It's taken me a few weeks to work up the courage to write about the month of February. I still don't think I can truly do it justice. But I want to record some of my feelings and thoughts about this time in our lives. The following photo was taken about a week and a half before my mom passed away. We were sticking to our schedule that had my mom coming and staying with us during the day on Wednesdays and Fridays while Charlie and Mary Ellen were at work. As you can see Mom was still very full of life and fun. She was having a hard time getting around but she still loved playing with the kids. That weekend she started to be unable to keep any food down. It would either make her throw up or give her diarrhea. She went down hill really quickly. The early part of that week found me staying with her from the early morning when Charlie and Mary Ellen went to work until they got home in the afternoon. Lance and his parents tag teamed it so that I could be there to help my mom and not bring the kids. Mom hated having to be taken care of. She hated loosing her dignity in needing assistance in the bathroom. She went back and forth between wanting it all to be over and being upset that this seemed like the end. She asked me one day early on if I thought that day would be the day. I didn't know what to say other than I hoped not but it would be ok if it was.
Tuesday brought me to Charlie's house again but also saw the nurses and helpers from hospice coming in to help out. Spending hours watching my mom suffer brought me nearly to the breaking point. I was emotionally exhausted and constantly on edge. I am grateful for the help of the hospice people which allowed me to come home and be with my kids at least some of the time. When at home I attempted to help my kids understand what was happening and prepare them for what I knew was coming. As we watched her health decline quickly Charlie and I began to contact family and friends to let them know what was happening so that they could come and visit with her. I am so thankful for the few sweet souls who took the effort to visit my mom and express their love to her. Peggy Cann from our old neighborhood in Orem visited several times and played her hand held harp for my mom. I know those visits really brought a lot of comfort to her because she mentioned them several times. As the week wore on Mom asked for specific people. She asked for Joel and I talked on the phone with his wife Ruth and they put into motion a trip up from Hurricane. My niece Mary talked to her siblings and some of the other grand kids too about coming and visiting. I called my mom's sister and she contacted Mom's other siblings, many of whom came and visited in those last few days. Some of my dad's side of the family also came to visit. I know she needed to hear them each express their love for her so that she could be ready when the time came. It was a special moment when her favorite brothers Vert and Mel gave her a priesthood blessing of comfort and peace. Throughout all this Lance and were trying to make life as normal for our kids as possible. The kids were both rehearsing for a school play - Seussical the Musical Jr. and Hannnah was also rehearsing another play at the Arts Council - Wizard of Oz. Not to mention piano lessons, Blue and Gold Banquets, Activity Day Girls, basketball etc. We tried our best to keep all the balls balancing in the air for the most part but when my mom asked to see the kids I would run back to Lehi and check them out of school just so that she could hug them and cry over them. Before too long Charlie had a house-full - Joel and Ruth came and brought Sammi and Scarlett, Amy flew in from Arizona where she is getting her PhD. Lance and I, Michelle and her family and Holly and her family spent time during the day and then near the end a couple of night's sleeping on the couches, floors, or love seats. I say sleeping but most of us took turns being in Mom's room. One day we all spent together, surrounding her in her room, talking and reminiscing about our favorite memories from our time with her. She would surprise us every once in a while and chime in just when we thought she wasn't listening or just sleeping. Scarlett and Lucy, the two youngest great-grandchildren sang little songs to her. We tried our best to make her comfortable with warm blankets and chips of ice. We gave her morphine when the pain gave her trouble. As the days wore on she slipped into a coma and then it became a waiting game. Charlie - in frustration and a little despair asked that we not all be in her room at once talking and reminiscing any more. He thought maybe that we were keeping her here by constantly reminding her of what she was leaving. So we started taking turns sitting with her. Keeping the lights low and the room quiet except for her breathing. The days seemed to stretch out forever as the mom we knew was surely gone but her body was still keeping her alive. Being in the room with her for 15 minutes or more was pretty near torture. My already frayed nerves felt like they were down to the last thread as I sat listening to her breathe in and out. When Sunday night rolled around we were all pretty exhausted. Late into the night most of us found couches or beds to crash on. Joel went to sleep at Michelle's house. Charlie sat up in the chair in her room, Mary Ellen and Ruth laid down on the floor in her room and I layed down on the couch just out side her room. I wanted to sleep but I just knew that her time was coming soon so I couldn't