When I was a little girl, I had this perfect little world. Mother, father, sister... house, puppy, etc. I never really had true worries.
Of course, I would get worried about a test that I had coming up or cry over some boy who didn't like me back... but I never really had something that I had to learn to deal with.
Then the other shoe dropped.
First, it was coming home to bags packed up by the door... my dad had decided "things just weren't working out." Of course, he said "this is only temporary"... but it wasn't.
At the time, my sister had already left for college, so it was my mother and I who were left to deal with the tornado of life that had just ripped through everything we had known as normal. Nothing was normal after that day.
The silver lining of that black cloud became the time that my mother and I only had one another and became closer than we ever had been before... I wouldn't trade for those days for the world.
I have always been told (and believed) that God will only give you things He knows you can handle. I have come to find that this is not my favorite thing... but I suppose I should take it as a compliment. According to my life, it would seem that God has quite a bit of faith in my family and myself.
My faith has always been something dear to me throughout my entire life. I never knew how heavily I would be forced to lean on it... until the day I got the call from my sister.
"I've been trying to find you... I think I've called every 'Allstate' company in College Station... Mom's had a seisure and is in hospital." ... ... ... ... silence.
My whole world was turned upside-down in an instant. All of the sudden, I couldn't breathe and felt the floor fall out from underneath me.
I immediately burst into tears and had a wonderful boss who told me to "Go, and don't even worry about work... we'll be here when you get back." And so I did. They almost didn't let me leave immediately because they were so worried that I wasn't going to be okay to drive all the way to Houston.
Thinking back now, to that day 5 years ago... I never knew just how much those few words really would change my life. My normal. That word would never be the same to me again.
What I would give for my "normal" of high school...
Although the MRI showed that my mom had a tumor, the doctors thought it best that we wait and have the surgery on Monday. Those were some of the most terrifying and uncertain days of my life thus far.
However, through the Grace of God, the surgery was a success. And after chemotherapy and radiation, my mother was cancer-free. The next three years, I'd all but forgotten about the awful word that had wrecked our lives the horrible day.
And then the day came... November 2009, I get a phone call that Mom has had another seisure and John has taken her to the hospital. I was in College Station at the time, visiting a friend... Again, I couldn't breathe. Surely God would not let this happen to our family again. Hadn't He healed her 3 years ago?
MRI came out clear and we all breathed a sigh of relief... how close we were to another nightmare. Until February brought on another routine MRI... and there it was... another tumor. A horrible, ugly, spot on a brain scan set out to ruin our lives yet again. And so, another surgery was followed by more chemo and radiation.
I have always admired my mother's strength and positive demeanor, but the grace with which she endured every daily horror that is cancer was truly dumb-founding.
And so February was surgery number 2... Then came June. And just when we thought Mom was finally going to have a moment of peace and be able to continue healing... tumor number 3 is discovered. This time, it's too small for an operation. This was in a part of the brain which controls speech and cognition. Basically... if they were to operate, not only could she stand to lose her speech, but also her ability to even recognize us. That was more than we could chance.
They began new chemo and radiation... new drugs, new plans, new hopes. It seemed as though Mom was really going to beat the odds... We thought the tumor was shrinking and that the medicine could keep the side effects at bay. To our great disappointment, this would not last forever and my mother spent November 30-December 30 in Methodist Hospital. That was the last holiday season I would ever be able to spend with my mother.
Thankfully, my sister and her husband have been coming to visit over Thanksgiving for the past few years, so we were able to have a blessed and very special holiday before Mom was brought back to the hospital... it was the day after they went back to California.
Christmas, Mom, John, and myself were celebrating a transfer into a "rehabilitation" room. Up until that transfer, Mom had been having a seisure every 3-4 days; just when she would begin to get her speech back, she would have another seisure and it would take away her ability to talk all over again. It was so heartbreaking. I have never felt so helpless in my whole life.
Finally, December 30, Mom was released-- clad in her favorite snuggie that Emily and Jacob had gotten for her as a Christmas present. It must have been the best gift she received... from that moment on, I barely saw her not wearing it.
I was so grateful that my mother would be able to spend her time back in her own home now... I couldn't bare to see her all bruised and so uncomfortable in that awful hospital bed any longer.
Over the next few months, people from my mom's church brought meals and created a schedule to help with Mom while John and I had to work. I have never witnessed such an humbling outpouring of love.... There were meals brought every day, including snacks and even dessert. So much food that John would have to take left-overs for work because we were running out of space in the fridge.
