3 years later

Since we buried my mother on my birthday, I find myself very melancholy when my birthday roles around. I have learned to let people celebrate me so there is a festive air surrounding the date and yet ... I also feel the need to pull away and just think and feel. Some people might think that having those two days tied together would be so unfair. But I don't. It is bittersweet in many ways but so is getting older!

Life is finally starting to make more sense in your 50's but your body just can't do everything it used to. I've accepted some limitations when it comes to sleeping on the floor or pulling an all nighter. I really pay for that stuff now!

In truth, however, my birthday has always been tied to my mother whether I realized it or not. That is the day she gave birth to me. After the funeral my Aunt, my mother's sister, said to me that my birthday was one of the happiest days of my mother's life. I can believe that knowing what I know about her life at that time. She was in a hard space with a lot of unknowns and a pocket full of rejection from people created to love her.

So God gave her me.

Taking time to meditate on that on my birthday is a bittersweet gift that makes me smile and cry at the same time. It causes me to lift my eyes to God and say thank you while sitting in awe at the orchestration of my life. I weep because I miss her. I smile when I remember her as my softball coach. I long to see her again in heaven as she was intended and maybe for the first time meet the woman God created to be my mother before she was ravaged by the world. I wish I could just feel the warmth of her skin again. That's all we had left at the end after the disease had run its course. Just the warmth of her skin. I took that for granted my whole life and only held the gift for a moment right at the very end.

I miss you mom.

You would be so proud of your grandkids! They are truly amazing people. They would have brought you so much joy. A part of me wants to believe that you can see them through the veil. That somehow you are still showing their pictures to everyone in heaven on a regular basis. I know you would because you did it all the time down here.

But I think you would be proud of me too. I have fought for my marriage and stood up for what was right even when most people turned away from me for what was easy. I have been an advocate for the oppressed while becoming a bringer of peace in as much as it has depended upon me. I have sought humility and forgiveness for the ways I have failed my children. Above all I have run hard after my God believing that He would heal our families wounds. We aren't done yet, but we are moving in the right direction.

I still have a birthday card you sent me many years ago that was huge and sang to you when you opened it. So over the top! But just like you! It makes me smile now, or perhaps smirk and roll my eyes a bit. Either way I'm glad I have it. Funny what stays with us in the end.

Wish you were here.

Love

Andee

Mother's Day 2020

She's been gone for 2.5 years now and yet . . .

How does that happen? How does someone never die even after they die? I was starting to feel sad a few days before Mother's Day and didn't even realize it was related to missing my mother. I spoke to someone the other day whose mother has been gone for many years and yet clearly she is alive in their heart and even influencing their life still.

This is the blessing and curse of being a mother I suppose.

We have so much influence and yet we can feel so powerless at the same time. It is a role full of paradox. Our children need us desperately and yet they push us away in order to become themselves. We can be quickly blamed for a myriad of things and then years later be thanked for the exact same things.

Who would want to be a mother?

Well, my mother did and I am glad she did. In the 60's there were ways to end a pregnancy even though it was not legal yet. I was not a planned pregnancy and my presence forced a lot of people to make some decisions. But my mother never treated me that way. She never spoke a word about me being an unwanted pregnancy. In fact she had me baptized in the Catholic church even after they wouldn't let her get married in the church because she was pregnant prior to getting married. That is a tremendous act of humility on my mother's part and from what I can tell, she may have been all alone when she did it too.

That is a gift she gave me when she was 19 years old that I have only come to appreciate now as a 53 year old woman.

Who would want to be a mother?

In the past year I have begun to explore my own Catholic journey. It is not something that was ever on my "to do" list until God put it on my "get this done" list. So now the humble act of my mother 53 years ago is a gift to me today even though she has been gone for 2.5 years. How did God do that?

That might be why people become mothers.

A mother never dies and they can bless you even from the other side. It's a really hard job though. A single day of celebration seems hardly fitting for all that a mother does. But as a mother myself, I know I am not in it for the praise. I am in love. I am in love with my children and the God who made them. I am also thankful for my husband for being on the ride with me and I love him too!

So thank you mom. I am a good mom and you get some credit for that. Thank you for gifts I am still discovering. May I offer my children the same after my days on this earth are spent.

Miss you,

Andee

And then the end came . . .

It is striking to me that my last post was over a year ago.

This is the first time I have found the words to write again about my mother. She died last September and I knew when I wrote this, a new reality would sink into the deeper places of my soul. So as I expected, I cry while I write today.

We buried my mother on my birthday. She was 71 as I turned 52.

The end was so hard.

You've said your goodbyes and yet you struggle to let go. "Should I be there at the end? She is 6 hours away and I need to live my life. I have 3 kids still at home and I've spent the last 8 years traveling back and forth never knowing when it would be the last time. I have already missed so much."

"What is the "right" thing to do?"

