Mother's Day

Mother's Day is bittersweet this year. Mother's Day is a day specifically set aside to honor our Mothers, but this year, mine is not here. Yesterday marked 9 months since she died, and today is Mother's Day. So kind of an intense weekend. I never thought that last year's Mother's Day would be the last one that I would get to spend with my Mom. That being said, there are other women in my life who have become mother figures over the years, and I have friends who are mothers, and I have my Grandma, who has always been here. So today I honor all the mothers I know, but today I also have to find a different way to honor and remember mine. Happy Mothers Day.

Easter 2020

Easter is very different for me this year. In more ways than one. The most significant is that my Mom is not with us this year. This past Thursday was the 9th of April. It was Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, known as the last night in the life of Jesus. Thursday also marked 8 months since my Mom died, and it marked two years since she was diagnosed with cancer. Easter is weird this year because of social distancing, and Church has been cancelled until further notice, so the usual rituals that I have come to associate with Lent, and Holy Week, and Easter, were not done in the same way this year. Just kind of...jarring. I kept forgetting that Friday was Good Friday, or the day that Jesus died. Yesterday my sister and I colored Easter eggs, because that was one of my Mom's favorite things to do, and it was good to do, I'm glad that we did it, but it also wasn't quite the same. Today is Easter Sunday. A day that is usually filled with joy and celebration and liveliness in the Church. The church service is usually upbeat, there is usually an Easter Breakfast before church...but this year that won't be happening, but it will still be Easter. My Grandma and sister and I will have an Easter dinner, and we will mark it off on the list of holidays and other things that have been happening in this First Year. So yeah. Easter is weird this year. For a lot of reasons. One thing, though, that I can take comfort in, is that this year my Mom gets to spend Easter with Jesus, which, while it's really sad for us, it's really cool for her. So Happy Easter everyone, stay safe and healthy, and let your loved ones know that you love them. Hallelujah! 

Processing

 

   I haven't really taken time to process the events of the last couple of years. So much has happened, and I just haven't taken the time to sort through it all. I do my best processing in writing, though, so if you're up for a bit of a lengthy read about my feelings about things, then here goes.

  It all started in April of 2018 when I was living in Manchester, England, and I found out that my Mom had been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a rare and very aggressive kind of cancer. When she first met with her oncologist, in May of 2018, he told her that without treatment she would have about 3 to 6 months, and if she did treatments she would have 12 to 16 months. I didn't know that at the time, because there were still 3 1/2 months before I was supposed to come home from England, and my Mom didn't want me to come home early. There was a good support system in place and everything, but still, if I had known....I probably would have come home earlier.


  I got home in July of 2018, and it all became....real. I went back to work at McDonald's, where I still work, and in September my Mom and I moved into our own apartment. I had no idea what I was doing. Watching my Mom battle cancer....it was probably the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life. It seemed that every time she had an appointment with her oncologist, the cancer had disappeared from one place, but shown up someplace else....it was in so many places....at the end I kind of stopped keeping track of all the places it was. It was just too much. And at every appointment, her oncologist never made promises that she was going to go into remission, or be cured or anything. He always emphasized the fact that he was just trying to keep her alive as long as possible. It was a hard line to walk, because while I did always pray for a miracle that she would beat it, and she was so determined to beat it, she wouldn't even discuss things with me, such as what to do in the event of her death. I also knew that it was very likely that she wouldn't beat it, given the type of cancer and the nature of it, and I was always afraid of coming home after work or wherever I had been, and finding her dead. That's not how it ended up happening in the end, but I don't know how I would have handled it if that was how it happened.

  No matter how much I had prepared for the inevitable, though, when it came...I wasn't ready for it at all. My Mom was in a lot of pain at the end. She tried to hide it, she didn't want anyone to know, but she was. Her legs and feet were swelling, and fluid was coming out of her feet, and we had to change her bandages a lot. She wouldn't let us bring in home health or anything, so my Grandma and I were doing it mostly by ourselves. She had to use a walker to help her walk, and a wheelchair sometimes, and eating and drinking was difficult. Nothing tasted good to her. I had to help her with a lot of things, sometimes in the middle of the night, and while I didn't mind doing it, it was....just a lot sometimes. On Sunday August 4th I came home from work, it was early in the afternoon, and my Grandma had just changed my Mom's bandages and gotten her legs propped up and stuff. Grandma was going to a play later. A couple hours before I went to bed, I was trying to help my mom get comfortable in her chair, and she was really agitated, and she wanted to get up, but she couldn't pull herself up because she was too weak, and I couldn't help her get up. So we called my Grandma on her cell phone, and she left the play and came over to help. Grandma told me to call the ambulance, so I did, and they came, and took her to the hospital. My Grandma went with my Mom to the hospital, and I stayed home, because I had to work early the next morning. At about 11:00 that night, my Grandma called me. I had been sleeping, and Grandma told me that my Mom's kidneys were failing, and that they were going to take her to Kalispell, by helicopter. The helicopter left about midnight, I went to work at 6 the next morning, and my Grandma came into work at about 7 and was going over to Kalispell. 

  My sister and I got off work at the same time that day, so we went to my place, and called my Grandma, who said that we should come over to Kalispell, that the hospice director wanted to meet with us the next day, if possible. So a family friend of ours, Carol, drove my sister and I over to Kalispell, one of my uncles was already there, the other uncle was on his way, and my Aunt and one of my cousins were on their way. That was Monday. Tuesday morning the family members that were present met with the hospice doctor, Dr. Carlburg, who was wonderful, and the decision was made to put my Mom on hospice.

