grip, she handed me this photo that was taken the year before, at my brothers special education class. His teacher and him put a little birthday party together for me when mom and me came to pick him up. We had popcorn and wore party hats. It was very thoughtful of my brother, actually the last time he ever did anything nice for me (but that is another story). And the teacher took this photo. My mom and me smack in the center, and my brother proudly smiling over me, with all of his friends.
       If I missed my mom, Id sneak a peak inside my desk to see her face. Id remind myself of what she'd say "Ill see you in just a couple of hours. "  
      

 

Thinking back, my mother had the patience of a saint, putting up with all of my silliness over the course of my young life. I was a prankster, I was strong-willed, hard headed and downright TRYING child. I did not realize just how ungratefully draining I had to be for her until she wasn't here anymore. We had talked over many of our grievances. We made amends  to a lot of our fights, and even realized what the root, or should I say WHO the root of the problem was with the last two fights we had before she passed (again, another story for another post) but it wasn't until the last year or so of my dealing with my own little mini me child, just how much patience she had with me. She was truly a selfless mother.

 

The "I don't want to lose my Mom and the I would give up everything to have my mom be here with me" part came a lot quicker for me. I do feel bad for myself about this, I do. Not going to lie. I selfishly want my mom back because I MISS HER AND I NEED HER. But most of all, I am mad that she has to miss her grand babies growing up. She really sincerely enjoyed them. She sincerely loved them. She sincerely wanted to be around them and do things with them all the time. But she only got to meet two of the grand babies I made for her, and she never really got to know her granddaughter at all. Eve was 9 months when she passed away.

She never got to know that this little girl of mine is a mini version of her grandma! She love shoes, and nail polish, and dresses, and purses. Its not fair that Eve will never get to go get her nails done with grandma. Or go shoe shopping. Or get their hair done. Or have a spa day. Or just call each other up and chat about make-up. My mother  always purposed to spend time and love on Talon. He knew her love, and that makes me happy. Its sad however, to see him hurt for his grandma too. When you know love and its then lost, its a great loss. What a cruel thing for a child to feel. I really hate cancer. HATE it.  

I think I will end this here for now. I wish that I can bring her back. But I cannot, (and if I have learned anything from bad 90s horror films, it never ends well if I could) I will simply stop focusing on helping others in their grief, and start to work on my own. Standing still in the dark hole looking down towards the ground isn't any way to live. God Bless. Till next time.

 

Sincerely,

 The motherless mother of hobbits