Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Blog 75: Letter To Mom


The following is a letter I wrote for my mom and read at her funeral service.  I started the letter the night before and finished it before leaving for the funeral.  It was so hard for me to write it.  I was grieving, I was emotionally drained, and exhausted, but I wanted to do this for my mom.  It was my last gift to her.

When the song Amazing Grace was finished playing, it was my cue to go to the front.  I walked up to Mom's casket and I told her I love her and that I wrote her a letter.  Looking at her, I just couldn't believe this was happening.  Just one week ago we were together, laughing and talking about her finally getting to go home.  She was showing me how to whistle and we ate chocolate and loved on each other like we always did.  I painted her nails and she was still wearing that polish while laying in her casket.  I didn't know she'd be buried in a week.  I swear, I thought I was going to just break down and cry my eyes out.  I asked God to please give me the strength to be able to read my letter. The chaplain had told me previously that if I can't get through it he will read it for me.  I wanted to read it all.

I walked up to the podium and told everyone that this was so hard for me to do but I was going to do my best, and I started reading.  I cried throughout, but God gave me the strength to continue.  I felt His hand on me and I felt my mom's love, and I was able to read my letter.


Dear Mom,

It’s been three days now since you’ve been gone and I can’t seem to comprehend the fact that I am never going to see your beautiful face again.  I’m never going to hear your wonderful soothing voice, or your laughter, or you saying my name and telling me that you love me.  I’m not ever going to be able to talk to you on the phone, or touch your skin, hug you, and hold your hand.  We won’t be able to share stories with each other or comfort each other, or whistle together and eat chocolate together.  Just having you around, just knowing you were here, was so comforting.  I will live the rest of my life without you and it hurts so much.  I don’t know how I can live without you, mom.  I need you still.  I feel selfish for saying that because I know you are at peace now and in a better place with Jesus. 

I’ve had a hard time writing this letter to you, mom.  I couldn’t find the words.  There’s too much I want to say and not enough time to process those thoughts.  All I can do is mourn and grieve right now and try to get through each day, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time.   Right now I just want you to know that the things I learned from you are what made me the woman I am today.  You taught me how to love and how to put my family first.  You taught me how to be a mom and a nana. You didn’t tell me how to do those things, you showed me by your example.  You thought of others before yourself.  You showed me that family sticks together, and you were the rock that kept us together.  You taught me that no matter what bad things happen to us in life, we can get through it.  You never judged me for the mistakes I made and you always knew my intentions were good.  You were my mom and you accepted me as I am and loved me unconditionally.  You made me feel special, and you made me feel important.  That’s what moms do, and that’s what you did perfectly, for all of your daughters.   You loved us all the same. 

You always told us when we were growing up that we should never hate anyone.  You said that we may not like their ways, but we don’t hate them.  I still think of that today.  I also remember you getting really mad at us if we swore and you gave us a list of words that we could say if we got mad.  Those words were dang it and darn it.  Anything else was unacceptable.  When I grew into adulthood, I could never swear in front of you.  That’s because I respected you.  There’s more stories I could tell you about, that I remember so dearly.  I hope to share these stories with my sisters and they share theirs with me so that we can keep all of those memories alive for the rest of our lives. 

I will think of you every time I eat ice cream.  Right now I cry every time I eat because you couldn’t eat in your last days…not even ice cream.  I will think of you when I look at the music box you gave me, it plays the song Unchained Melody.  Everything you ever gave me will be cherished and saved through the generations.  I think of you ALL the time when I am with my grandchildren.  I can understand the love you had for my children and all of your grandchildren.  I understand that love and I find myself doing the same things you did, and the feeling I have, I know that’s how you felt.  I will think of you on every holiday, every birthday, and every time I hear the song You Are My Sunshine.  I just know I will think of you all of the time.  As time goes on, they say the pain will subside, but I will always miss you, always. 

Mom, there are so many things I want to share about you.  I’ve been finding myself just wanting to talk to someone, anyone, about you.  I want to tell them about what a wonderful mom you were.  I want to tell them detailed stories.  I want everyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of meeting you know what a truly loving and kind person you were.  I hope that you don’t mind that I talk about you so much.  I guess it just helps me feel that you are still around.   