The question is the problem.

From the very beginning there simply was no "right" thing to do. This entire journey was a half ass attempt to love a dying woman while life just kept moving forward. Children grew up while mom slowly died. Marriage and money got hard while mom slowly died. Relationships with family went sideways while mom slowly died. Who in the world could tell you what was "right" at any time?

The viewing the night before the funeral, almost crushed my brother and I. We had to console people we knew had been just terrible to my mother. Why do people come to offer condolences to the dead when they treated them like garbage while they were alive? We almost lost it a few times.

But the funeral was so kind. Thankfully God had asked me to write my mother's eulogy a year before her death. For several months, I had a birthday trip planned with some friends a few days before my birthday. It was a sweet gift to me to just pull out those words in the Smoky Mountains and dust them off rather than sit down and write them in the moment. On the day of the funeral I spoke and my family sang "It is Well" through our tears. All my kids were present which was deeply kind to them, me and my father and brother. At the graveside, I sang "Amazing Grace". All 4 verses and with a key change!

The surprising truth was that I felt great!! I felt like I had been unleashed and that I had gotten my life back! Yes, I was sad that my mother was dead, but then again, not really! She was with Jesus!! She was no longer in pain. She was in a new resurrected body and could finally see and experience the love that God had always wanted her to know.

She went home.

I was so happy for her and I felt deeply relieved. Even now sometimes when I am worshipping, I see my mother and we are both brimming with the expectation of being in eternity together! I will meet who God intended her to be for the first time in heaven. I will see her as she was intended and not as the world mangled her. I am so excited that I will know my actual mother in glory!

But I know now my mother loved me. She was just a woman on fire most of her life and her ability to love was deeply hindered. I saw beautiful glimpses of that love throughout my life, but maybe mainly during her Alzheimer's.

How did God do that?

That is what He does. He creates beauty from ashes. He is the Creator and Redeemer. He creates our beauty and when we smash it or it is smashed, He redeems it. All simply because He loves us and He is good.

However, grieving is a process, so the story will continue.

We all need time when death interrupts life.

There is still much to tell.

Another Mother's Day

This has become a pretty difficult day on the calendar for me. What do you do when your mother is alive and yet there is no way to connect with her? Do you celebrate? Do you mourn? As usual the answer is both.

Today I found myself missing even my grandma who passed away over 25 years ago. It amazes me how we carry people with us.

But what am I missing exactly?

Both my mother and grandmother were very capable women. They both had strong personalities and became the bread winners in their families. Neither of them was very good at nurturing. They got stuff done. But even in the midst of their doing, I felt seen from time to time.

My mother knew my favorite pie was rhubarb. She would make me a small personal pie on my birthday each year that wasn't contaminated with strawberries. The best part was that I didn't have to share it with anyone. She knew me well enough to know how special that was to me and I felt seen.

My grandmother made clothes every Christmas for the grand kids and she knew my arms were just a bit longer than and my shoulders a bit broader than her patterns, so she altered them. They were the best fitting shirts I ever wore and I felt seen.

As a mother myself, I work very hard to make sure my children feel seen. I am not always successful. I've even forgotten to pick them up from time to time after an event. (I do have 4 kids!) But I know the details of their lives from personality likes and dislikes, to learning styles, to what they order at Steak and Shake. I am hopeful they will look back and know they were seen in a myriad of ways by their mother.

So today I miss being seen by those two women. But I can also be thankful for the small graces of being seen amidst the difficulties of our lives growing up. We all have trouble getting past our own sin in order to love others well.

I still love and look for rhubarb pie when I go to a restaurant. It's hard to find.

I deeply long for the day I can afford a tailor to alter my clothes they way grandma did.

Thankfully God has surrounded me with Godly women who mother me well day in and day out. I am blessed.

But I miss my mom and grandma. So today I will celebrate and mourn the mother's in my life.

small gifts

After reading my Dec post, I see that I blogged about the same thing in Feb. Clearly I needed to process that event twice in order to move on. So be it.

Last week my oldest daughter and I traveled home for a funeral in the family. My dad's oldest brother passed away. It was a somber event and yet I saw Jesus in many of my relatives and I had no idea anyone knew Him. It was so encouraging and sweet for me. What a gift.

But this time we needed to stay in a hotel. Dad prepared the house, but we just couldn't do it. It is so hard to be in the house now.

My daughter leaves for China soon and it was a chance for her to say good bye again to grandma. Before we left town we stopped by the house to see mom.

Please understand there is so little left now. No eye contact, no sense of the room, and consistent choking on her own saliva. It is so hard. But when my daughter sat next to her my mom started moving. She found my daughter's hand, pulled it to her heart and would not let it go.

We were undone.

I am undone right now just writing it.

One day when my daughter is older we will be able to process it all, but for now we are simply undone.

She is in there. She knows more than we understand.

