Writing Prompt

            In keeping with my desire to make more time for myself and and recommit to to writing again I decided to participate in Writing Prompts with Mama Kat over at Mama Kat's Losin' It.  I decided to go with "trouble you got into one summer" mostly because my surly teenager has been in lots of trouble this week and I am trying so hard to keep it in perspective.  Our tiny one is small enough that she is still getting up to eat once a night sometime between 4 and 5 AM.  (When I am very lucky it is 6ish and when I am not so lucky it is more like 3:30, bu that is a story for another post...)  So in the wee hours of Sunday morning I get up to the tune of her low-grade fussing and wobble to the bathroom to make a bottle.  On the way back I look into my son's room and see that the couch he sleeps on (yes indeed, he sleeps on a couch...despite the fact that my house has two more beds than it has people living in it, and despite the fact that I have spent more money than I care to talk about on finding beds that really ought to make my kids want to sleep in them because they are so neat...again that is another story...) anyhow on his couch there were no super long legs sticking out from under the two small blanket he favors...That by itself is enough to make my heart sink a bit.  After all it is 4:30 in the morning and my bipolar boy who desperately needs his sleep is NOT in his chosen sleeping place!  and this is not the first time.  So I call his name down the stairs, hopefully.  but no scurrying in the kitchen from making a snack so I creep down to see what's up and of course my back door is hanging wide open and said teenager is no where to be seen.  I call off of the back porch for him.  Nothing.  It is obvious by now that he has snuck out on me.  It is also obvious that he thinks new Mama sleep deprivation has turned me into a total moron because when he comes around front to ring the bell fifteen minutes later, finding the back door locked, the lies he tells me about his whereabouts and activities border on the absurd.  It is probably wrong, but (getting back to the actual writing prompt here) I am not entirely sure if it is the sneaking and lying (which is wrong and rotten enough) or the fact that he doesn't even think highly enough of me to formulate a lie that a primate might actually believe that upsets me more.
            I lied to my parents plenty.  I snuck around a fair amount during my teenage years.  I was in fact dating a man seven years older than me and completely forbidden for the last two years of my minor childhood.  But I have to say I put some effort into it.  I knew my parents weren't baboons so I actually attempted to give my lies some thought and a firm basis in reality in the hopes that I might get away with the things I wanted to get away with. For the most part this worked.  I was my Mom's only and I think she often wanted to believe the best of me and so she did because my lies weren't completely ridiculous.  My Dad was a different story.  I got away with things, but as I was his sixth child it is most likely that I only got away with the things he chose to let me get away with.  I am pretty sure that by child number six you have heard all the lies, but are also aware of the lessons that can be learned by letting your kiddo get into just enough trouble to begin to learn how to sort things out for themselves.  While my Mom was easy to fool, I am pretty sure that my Dad took note of the elaborate phone chain required to reach me when I wasn't quite where I promised to be...It is unlikely that he bought the idea that every time he called me at a sleepover to say goodnight, I just happened to be in the shower....and would have to call him back.
           This has mostly derailed from the original premise of the writing prompt...my trouble as a teenager rarely confined itself to summer, and I talk more about my son's mischief than my own, but this morning I can't quite get past the idea that my smart, lying son actually stood before my angry sleep-deprived self a few days ago and we had the following conversation:

Me:  Where the hell were you?  You do realize it is 4:30 in the morning right?

Him:  Um yeah.  4:30, that's pretty early.

Me:  you don't say?  but WHERE?  WHY?

Him:  I heard a noise out back.

Me:  Over the sound of your TV blaring you hear a noise?  In the area of the house farthest from your room?

Him:  Well I had the volume off on the TV then.  I was listening to music.

Me:  SO you heard it over your music and before going back there you stopped to turn your music off AND the volume on the TV up loud?  Seriously?

Him:  Um, yeah

Me:  So what was the noise?

Him:  It was Mr C.  (our neighbor)

Me:   Mr C?  at 4:30?  what was he doing?

Him:  He had his car parked blocking our garage and he was underneath it.  (he knows the garage blocking makes me see red...)

Me:  So Mr C, our neighbor who weighs better than 300lbs was out back, under his car (where I doubt he would fit without a lift kit), IN THE DARK?  making enough noise for you to hear him while listening to music?

Him:  Well, yeah.  They are a little weird next door.

Me:  They are weird?  What was he doing under his car?  (because I cannot resist this most absurd of questions...)

Him:  He was,   ummmm, doing his thing....

Facepalm.  Grounded.  Nothing left to say.

Wordless Wednesday

Let's get Wordless!

10 Simple Things to Smile About: June (And Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel)

This has been my year for smiles and heart-happy moments so I'm taking a moment out to do 10 things to smile about with Emmy Mom.
1.  The school year is over.  Finally.  Did I mention how happy I am that the school year is over.  No more weekly Monday morning calls from Rob's reading enrichment teacher to tell me that he put his head down in class.  Forget that he reads at an advanced level.  Forget that he hates reading despite being quite skilled.  Forget of course that every single week I explain again and again the nature of his bipolar disorder and the effect his single medication has on his alertness at 7:30 AM every single morning.  BUT IT IS OVER FOR THE SUMMER and I am certainly smiling about that.  It is good to enjoy my easy-going laid back boy without the pressures of the local public school.   2.  3 month old baby girl smiles and giggles!   