You will always live in my heart, mom, and in the hearts of everyone who loved you.   We will keep your memory alive, and I can promise you, there’s not a single one of us who will let a day go by without thinking of you and missing you.  You should feel like you accomplished something great while you were here on this Earth.  It’s our job to show you the greatness you achieved as you look down upon your family… your family, your pride and joy, your happiness in life.  You have quite a legacy you’ve left behind, and you should be very proud.  I hope we can always make you proud.  Right now you are dancing with the angels in Heaven, mom.  Your feet and your legs are moving gracefully, your eyes are bright and gleaming, and your heart is filled with joy.  God called you home so that you can be free of your pain and live in wholeness again.  Someday we will be together, but in a way, we are always going to be together because you left a part of you in all of us, and you took a piece of us to Heaven with you.  I love you mom and I miss you so much. 

Your loving daughter,

Lizzie

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Blog 74: My Mom Is An Angel in Heaven

I don’t even know where to begin to describe the past three weeks.  Oh, how life changes in an instant.  I always said life is precious and you should never take it for granted.  I started this blog post a couple of times and just couldn't find the words to express my pain and heartache.  I will try again.  I am in mourning and grieving the loss of the most wonderful mom I could have ever had.  Blogging doesn't seem important now.  I just need to tell you all that my mom is gone.  She is gone.



I flew back to Chicago on June 27th for one of my regular visits with Mom.  I was feeling pretty good about things for a change.  On June 30th I was sitting on the deck of the group home with my mom.  We were enjoying the beautiful sunny day.  I looked up to the sky and saw this cloud, in the shape of a heart.  I felt like this was a sign that everything was going to work out.  Everything was going to be ok.  Plans were being made to move Mom back to her hometown and the meeting with my sisters was finally going to happen.  The next day, on July 1st, all of my sisters got together and we visited our mom before we had our important meeting.  Annie arrived late so she wasn’t with the rest of us when we visited Mom, but she went to see her after our meeting.  She said she walked in and Mom said, “Annie!”  Annie hadn’t been to see my mom in six months.  Not that she didn’t love her, she was just having a hard time accepting everything Renee put us through.

Mom seemed tickled to have us all there and she appeared somewhat sad when we said goodbye.   We girls went to a restaurant to have our family meeting to discuss what to do with our mom now that her money was about gone.  There we were, all five of us sitting down and talking.  Finally!  We got along with each other, though I have to admit there was a little tension and apprehension.  After all, it had been four years since we ALL sat down to talk.   We came up with a plan for the next phase of Mom’s care.  After considering the possibility of me coming back and hiring help and renting an apartment for us, it was agreed upon that Annie was going to bring Mom home to live with her in August.  She has her husband and daughters to help her.  I was so surprised that Renee agreed to it, but we were all facing the only other choice we had, which was Mom going to a nursing home with a Medicaid certified bed.  None of us wanted that.   I think Renee finally realized that being with family was better than that option.  Mom was finally going home.  I felt good about our meeting and reconnecting with my sisters. 

The next day during my visit with Mom, I told my mom that she was going to go back home.  She didn’t fully understand, but when I told her she was going to get to see her great grandson more, she did understand that, and she got choked up. Things were looking good.  Mom was doing as good as could be expected.  She was still recognizing her daughters, though she couldn’t say everyone’s names.  She still called me Lizzie.  Mom even let me give her a foot massage.  I was surprised to see how pretty her feet still looked.  I sang You Are My Sunshine to her everyday and held her hand and told her I love her many times during my visits that week.  Mom often told me she loved me back, though sometimes she would just say, “Good, I’m glad.”  Or, “I know you do.”  We had our usual golden moments, when Mom said something so meaningful, just out of the blue.  I am so glad I took notes and have a record of those meaningful things she said.  I took pictures and videos, and thank God I did a lot of that.  The last video I took of my mom was so cute.  She was smiling, laughing, and whistling.  Then at the end of the video I told her I love her and she said, “I love you, too”, with a smile on her face and that endearing look of a mother’s love.   I wish I could post that video right here, but I am still wanting to protect the privacy of my family. 




On July 5th, I arrived at the group home and I could hear Mom whistling in her room.  Whistling and whispering were her new things.  We had an hour together.  It was to be the last hour that I could share beautiful moments with my mom.  The last time I would hear her voice and hear her say she loves me, and the last time I would see her beautiful blue eyes.    I fed her lunch during that hour.  She ate a jelly sandwich and I gave her some chocolate afterwards.  She chatted with my son on the phone from California.  Then, everything changed.  An aide arrived and took my mom to the bathroom for her bath.  I was in another room talking to my sister on the phone and I turned around to see the aide raise my mom from her chair.  