She is still a gift to us, so we will enjoy what we can and remain faithful and thankful for the time we have left.

Thank you Jesus for small gifts and powerful memories of love that will never fade.

Amen.

How can this be?

Recently both my father and brother ended up in the hospital on the same day with heart related issues. Needless to say I dropped things and headed home for 48 hours. My father is the primary care giver. Who stays with my mom when he goes into the hospital? Our gracious and very kind care provider stayed the first night. She has been an angel to us and we are very thankful for her. But it gets very difficult at the end.

Now the focus is moving, feeding and cleaning.

My mother actually seems to be shriveling up as her muscles atrophy and her hands curl in. She aspirates quit often because she can barely remember to swallow now. She lost her days and nights awhile ago and though they maintain a clear routine for her, she is either lying in her bed or propped up on the couch. Sleep comes when it wants.

That is all there is now.

She has to have all the food pureed and thickened and spoon fed. And then there is the other end. In the one night I spent with her while dad was in the hospital, I got a peek into their world and thought "How can this be?" The body is on auto pilot with intake and output. The smell is crippling and yet it was a privilege to clean her up and change her linens. But my body aches for her release from this world.

So many days you look to the heavens and say "Why Jesus?" "Where are you and why let this go on?" We simply have no answers now. Perhaps someday we will. But not now.

So we wait and we remain faithful and we plan for all the scenarios that are ever changing. What if Dad dies first? How do we handle the house and the debt and what happens to mom? These seem like endless conversations. They drain the soul.

So we wait and we remain faithful while we watch the menagerie of birds in my parent's back yard. It is actually amazingly beautiful! 5o turkeys, a dozen squirrels, nut-hatchers, yellow finches, cardinals, red headed woodpeckers, black capped chickadees, and the list goes on.

So much life swirling around so much death.

Come Lord Jesus come.

Finding life in the midst of death

Christmas is upon us. In November my mother turned 71 and I asked my Dad to tell her Happy Birthday for me. What else is there now? There is no awareness of anything. Even if she looks at you, she looks through you. I never really understood the power of the eyes to communicate such an array of emotion but when someone looks through you it is heart breaking. So is everything about our current situation.

I recently went home because my father and brother both had heart attacks on the same day. Dad over exerted himself in the snow and my brother's drinking is destroying him from the inside out. But its more than that. The sadness of our seemingly never ending situation has simply taken an immense toll on all of us. Each of us is suffering in a way the others don't fully understand. My father has his own health issues, but the money is starting to run out again too. Each milestone has to be faced with hard decisions. Mom can't move anymore. She is completely dead weight and this takes a huge toll on anyone offering her care. We are very close to the bed ridden stage which becomes an endless chase after bed sores. Our caregiver did such a great job in that area, but one hospital visit and Mom came home with two large sores that just won't heal. It is all so hard to watch and understand Jesus.

During my time at home, I stayed overnight with my Mom while the boys were both in the hospital. She makes no sounds. Her days and nights are completely lost. But my Dad has one request; that she not spend the night in her mess. Food goes in and food goes out now. That's it. She can't even feed herself and she can choke on her own spit at any time. So she is fed with a syringe and everything is pudding like. So when the Lord awoke me in the middle of night I cleaned her mess. I also almost vomited and I also received the blessing of caring for a woman who spent so much of her life trying to care for me. I did it for only one night. My respect for my father and our caregiver is enormous. Very few people are willing to serve at this level even when they are being paid. Thank you.

So how do we find life while living under a shroud of death? We keep living. We cry out to Jesus and accept what He gives us as for our good. There is no understanding now. Perhaps one day there will be but maybe not. We are not trying to put a happy face on it. We are simply asking Jesus to carry us through the valley of the shadow of death. We live by faith not by sight.

This is where my heart is broken for my brother. He does not know God's goodness. He is being crushed under the weight of the shame, guilt and sadness of this horrific situation. I went home to see him in the hospital. I knew my Dad would bounce back and just needed the break. But I can't imagine doing this without Jesus. My brother is constantly in my prayers now a days. I've also encouraged my Dad to not lean on him for help. I've spoken about it before, but you don't just leave the past in a separate space when the end is near. Sometimes, it's all you can think about and it cripples you in the present. I have peace with the past. My brother does not and I don't know how anyone does without Jesus.

We all have limitations. I have 4 kids at home and my daughter was really beat up by her time in Japan. I have been needed at home this fall. I must trust God in a different way. But I can see his mercies in the midst of the tragedy. My dog traveled with me. She is a wonderful companion on my trips. I was able to do several tasks for my Dad that will keep him safer. The birds and moon were simply beautiful in the snowy landscape. These are the gifts of Jesus. They are new every morning and they care for my soul and offer life in midst of death. Lord Jesus teach us all to see you and trust you with our pain.

Come Lord Jesus Come. Please take my mother home soon.