No further explanation required!

3.  Spending time with beautiful grown daughters.  Watching sisters born 19 years apart  enjoy each other.

4.  Spending long days at the pool with ten year old boys.

5. Teenage boys who are willing to wear their baby sisters.

5.  Grandmas who give awesome cuddles and read silly stories.  

7.  Thinking of my parents with smiles and laughter instead of tears.  I miss them every single day, sometimes with an ache that threatens to swallow me, especially knowing that they will never know and enjoy their tiny grand-daughter as they did my older kids .  But lately it is the sweet memories that surface most often.  

8.  Being married to the sweetest man ever.  Knowing that myself and the kids are the most important part of his world and seeing his choices reflect that every day.   I am lucky and I know it.

9.  Finally having a baby I can stay home with for a while.  Granted I am frustrated with everything breaking in my house and not having the money to fix it all fast enough.  But it is oh so sweet to be able to snuggle in the mornings and to be the one who sees her first smile of the day AND her last every single day for a change.  

10.  E-books.  I cannot say enough about how much it rocks that I can carry a couple hundred books with me on my kindle everywhere I go.  

If you've had plenty of things to smile about lately, or even if you just need a boost because things have not been so smiley... I totally recommend stopping over to Emmy Mom's place to remind yourself what's going rate for you lately.

Also please take some time to stop by and show some love to Stacy at Stacy's Random Thoughts for Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel.

Eyes on her Dad...

The last few years it has been amazing watching the boy I fell in love with so many years ago turn into a father as he began parenting the three kids I had with my first husband.  His commitment to them melts me for the most part and I love the way they have grown to love him...so much so that if we argue they often take his side and accuse me of picking him...but one of the best things about our tiny daughter is that I am getting to see him as a Dad with his very own baby girl.  It's been magical.  

I'm not sure what I expected exactly but...

        Four years ago when we were pregnant with the baby we lost I had huge expectations.  I expected to carry that child to term and fall into the familiar, easy rhythm of caring for an infant.  Of course I also expected my mother to live long enough to retire and enjoy lazy days with her grandchildren for at least another decade or so.  At 33 I was still operating under the mistaken assumption that I was choosing my life's trajectory myself. I did not expect Leukemia to creep up on us all and steal away my beautiful sixty-two year old mother's life over the course of three weeks.  I did not expect to lose that baby right before I lost my Mom.  More than anything I did not at all expect the journey that my grieving would take me on over the next few years.

        Needless to say the surprises continued.  Even in the midst of the sadness I felt over losing our baby, i didn't worry...I had gotten pregnant so easily four times already--we were raising three beautiful kids together-- and I expected that I would do so easily again.  I didn't expect it to take three years.  I didn't expect to give up hoping for another child only to be surprised by one after all.  I didn't expect to welcome my last little one into the world in the peace of my own bedroom with a lovely midwife and husband the only people in attendance....but all of those things happened and now I am just sorting out how I feel about it...

Pour Your Heart Out: More Than Meets the Eye

This seemed like a good week to begin "pouring my heart out" with Shell over at Things I Can't Say.  So Here goes:

It turns out that, as humbling experiences go, there isn't much to rival sitting in room full of teenagers paying their respects to a dear friend lost far too soon.  The 14-20 set has it all over the adults when it comes to their ability to lay open their raw emotions and ease each other through the hard stuff.  To be perfectly honest, it was strange to sit there this morning among my two older kids and their friends, watching them say goodbye to their friend Hank for the last time.  The church was packed to the doors with teenage kids.  I think what strikes me the most is that if you had asked me a week ago about my son's friends, I might not have had much to say.  They are a hard-scrabble bunch--skaters and bmx riders.  They are not (most of them) necessarily the smartest  or from the best families.  Many of them have an open disdain for authority and attract trouble like pups attract fleas.   But then, the last six days have shown me something different about them-- something far deeper.

The Rec Crew at Children's Hospital

Teenagers know implicitly how to grieve.  They have an inborn knowledge of what it means to experience and express sadness and loss in a way that most adults have lost over time.  When their friend was hurt they dropped everything and went to the hospital by the van-load to see him and give support to his parents.  While adults cry silently they sob the same sort of tears they allowed themselves as children.  They print their love and loss on hats and t-shirts to let the world know always who they are missing.  While adults will struggle to stop grieving, to get over their sadness and return to their every day lives, these kids will wear their hearts on their sleeves for as long as they need to.  They will chide each other to wear helmets, "for Hank," and they will seek out his parents in ways large and small to try to support them as they grieve for their only son.  They are remarkable for doing what teenagers are known for--throwing themselves heart and soul into their lives and their friends and holding nothing back.  They are everything that we, as their parents, have somehow forgotten to be.