In an instant, life as we knew it changed.  My mom went into the bathroom a whole person, and she came out about 20 minutes later with a broken body.  She couldn’t walk and she was bent over and trembling.  I rushed to the bathroom and saw her like that.  Something happened in there.   The aide said she needed help and I called out to the caregiver to bring the wheelchair.  They put mom in the wheelchair and took her back to her room and then put her in her chair.  The aide said nothing to me or anyone else about what happened.  Mom said she hurt and the aide said she’s never seen my mom like that.  

After the aide left, it didn’t take long before I realized my Mom was really hurt.  She was clearly distressed.  Not knowing the severity of her injuries, I tried to calm her down and reassure her that everything will be ok.  Mom was making comments that she didn’t like the aide and that she couldn’t move her arms and that it hurts.   I felt up and down my mom’s arms and noticed she had a hard lump in her left arm.  I didn’t know it was broken.  I thought it was a pulled muscle, maybe.  I just had no idea.  The two caregivers there put cream and an icepack on it.   One of the caregivers was a nurse for 30 years.  Mom’s arm began bruising in her armpit area and down the inside part of her arm.  Finally, after repeated attempts to reach Renee, she showed up.  Several hours after the incident, Mom was transported to a hospice hospital, at Renee's direction, and four days later she was dead. 

Not only did my mom suffer a spiral fracture of her humerus on her left arm, but the next day they found that her left hip was broken too.  The doctor said she was too weak to survive these kinds of injuries and surgery was not an option.  At first Renee was talking alone to the nurses and doctors, but she finally let us all in to hear what they were saying.  She didn't need to be secretive anymore.  I couldn’t believe my mom was going to die.  Mom was put on a very low dose of subcutaneous Morphine, which the doctor said was kind of like a vicodin.  I asked why she won’t wake up and the doctor said, “because your mom is dying.”  Eventually they had to up her dose of morphine because Mom was in too much pain. 

I stood at her bedside and watched the life go out of her. Was this really it?  Was this how she was going to die?  It wasn’t going to be a peaceful death either, because she was hurting!  It wasn’t fair!!!  I watched her wince in pain and I saw the fear in her face.  She tried to say something to Renee and me.  We couldn’t understand her and she seemed a little frustrated as she repeated herself.  We could not make out what she was trying to say. Maybe she was trying to tell us what happened to her.  Mom couldn’t eat, not even ice cream.  God, that hurt to see my mom like that.  I could hear her tummy growling.  She was starving, but she was dying, too.  I could hardly eat.  In fact, it was days before I could eat anything without crying and feeling guilty.  I just couldn’t eat when my mom couldn’t eat.

My sisters all gathered together and some of us spent the night and slept on couches.  We took shifts holding our mom’s hand.  Mom squeezed our hands and we didn’t want let go unless there was someone else there to take over.  We didn’t want her to be alone or to be afraid. We wanted to be close to her and we all assured our mom that we love her and always will.  All of us took turns saying what we needed to say.  We told her that we are all together and we are all good, and for her to not worry about us.  We said we’ll take care of each other. The doctors had told us that she can hear us even if she can’t respond.  We made sure she knew we loved her.  

Towards the end it was just awful.  By then several of Mom’s grandchildren were there.   Annie arrived late, but she made it in time.  She got there after the nurses moved mom to her final resting position.  They placed her on her side so that her breathing would be easier.  Two chaplains had paid a visit on that last day.  Prayers were said, tears were constant, though we tried not to let Mom hear us cry, and Mom was slipping away fast.   We didn’t want her to die but it was too painful watching her die that we just wanted it to end.  But how could we survive without her?

The chaplain told us that she may want to go alone.  Mom knew we were all in the room with her, once Annie finally arrived.  Mom even tried to raise her head when she heard Annie's voice.  Mom was a very private person and she cared very deeply for her family.  I think when my mom knew we were all there, that’s when she was ready to let death claim her.  We all took turns saying goodbye and telling her how much she means to us and that it’s ok to go now so she doesn’t have to be in pain.  I told Mom to not be afraid.  Her body was trembling.  I said Jesus is waiting for you, Mom, and we will be together again one day.  I told her we will take care of each other until we see her again.  I told her we will never be apart, that we will keep a piece of her with us and she will take a piece of us to Heaven with her.  