We had a visitor every day... usually we had a few people come throughout the day. It was so wonderful to see Mom light up every time Ms. Toni or Ms. Pat would walk through the door. I've always knows that my mom meant the world to her friends, but to see the compassion and way they were able to laugh and talk with my mom for hours when she couldn't really speak anymore was just a wonder.
Over the months to follow, we witnessed Mom build up strength to be able to walk all the way to her bedroom and back to the living room with Andy's (her physical therapist) help... to us having to doing transfers from the couch to the wheel chair, to potty or bed, and back... Eventually, we began to force ourselves to come to terms with the fact that the woman who had been the very core of our world for so many years, will not be with us soon.
There is no way that I could ever even begin to coach someone through preparing to lose their mother. It was truly my biggest fear come true. If someone had ever asked me what would be the one thing that I truly could not live though, I would without hesitation say "If something ever happened to my mom."
Honestly, sometimes, when I realize that I have lived through my worst fear... I can barealy believe that I'm still alive.
Tuesday morning, June 14, 2011, around 2am, my mother went home to be in Heaven. I am grateful that we were all there and able to say our final goodbyes. And eventhough we were all grateful that she was no longer suffering.... I don't think any of us could really fathom the fact that Mom was no longer with us. Almost 8 months later, I still find it difficult to believe that I can't just pick up the phone and check in to see how she's doing sometimes. It's a hurt that I don't believe you can ever truly recover from... but you just have to force yourself to keep moving. Life won't wait for you to catch up.
I know that my life will never be the same as it was when my amazing mother was on Earth... I will never be able to call her at the end of a day-- good or bad-- just to hear her voice. Never will I be able to ask her how she prefers to cook a certain recipe. There will not be a "Mother of the Bride" at my wedding... and yet, I will survive. Somehow, I will find a way to hold onto every memory that I can possibly recall of her voice, how she smelled of Sun, Moon, and Stars... and then Brighton. How she loved Frank Sinatra... How, even when I was all grown up, she never minded me having a moment to just curl up with her on the couch and ask her advice about anything...
I have never met anyone like my mother, and I know I never will. But I will do everything in my power to live in a way that her memory will never leave my mind or the heart and mind of so many who loved her just like I did...
I miss her every day.
Of course, I would get worried about a test that I had coming up or cry over some boy who didn't like me back... but I never really had something that I had to learn to deal with.
Then the other shoe dropped.
First, it was coming home to bags packed up by the door... my dad had decided "things just weren't working out." Of course, he said "this is only temporary"... but it wasn't.
At the time, my sister had already left for college, so it was my mother and I who were left to deal with the tornado of life that had just ripped through everything we had known as normal. Nothing was normal after that day.
The silver lining of that black cloud became the time that my mother and I only had one another and became closer than we ever had been before... I wouldn't trade for those days for the world.
I have always been told (and believed) that God will only give you things He knows you can handle. I have come to find that this is not my favorite thing... but I suppose I should take it as a compliment. According to my life, it would seem that God has quite a bit of faith in my family and myself.
My faith has always been something dear to me throughout my entire life. I never knew how heavily I would be forced to lean on it... until the day I got the call from my sister.
"I've been trying to find you... I think I've called every 'Allstate' company in College Station... Mom's had a seisure and is in hospital." ... ... ... ... silence.
My whole world was turned upside-down in an instant. All of the sudden, I couldn't breathe and felt the floor fall out from underneath me.
I immediately burst into tears and had a wonderful boss who told me to "Go, and don't even worry about work... we'll be here when you get back." And so I did. They almost didn't let me leave immediately because they were so worried that I wasn't going to be okay to drive all the way to Houston.
Thinking back now, to that day 5 years ago... I never knew just how much those few words really would change my life. My normal. That word would never be the same to me again.
What I would give for my "normal" of high school...
Although the MRI showed that my mom had a tumor, the doctors thought it best that we wait and have the surgery on Monday. Those were some of the most terrifying and uncertain days of my life thus far.
However, through the Grace of God, the surgery was a success. And after chemotherapy and radiation, my mother was cancer-free. The next three years, I'd all but forgotten about the awful word that had wrecked our lives the horrible day.
And then the day came... November 2009, I get a phone call that Mom has had another seisure and John has taken her to the hospital. I was in College Station at the time, visiting a friend... Again, I couldn't breathe. Surely God would not let this happen to our family again. Hadn't He healed her 3 years ago?