get my mind to shut off enough to sleep. I just laid there listening to her breathing get shallower and shallower. At about 5:30 am I heard Dan come down for a minute before he left for a CNA class he was taking that morning. A few minutes after that I felt compelled to go into the room. Everyone was awake and listening to her as she took her last breaths. When we thought it was over Ruth and Charlie alerted their kids in the other rooms of the house and called Joel. As I was sitting in the room with her she took another big gasp of breath which just about stopped my heart. But it was finally over. Charlie said he felt at peace and didn't feel like crying. I felt at peace too but my heart was breaking also. She was my best friend who loved me unconditionally for my entire life. No one can take her place. Charlie hugged me at one point and reminded me of his promise to Mom and Dad that he would try and be there for me since they cannot be. I am truly grateful for him and all my family for their love but I really miss my mom. Every day when I am not distracted by other things I think about her and miss her. After she passed all the little detail of dying had to be dealt with. These mainly fell to Charlie and I because Joel and Ruth had to return home to get things in order so they could come back for the funeral. Mom had requested a few things for her funeral and we did our best to fulfill them although not all of them worked out as planned. She wanted Peggy Cann to play her harp at the funeral but Peggy had another funeral she had already committed to so that didn't work out. I called a member of Mom's Orem ward, who was a close friend to her, and asked if he would play "Whispering Hope" on the piano at the funeral. He graciously said yes. Mom also wanted us to use Sunberg Olpin in Orem for the mortuary. They were pretty cold and unfeeling. They made mistakes with the obituary. I would not recommend them. The funeral itself was very beautiful. I was taken by surprise when I was asked to be the one to put on her vale before they closed the casket. I wasn't mentally prepared for that heart wrenching experience but maybe it was better that way so I didn't have to stew about it before hand. The kids were pretty good through this whole ordeal. Asher had a bit of a hard time that day and would run off and hide when his emotions got the better of him. It was a LONG day. After the funeral and luncheon we went to Brigham City for the interment. After that part we met as a family at my mom's favorite restaurant in Brigham - Maddox.
I have to send out a big thank you to my best friend Missy Zeller for coming to the funeral and taking this nice family picture for us. The only ones missing from the picture are Chloe and Becca.
After the funeral we tried to get back to every day life. A lot of our time was taken up with dress rehearsals for the kid's school play Seussical the Musical Jr. I cannot thank the many volunteers with this play enough for this wonderful opportunity. My kids loved it and they will remember this experience their whole lives. Hannah was a Sam I Am and the Elephant Bird. JJ was a Wickersham brother.
Every one deals with grief in different ways. For me it is all about distraction until I have the distance to deal with the hurt. One of the things I planned throughout the process of my mom passing away was to get a puppy to help me and the kids through this hard time. Having someone extra to love and care for really helps when you are missing someone - at least it does for me. After the funeral I started looking for puppies on the KSL classifieds. I called on a few but none of them seemed to work out until I saw a listing for some pug puppies in Lehi. I called and the woman was really nice and we went out to see them. We fell in love with the biggest boy puppy of the litter. The owner Sabrina named him Tank Jr because he looks just like his daddy. After much deliberation we all decided we liked the name Jax (named for the game my mom loved to play as a little girl and taught me and the kids to play). He was only a couple of weeks old when we first met him so he wasn't ready to come home with us yet so we have the excitement of visiting him every week and watching him get bigger and learn new things. I wish we could have taken him home right away but this has been good to have something to look forward to. We have about 12 days until we get to bring him home and we couldn't be more excited. I really hope he is a great addition to our family. The owner Sabrina has be wonderful about letting us come and see him. She really loves him too and says that it will be hard to see him go.
Throughout this past month there have been so many angels bless our lives. Some of them we can't see and are simply there comforting us in our most sad moments. Some of the angels brought us enough dinner to last for several days. Some decorated our door for Valentines day (that holiday nearly was forgotten in all the craziness) and brought cookies and treats secretly to our house. Some just gave us hugs and expressed their love to us. One took JJ to SLC and helped him pick out a suit at Mr. Mac's for the funeral. Some who were struggling in their own right took the time to serve us in many ways. I will never forget the many acts of love and service that we were the benefit of. We all miss my mom but we are getting through because of the memories of her love-filled life and because of the many angels around us.
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