Seeing the counselor every week still. I Asked this week, “Am I supposed to feel worse when I leave here then when I came in?”
Maybe sitting with a professional for an hour makes me think I’m supposed to open up and tell all…all thoughts, issues, problems, concerns, etc., etc.
If this pattern continues, I’ll never stop!

I’m starting to realize that he doesn’t have all the answers. Not that I thought he would, but would’ve been nice for a few answers.

He says, “This is called complicated grief.” It’s complicated alright.

Working through it. Finding my faith again. I don’t know how that looks….my faith.
I do know that I need a relationship with God. I just don’t know what it will look like after all this grief. I thought I wanted the same relationship I had before…
But maybe, just maybe, it can be better.

It’s complicated.

I’ve decided to cross stitch a quilt for my newest grand child, Hannah. I’m not a sewer, not a cross stitcher, not a very crafty person…so why did I take on this daunting task? Well, mom made quilts for Connor and Blake and I didn’t want Hannah to miss out.
So now I sit every night with this quilt in my lap, reading glasses low on my nose, and try to finish the task before she arrives.
The quilt will have 26 letters of the alphabet and various animals adorning it when finished. Currently it is a sea of light blue X’s.
If my calculations are correct, at the rate I’m moving I’ll have to work on this thing every day until due date for a minimum of two hours in order to complete it on time. That’s IF Hannah doesn’t decide to come early.
I’m committed. I have to be.
One problem….I keep losing my needle. How can I keep dropping it? Then finding it is like looking for a needle in a……well you get it.
So last night (after losing the needle in my bed) I decided to just quit for the night. I never found the needle. It obviously isn’t in my bed, as evidenced by a good nights sleep.
Somehow feel like there’s a lesson in this. Hope to find it…along with that needle.

Today is February 3rd, 2013. Aimie’s birthday. And the day when I will finally tell the story that I need so desperately to tell.

It was Mother’s Day 2012.
After mom was moved to the ICU, the family was moved to the waiting room. We gathered. Dad, Rusty, Me, Bob, Stan, Teresa, Paula, Nikki, Aimie, Nick, Katie, Jordan. There was a radio, we turned on christian music and we sang. We paced the hall. We watched nurses and doctors running in and out of her room. We waited. Pastoral care members came to see us, we talked to them and told them that we had faith, we told them about mom. We waited. Doctors came to see us and tell us how sick she was, did we hear? We prayed, paced, sang, waited. It seems like we were in that room forever. Why wouldn’t they let us see her?
There were songs that, to this day if I hear them, I’m transported back into that waiting room hearing them again. Was God talking to us? It seemed that every song had a message specifically for that night.

“It’s the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all our scars are understood
When mercy takes it’s rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say “It’s over now”

I’m alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take this heart and breathe it back to life
I fall into your arms open wide
When The hurt and the healer collide”

She had collided with the healer alright, and I’m certain that she was choosing to go, to go into his arms. She’d told us many times during this final journey that she was ready and didn’t want to fight so hard to stay here. The fight that she endured five years ago with her last round of chemo/cancer had been her last. She wasn’t afraid to go, she had made her mind up that if her staying required another fight…she’d rather just go. She knew she would be in heaven, she knew we’d meet again. She’d left us all the life lessons and words of wisdom she had. She’d cooked for us, laughed with us, cried with us, and most importantly taught us. She taught us how to not sweat the little stuff, how to care for others, how to enjoy life, and how to accept ourselves.
And whether she knew it or not, she taught us how to die.

When we were finally allowed to go into the room and see her, they first warned us. The doctor explained how very sick she was, how they’d tried to revive her and that they’d placed her on life support. She was on a breathing machine, and being pumped full of so many drugs to keep her heart beating that she wasn’t really sustaining life on her own anymore. We numbly listened then walked slowly down the hall as a group…into her room. There she lay. Not mom, but mom. We all took turns kissing her, holding her hand, whispering into her ear, telling her how much we loved her….and crying.
As a group we walked back to the waiting room. What were we waiting for?