It was just too painful to watch her as she was showing all of the signs that the end was near. The nurse said Mom was semi-comatose.  We reluctantly all left the room, in case Mom wanted to die alone.   The chaplain stayed with her for awhile.  I went down the hall to call my son.  A few minutes later my niece ran to get me and she said, “She’s gone.”  I ran down the hall, as I saw my nephew running to get his mom, and others running into my mom’s room.  We were all there within seconds. She was just laying there, lifeless, with Annie holding her hand.  Annie had slipped back in the room and she was there when Mom took her last breath.  There was no more struggle to breathe.  She was free from the pain, but our pain was unbearable.  I dropped to my knees and held on to her and cried MOMMY!!!!  I was a little girl again, who needed her mommy.  Everything was so surreal.  The crying, everyone crying that awful cry when someone you love dies.  The chaplain was crying, too. 

Mom passed away on July 9th at 10:45 P.M.  My family moved about, going in and out of the room.  Those of us who could, and some couldn’t do it, but those of us who could, sat with her and talked to her some more.  Annie didn’t want to leave her.  She kept rubbing mom’s arm.  I held my mom’s lifeless hands, still being careful not to hurt her broken arm, and I said goodbye to my mom.  I walked out of the room and turned around to have one last look at her, with tears streaming down my face.  I wondered how I could ever survive life without my mom.  My hero was gone.  

Annie told me when she walked into the room our mom was looking straight ahead.  She was already on her last breath.  Annie told her to go to Grandma and Grandpa.  She said they are waiting to take her to Heaven with them.  She said that is when Mom took one more breath and then she stopped.  My daughter said that she had a vision of my grandparents standing behind Jesus, with open arms, reaching out for my mom.  I believe that happened. 

Sadly, an autopsy had to be done on my mom.  I hate that she had to have that done.  We have the preliminary report that said she didn't have a heart attack or stroke.  We are still waiting for the final results but we know what it's going to read.  Mom died as a result of her injuries. We are just waiting.  One thing I am sure of, my mom didn't fall.  She didn't have any bruises on her hip or the outside of her arm. The coroner's report is what everyone is waiting for, though I don't know if I will be able to look at it.    

My mom’s funeral was on July 12th.  It was a beautiful service with more people there than I ever expected to see. It was so nice to hear the wonderful comments about my mom and see all the people who cared about her and our family.  I prepared a letter to my mom that I read during the service.  It was so hard for me to read it, through the tears, but I did it for my mom.  At the burial site, my sister's son, the oldest of the grandchildren, gathered all of us girls together.  He said that it took our mom a lifetime to build up this family and make it the loving family that she was proud of, and in a period of three years, we dismantled everything she worked so hard on building.  He asked us what he thought our mom would think about that, and he asked us if we are going to let this be it or are we going to work on making our mom proud of the legacy she left behind.  It’s something I always wanted, and I think we all did.  We just couldn’t get it together.  We hugged in a huddle and promised we will make our mom proud as she looks down on us from Heaven.  It will be a struggle at times since there was a lot of hurt and anger, and it will take time to heal, but I am hoping we can pull through this and be there for each other. 

I had to leave and go back to my home in Arizona, and I felt so terribly sad to leave my sisters behind.  That oldest sister in me, nurturing, wanting to comfort, wanting to protect my sisters, is back.  (She never really left.)  I feel for them because I am also feeling that same, awful pain they are feeling.  We describe it as feeling empty. Lynda said she feels like an orphan now that both of our parents are gone. Before I left, I went to a Monument place and picked out a headstone for my mom.  I selected a precious moments angel to go on the headstone.  The angel is releasing five hearts from her hand, representing my mom’s five daughters. 

I know my mom is in Heaven with Jesus and she is whole again.  She is no longer in pain, no longer living with Alzheimer’s, and she is an angel who is watching over her family.   She is not fully gone from our lives because she is living through us, it's just hard to not be able to see her again for the rest of my life.  After the funeral my family went to dinner and we talked and shared stories.  We even laughed.  Yeah, we even laughed, though we cried, too.  All of us girls stood outside in the parking lot after we finished our meal (which by the way, was the first time I could eat without crying), and we talked for another hour.  Just like old times, we had so much to say.  We have lots of catching up to do. We went for ice cream afterwards, and as my four year old granddaughter was licking her ice cream cone she walked over to a young couple sitting there and she said, “My big nana is in Heaven and she is an angel now.”  She is proud of her big nana, and to her, she is happy she's an angel.  She, and my wonderful family and friends are helping me get through this.  I didn't think I could go on, but somehow, some way, I am finding the strength to live.   

By the way, I will continue this blog.  Our journey is not over, so please check back from time to time.