emotional morning...

This quote just did me in. It's from "One True Thing", Anna Quindlen.

Condensed outline: woman returns to her childhood home to take care of her cancer stricken mother. I'm not quite finished with the book, but I had to put it down. It made me cry too much.

I was with my mother every day of that week she was in the hospital in hospice care. Her poor heart couldn't handle the rigors of dialysis anymore, after enduring it 3 days a week, for NINE YEARS. She didn't have much of a choice, so she checked in to the palliative care unit, and that was it. The doctors told us she would lose consciousness after a few days, because her kidneys didn't function much anymore. But she didn't, she was awake until the end. She had gone from dialysis to the hospital in an ambulance, on a Friday afternoon in July, when Miss Charlotte Claire, our 15th child, was a little baby. She died the following Thursday, during the night, with my brother there. My brothers were taking turns staying with her during the night, and she waited until Bob dozed off, then let herself go be with Jesus.

The day before she died, she tried to get out of bed to go be with Jesus, but we told her she could just stay there and He would come get her.

My mother almost reveled in that week, can you believe that? She had all of her kids and grandkids visiting, her room festooned with crayon pics, her dear grandchildren professing their love, with flowers and hearts and scribbles. My brother Tom brought up some sweet potato fries on Tuesday, and she took one bite and declared it delicious, so he went back down to the cafeteria and bought several servings of them, as if he found the key to keeping her alive. She was barely eating anything at that point, I'm pretty sure that little taste was the last thing she ever ate.

My father had leukemia at that time, and was afraid of germs, with all the kids who were visiting my mom that weeks, so he would come up in the mornings when no one was there. He could NOT deal with it, he would call me, begging me to talk to her, to talk some sense into her, to talk her out of her decision. He couldn't comprehend life without her, and couldn't understand that it wasn't actually her choice to die. Her body just couldn't tolerate the dialysis anymore, and she didn't want to stroke out in the chair, she said.

After she passed, my dad gave me a little bag from the funeral director, which held my mother's wedding band. He said that since my sister Cheryl had gotten her engagement ring, many years ago, I should have the wedding band. I was truly touched, and wear it on my right hand. I look at my hand sometimes, my aging hand, looking so liker hers, with that ring on my finger, and I see how time flies. I'm only 14 years younger than she was when she died.

But that quote! "...learn to love what you have..." This goes for people in your life, but also your house or apartment, your circumstances in life.

I didn't start out to write a sad story. I was going to write how my father braved on for seven months after my mom passed, and how one Saturday morning in January, I woke up and my first thought was, "I don't feel like visiting my dad today." It was lonely and empty at that house without my mom. My dad was afraid of catching colds and flus, so if the kids went with me, they had to stay on the other side of the room, he wasn't giving out any hugs. They didn't like that house, with my dad so sad, and my mom not there. He gave them dollars and had candy jars, but still. So that Saturday morning turned to afternoon, and I resigned myself to a drive down the Thruway for a visit, when my brother called...my dad had gotten up from his chair, fallen down, and my brother thought it was a stroke...I asked Paul if I should head to the hospital, he said of course I should, but still, I did not want to. I was still raw from losing my mom, and did not want to face this.

We all gathered into a special little family waiting room, my siblings and I. No word on my dad, no word, no word, for so long that my younger brother finally went to the nursing station and told the nurse that if she didn't tell him where his dad was, he was going to walk down the E.R. hall and start pulling curtains open, and find him himself. She promptly pointed him to where my dad was...we surrounded his bed, told him we loved him, held his hand and patted his arm, things my gruff father would have pretended to hate, if he were conscious.

I resented that he passed from consciousness without hearing our declarations of love, lying there alone after his brain scans. They were busy that day in the E.R., and to them, well, he was a 70 year old man who had a stroke. They didn't know he was our dad. The doctor told us that evening that the brain bleed was severe, and even if by some chance our dad woke up, he would basically be...well, he really wasn't there anymore. So we could choose to leave him on the ventilator or we could have him unplugged and let him pass. We chose the latter. He was unhooked at midnight, and we stayed with him for an agonizing 8 hours before he took his last breath. I choose to believe that he did hear us, and that he felt the rubbing of his arms and the patting of his shoulders, as we thanked him for caring for us...

Back to reality, Char is asking me if we have gelatin...she wants to make tapioca bubbles...we have things to do, cupcakes to bake, and and and...because tomorrow, a party!!!!!