Our Mother

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted on here. I didn't mean to leave it for so long but my priority in my life above everything else since the last post of June 8 was my mother.

My brother and I took her to the ER on the night of April 28. We sat up all night with her watching the doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and others try to get her to the point that she could go to ICU. Finally we did and she stayed there about a week. Then they put her in a regular room on the floor. From that point on, she was in and out of a nursing home, hospitalized three times, and we were almost at a loss as to what to do next. We met with a Hospice nurse to see what they had to offer, talked to Mama and just respected her wishes to go home.

At home, she had round the clock home health care and Hospice nurses and other staff services plus all we could do for her. Round the clock care was very expensive and didn't know for sure what we would do when the money ran out (which wouldn't last but just a few months), but were determined to let her stay at home as long as we could.

We got to the point that we were just living day to day with this and, sometimes, minute to minute. Many days, I didn't even take a bath and was more concerned about my mother getting a bath than me. My complete focus was on my mother from the time I woke up until I went to bed at night. Make-up, jewelry, nice clothing, etc. went out the window. I did just try to stay clean with clean clothes, brushed my teeth but a lot of times only took a bath and washed my hair every other day, being more concerned about her bath and clean hair.

At the end, I spent the night with her in the hospital right before she came home and then on her couch at her house. We were with her constantly as much as we could be because she wanted her family with her.

She died on Thursday night sometime between 10 and 11 pm CST on June 11 but they put her death date as officially on Friday, June 12 because of documentation, flushing drugs, etc. Her funeral service was on Monday, June 15 at 3:00 pm CST with visitation right before the service from 1:30 until 3:00. There was a huge crowd that showed up and her service, I thought, was just perfect in every way, just as she would have wanted.

Now we have the task ahead of going through all her things in her house and deciding who keeps what, etc., then clean it all up, roof the house, and get it ready for sale.

This has been an experience for me that I've never had before in this way and I wanted to document it for my 60th year blog but realize I could almost write a book about all that went on with her for the past six or seven months or even the last six days that she lived or the last five years that she lived here close to us.

She was a wonderful mother. Yesterday, the 19th, was her birthday and she would have been 82 years old. I learned so much from her and probably still have much more to learn from the example of her life. In one way, I will miss her terribly and in another, I will always have her close. I loved her so much and still do.