MRI came out clear and we all breathed a sigh of relief... how close we were to another nightmare. Until February brought on another routine MRI... and there it was... another tumor. A horrible, ugly, spot on a brain scan set out to ruin our lives yet again. And so, another surgery was followed by more chemo and radiation.
I have always admired my mother's strength and positive demeanor, but the grace with which she endured every daily horror that is cancer was truly dumb-founding.
And so February was surgery number 2... Then came June. And just when we thought Mom was finally going to have a moment of peace and be able to continue healing... tumor number 3 is discovered. This time, it's too small for an operation. This was in a part of the brain which controls speech and cognition. Basically... if they were to operate, not only could she stand to lose her speech, but also her ability to even recognize us. That was more than we could chance.
They began new chemo and radiation... new drugs, new plans, new hopes. It seemed as though Mom was really going to beat the odds... We thought the tumor was shrinking and that the medicine could keep the side effects at bay. To our great disappointment, this would not last forever and my mother spent November 30-December 30 in Methodist Hospital. That was the last holiday season I would ever be able to spend with my mother.
Thankfully, my sister and her husband have been coming to visit over Thanksgiving for the past few years, so we were able to have a blessed and very special holiday before Mom was brought back to the hospital... it was the day after they went back to California.
Christmas, Mom, John, and myself were celebrating a transfer into a "rehabilitation" room. Up until that transfer, Mom had been having a seisure every 3-4 days; just when she would begin to get her speech back, she would have another seisure and it would take away her ability to talk all over again. It was so heartbreaking. I have never felt so helpless in my whole life.
Finally, December 30, Mom was released-- clad in her favorite snuggie that Emily and Jacob had gotten for her as a Christmas present. It must have been the best gift she received... from that moment on, I barely saw her not wearing it.
I was so grateful that my mother would be able to spend her time back in her own home now... I couldn't bare to see her all bruised and so uncomfortable in that awful hospital bed any longer.
Over the next few months, people from my mom's church brought meals and created a schedule to help with Mom while John and I had to work. I have never witnessed such an humbling outpouring of love.... There were meals brought every day, including snacks and even dessert. So much food that John would have to take left-overs for work because we were running out of space in the fridge.
We had a visitor every day... usually we had a few people come throughout the day. It was so wonderful to see Mom light up every time Ms. Toni or Ms. Pat would walk through the door. I've always knows that my mom meant the world to her friends, but to see the compassion and way they were able to laugh and talk with my mom for hours when she couldn't really speak anymore was just a wonder.
Over the months to follow, we witnessed Mom build up strength to be able to walk all the way to her bedroom and back to the living room with Andy's (her physical therapist) help... to us having to doing transfers from the couch to the wheel chair, to potty or bed, and back... Eventually, we began to force ourselves to come to terms with the fact that the woman who had been the very core of our world for so many years, will not be with us soon.
There is no way that I could ever even begin to coach someone through preparing to lose their mother. It was truly my biggest fear come true. If someone had ever asked me what would be the one thing that I truly could not live though, I would without hesitation say "If something ever happened to my mom."
Honestly, sometimes, when I realize that I have lived through my worst fear... I can barealy believe that I'm still alive.
Tuesday morning, June 14, 2011, around 2am, my mother went home to be in Heaven. I am grateful that we were all there and able to say our final goodbyes. And eventhough we were all grateful that she was no longer suffering.... I don't think any of us could really fathom the fact that Mom was no longer with us. Almost 8 months later, I still find it difficult to believe that I can't just pick up the phone and check in to see how she's doing sometimes. It's a hurt that I don't believe you can ever truly recover from... but you just have to force yourself to keep moving. Life won't wait for you to catch up.
I know that my life will never be the same as it was when my amazing mother was on Earth... I will never be able to call her at the end of a day-- good or bad-- just to hear her voice. Never will I be able to ask her how she prefers to cook a certain recipe. There will not be a "Mother of the Bride" at my wedding... and yet, I will survive. Somehow, I will find a way to hold onto every memory that I can possibly recall of her voice, how she smelled of Sun, Moon, and Stars... and then Brighton. How she loved Frank Sinatra... How, even when I was all grown up, she never minded me having a moment to just curl up with her on the couch and ask her advice about anything...
I have never met anyone like my mother, and I know I never will. But I will do everything in my power to live in a way that her memory will never leave my mind or the heart and mind of so many who loved her just like I did...
I miss her every day.
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