Doctors and pastoral care people (there were two now) came back. The doctor explained again how sick she was, and that the medicine they were using to keep her alive would actually hurt her other organs if she remained on them long term. Aimie explained to him that we’d seen miracles before. We’d seen Bob, Mom, Connor beat all medical odds and live after we were told they’d die. Aimie wanted this story to end as it had before. The doctor was fabulous, he told us that anything was possible. We asked if we could pray for him and he readily agreed. (not sure he knew what he was in for) Immediately about half the room stood up and approached him, we all laid our hands on his back, shoulders, arms and prayed, “God give this man wisdom. Give him the ability to do everything that he can to help mom and then you do the rest God. Amen”

Some time after that, after more praying, singing, pacing…the nurse and doctor came back in to tell us there was no change. We asked if we could go in again and see her. The group moved down the hall again, we went in to see mom/not mom again. We stood and watched the machine blow air into her body and listened to the beeps and whirs and mechanical sounds of the machines keeping her alive. I don’t know how, but we wound up outside her room, gathered around the doctor who was asking us if we wanted to keep her on the machines….dad cried, but said “no, she wouldn’t want this.” We each agreed, except Aimie. “NO! Don’t give up! We can’t give up.”
“Aimie, if God is going to heal her, He can do it without machines.” that’s the best I had. It worked. Though she didn’t seem ready to test it.
“Can we be in the room with her when you turn them off?”
Yes, we could.
We went back in, and this time circled around the bed. We held her hands, we touched her, we cried. The beeping was slowing down, her heart rate was slowing…the machines were turned off, it was getting quieter.
And then, Aimie started to sing. As off-key as you can imagine, we all joined in between sobs.

“Bless The Lord Oh my soul,
Oh oh oh my soul.
Worship His Holy Name.
Sing like never before,
Oh my soul.
Worship His Holy Name.”

Over and over and over again…until the beeping had stopped and the machines were completely silent. Nothing left to hear in the room, but 12 members of a broken family pouring their hearts out to their God, singing our mom, wife, grandma home. Singing like never before. Hoping that she somehow knew…that this was somehow conveying to her that we were going to worship God no matter what, we would trust Him even now.
We sang praise to the God who was taking her from us, we sang praise to the one who she was going to see. I hope she knew, I hope she heard. I hope she was proud of the legacy, the lessons, the strength that she had instilled into the 12 in that room. I hope we can carry on in that same manner. Lessons learned, praising God. No matter what.

Bob’s mom had a stroke last week. Stayed for 4 days in the same ICU where mom died. It was a rough week…on many levels.
Marge is miraculously recovered from her stroke with minimal residual weakness. They happened to refer her to a hematologist to determine why the she had critically low Red Blood Cells though. So she flew home to Ohio and will start down the path to discovering….what? Why she’s not making blood? Why she’s apparently losing blood – but not bleeding? God help her.

So going into the ICU again, riding up the elevator, walking through the waiting room…all familiar. But that’s not my memory of mom. That place, that physical location holds a very strong memory for me, but not the memory of my mom. The memory of her leaving is not the same as the memory of HER. Make sense? But the memory of her leaving, which is really quite amazing, rushed back to me last week.

When mom was admitted to the ICU, she was very sick. As a matter of fact, she never regained consciousness once moved to the ICU. I don’t know how long she was there, time was a blur. But I do know from reading the hospital bills later, she was not even in the hospital for 24 hours…from the time of the ER admission the night before, to the night when she left us…less than 24 hours.

I think we brought her to the ER at 2am, Sunday. Mother’s Day. She was gone by 11pm that evening.
But the way she left, the way we released her….that’s the story I want to tell.

next post.

So I’ve started counseling. Does it help? I don’t know yet. Maybe some of the things the counselor has said to me are evident…I mean do i have to pay for someone to tell me what I already know?
Is it bad to say… ” well screw you!” To your counselor?
Maybe I should continue for a bit.