  The next few days are kind of a blur, filled out some paperwork, moved Mom to the hospice part of the hospital, a lot of visitors coming and going. The hardest part of all of that, though, was the waiting. I knew what was going to happen, I wanted my Mom to be out of pain, I didn't want her to suffer anymore, and just waiting for it to happen...was hard. Not knowing if it was going to be this moment. Or this hour. Or this day. It was hard. I ended up leaving and coming back home on Thursday, figured I should work before I had to take a significant amount of time off. My sister had come home earlier in the week, and some of our family friends were checking in on her. We had made arrangements, when my sister decided to go home, that if my Mom passed, we would call Carol first, and ask her to go be with my sister, while we told her the news. We didn't want her to be alone when that happened. I went home on Thursday, and nothing happened on Thursday night, so I went to work on Friday morning, and had told my Grandma to call me at work if anything happened, because I never have my cell phone on me at work. So of course every time the phone rang at work I was distracted. It was hard to keep it together that day.

  I went home after work, and puttered around for a few hours, and my sister and Carol had gone to dinner, then they stopped by my apartment, for a few minutes, and then left. A little while later, I was closing the curtains, getting ready to go to bed, since I had to be at work early the next day, and Carol's car was outside, and my sister and her were getting out of it. Carol was walking ahead of my sister, and I met her in the yard, and she said, "We were almost back to your Grandma's house, and I got a text from your Grandma that said, 'Go back to Jasmine's.'" And I knew. We called Grandma, and Mom had passed away about 10 minutes before. So I made arrangements for Jessica and I with work, and the rest is kind of a blur of funeral preparations and such.

  We asked a retired pastor, Pastor Les Nelson, to officiate at the funeral, because he knew Mom, and we wanted someone who knew Mom to do the funeral. That was important. Everything went pretty smoothly. I lived in the apartment that my Mom and I had lived in together for a few weeks by myself. If I could have afforded the rent by myself, I would have kept living there. It was hard though, I kept expecting her to walk through the door at any time. I still do. There have been other significant losses in my life over the past year as well, and it has been so hard. I also deal with depression, and other things, and right now it's winter, which is always hard, and the holiday season was hard, and my birthday.

It's been a little over 5 months since we lost my Mom, and I am learning how to navigate that, but sometimes it's hard. And that's okay. I'm trying to just be okay with how I happen to be feeling at any given moment. So there it is. Processing. Feelings are messy sometimes, but it is what it is.

2019

A lot changed in 2019. At this time last year, I never would have imagined going into the next decade without my Mom. I lost quite a few people this year who were important to me, and it has been really hard. I've also spent the year trying to work through a lot of stuff. I went to Arizona in November and while I was there I got a tattoo. I am living totally on my own for the first time in my life. I'm trying to figure out how to live my life on my own terms, doing what I want to do instead of what other people want me to do, or what other people think that I should be doing. I have no idea what the next year, or the next decade, is going to bring, but I'm looking forward to it.

I Was Going to Write this for Thanksgiving.

So, Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I was going to write this yesterday, but then I didn't. Yesterday was kind of weird. It was already going to be a weird Thanksgiving, without my Mom, but my sister and I flew to Albuquerque yesterday, and then I flew to Phoenix today, and am now currently writing this from Scottsdale, Arizona. My Grandma got on the train this morning and went to the East Side of Montana. So yesterday, with all of us going our separate ways, and without my Mom, it felt weird. That's going to be the normal for a while. I've accepted that. However, I do have things that I am thankful for this year. I am thankful for my family and friends who have been here for me since my Mom died and even before then. I am thankful for my cousin, Kori, who let me escape my normal life for a few days and come spend some time here with her in Arizona. I'm thankful for beautiful sunsets and sunrises. I am thankful.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is my Mom's birthday. She would have been 56 years old. Went out to dinner last night with a close group of family friends to acknowledge my Mom's birthday. She was the one that started that tradition, so it was only right to honor it. I didn't know that her birthday last year would be the last one that she would spend here with us. Just goes to show that you can't take anything for granted. My Grandpa, her father, was also born on this day. I take comfort in knowing that today they get to celebrate their birthdays together, for the first time in 23 years. I do also hope that they include Todd Berget in their celebrations, because his birthday was yesterday, and I know that his family was feeling the same way that I am feeling today. Mrs. Graham will probably help them celebrate as well...of course this is all speculation. I actually don't know how things work in heaven...although I do wish that I did know. Oh well, the unknown makes things interesting. So happy birthday to my Mom, and to my Grandpa, and a happy belated birthday to Mr. Berget....and my condolences to the Graham family. My family knows what you are going through, and it's rough. Another significant day for us to get through. But we will get through. November 26th, 1963, she came into the world. November 26th, 2019, she gets to celebrate her birthday in Heaven, which, sad as it is for us, is probably really cool for her.

Three Months

Time is interesting. It has a way of going by extremely slowly and extremely fast, at the same time. On the 9th of every month...it's just a little bit harder than it already is. Today marks three months since my Mom died. A lot of things have happened. I'm getting ready to move into my own apartment. I'm working. Everyone else is doing there thing. But part of me still expects my Mom to walk in at any moment. Sometimes things happen, and I'm like, "Oh, I have to tell my Mom about this." Except that I can't. It's a journey. It is what it is.