Maybe (just maybe) a counselor is just for you to express out loud what you already know, and have been hiding….hiding from who? Yourself?

Stay tuned, this may be a bumpy ride.

When mom first left us i felt it was important to write about her last 24hours. I’ve looked back at what I’ve written so far, I know where I am in the story….it’s hard to finish because it keeps taking me back to the day when my world turned upside down. But something is also compelling me to finish it. I want to write it, to share it, so that you can all see how awesome it was. Because in all the pain, there was also beauty. I just have to get through my pain to share that beauty.
It’s coming. I will finish the story.
I will share how that woman who showed us so much about life, also taught us how to die.

It’s been awhile since I’ve cried…I’m avoiding the tears. But today, for some reason, I cried. A few times. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came on the radio…I cried.
I told someone at work that I was trying to decorate the office to be festive….I cried.
I talked to Stan on the way to work about his baby, and Katie’s baby…I cried.
It just comes out of nowhere. Or it’s Christmas and I want my mom.
Dad told me that he bought some Christmas cards to send to a few relatives….said he couldn’t send them to everyone mom did, because he just couldn’t—–that made me wonder, “how is he signing the cards? And how is he doing this?!?”
Then his voice cracked a little….and I cried.
Crying every once in awhile is okay…I just need to remember to NOT cry sometimes too. 🙂

God wants us to be thankful, because He really is worthy of our thanks, and I think we are happier when we are thankful.  But sometimes just being thankful is hard….is a sacrifice.
I am thankful for my daughters. They have become kind, compassionate, intelligent, funny, dedicated, faith filled women.  I’m thankful for my family that gathered together at Katie & Jordan’s for dinner this year to try a new tradition.  I’m thankful for Ashley who slept with me every night so I wouldn’t be alone.  I’m thankful for my dad….who is going the distance.  These things don’t feel sacrificial, because it its easy to be thankful for good things.
Bob spent the Thanksgiving holiday in the hospital.  I am thankful that Rusty spent Thanksgiving day with him so that I could cook.  I am thankful for good nurses who cared for him.  I’m thankful that he only spent 4 days there.  Hard to be thankful for these, but No matter how bad it looks, there’s always something deserving of my thanks.

It’s been six months since mom left us; we have had many “firsts” without her. First birthdays, first anniversaries, first Father’s Day…now we enter the first holidays.
I will work very hard on staying Thankful during this season. I will find things to be thankful for, and concentrate on those things. Will there be pain? yes. Will there be sorrow? yes. Will there be lots of tears? yes, as a matter of fact Stan and I cried together this morning just thinking about the week ahead. BUT, we will get through this, all of us together. And for that I am thankful.
Baby steps.

After the funeral there were so many flowers. Most of them were brought to my house, I hated feeling like I was living in a funeral home…but I didn’t want them anywhere else.
Most of the guests had gone home, except Beth (Paula’s dearest friend, who is family). She helped us press the flowers that we wanted to keep. We spent an entire day doing so. I hated it. Those flowers that i didn’t want to see every morning when i came down the stairs…I also didn’t want anyone to touch. But touch them we did, press them we did.

Last weekend Paula, Aimie, Katie and I decided to start framing some of the pressed flowers. It was time. We spent almost an entire day, crying and laughing and arranging flowers. We are going to send one to each of mom’s kids, and one to Aunt Char (mom’s sister).

I’m not sure how I feel about dried flowers. Not something that I’d usually choose to decorate with…but these are memories. An expression of the love that was poured out to us. Somehow, reminding us of mom. Not like the living flowers that mom loved so much, different. The beautiful, lush flowers that surrounded us at the funeral are different now, they will not come back…but we will preserve the memory of them in a new way.

She’s not coming back either. We will have to learn to be okay with the memories. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp at times. But it’s going to be okay. We are going to be okay. There will continue to be sad days, but there will also be happy days. Things will not be the same, ever. But that’s something we will adjust to as well.