The Rec Crew in their element.

These kids have big plans for the next few weeks already.  Memorial t-shirts and bracelets have already been designed and ordered in Hank's memory to raise money to help his family pay for his hospital and funeral costs.  Some of them are working on a decal design for memorial safety helmets that Bell Helmets has agreed to find a way to help them make.  Just a week ago, my son's friends used to make me nervous.  I worried more than anything about the trouble he might find with them and the scruffy exterior they presented to the world at large.  It turns out that there is less to worry about than I had feared.  They WILL find trouble from time to time, but they will also throw themselves into the thick of things to take care of each other and their families.  My kids are lucky to have friends like Hank, like all of the others...and I know now that I am lucky to know them all.

Henry "Hank" Woodhall 1996-2012

http://www.wpxi.com/videos/news/woodland-hills-teen-dies-from-head-injury-after/vfDWC/

Never Certain if I am Doing the Right Thing Anymore

When my kids were small it was easier in some ways.  I carried all of the responsibility for their well being, but I also carried the power to make most, though not all, of their hurts better.  When the problems were skinned knees and bullies, unkind words and an unwillingness of others to share or do things their way, I knew the answers, or at least enough of them to be able to ease their hurt feelings and patch their scrapes and bruises.  A snuggle and a bedtime story went a long way back then to making the world right for them again.  Now all of a sudden, at 14 and 18 none of it works.  The parenting decisions I have to make with these almost grown babies of mine are choices between what might work and what might not work.  There are no absolutes, no concrete thing I can say or do to help them right their own worlds anymore.  More often than not I have to decide between telling them some truth that I know will hurt and the hurt they will experience if they delude those truths and make choices without an ability to see clearly the situation.  So often now I find myself lying awake in bed in the small hours of the morning wondering how to ever find the balance between honesty and kindness, between what IS good for them and what only FEELS good to them.   I hate that I can see when those two aren't necessarily the same thing.

I have talked a lot about my son the last few posts, and while that is in the back of my mind while I write this, what I am really talking about is my 18 year old daughter.  She flipped her lid at me last week over  my requirement that she clean up after herself while living here at home and decided to move in with her boyfriend and his parents.  She decided this all in the matter of a few hours.  I have struggled for some days now with a mixed bag of emotions about what has been going on.  I am constantly torn between being frightened for her as I know she is not even close to being able to support herself financially or emotionally, and being angry at her for thinking that it is okay to just move on to someone else's parents because your own want you to be responsible for your decisions and mistakes and their consequences.  I know that she is confused and afraid.  I know that she doesn't want to disappoint me and at the same time she is frightened that her relationship with her boyfriend won't last if they don't live in the same place.  I also know that there is nothing, including my own peace of mind that I wouldn't give up in a second to erase all these fears and problems from her heart.  But there isn't a way, and even if there was, I wouldn't know where to start...

So the problem that I have is this:  Is it wrong for me to pressure her to come home and take responsibility for herself gradually over the next few weeks, making a plan and working towards it to enable her to be able to move out on her own in careful measured way that will help ensure her success independently from us or her boyfriend?  I don't want her to never leave, well my heart wants that in some tiny minuscule way, but really I just want her to soar!  Ten years from now when she looks back on the first time she struck out on her own I want her to be proud of the way she did it.  I want her to move on from us in a way that lets her have confidence in her ability to take care of herself.  What I don't want is for her to come back here in a few months when the financial pressures and emotional pressures of living under a new set of family rules get to her and her bf , feeling crushed and defeated by her inability to create the changes that she wants for herself.  So how much of this do I share with her?  Where is the line between wanting her to see things more clearly and giving her a guilt trip to try to lead her to a better decision?  How much of our relationship am I risking when I tell her the things she doesn't want to hear, no matter how much she needs to hear them?

Needless to say I miss the old problems...the ones I knew how to solve.

The Vigil for Hank

Surprising Lessons...Unexpected Teachers

I try, usually anyway, to be aware of what I am teaching my kids, especially the lessons they might be learning form my example.  I suspect I often fail--when I get angry over little things or frustrated with all that is beyond my control, the way I worry too much and probably laugh too little.  I have to wonder what they have learned form me when I am not being so careful, when the emotion of the moment is too hard or too high for me to sensor myself in any way.  It's something that I think about from time to time, and I rarely come up with any hard firm answers.  Then, when I least expect it--they knock my socks off with the people they are becoming.  Today was one of those days.

There was a candlelight vigil this evening for my son's friend who died yesterday, organized by his friends and the community.  There was a huge turnout.  Hundreds of rough and tumble teenagers stood side by side with community police officers and parents and spoke eloquently about the friend the still love so dearly.  Tough local teens who usually sport no-care attitudes cried openly for the loss of their friends.  Kids who had in weeks past sworn they hated each other apologized tonight and joined together in their grief and shock at the loss of a kind, sweet young man.  They spoke to the news anchor about a sixteen year old boy who had no enemies and made all of his friends smile.  One said that he felt the best thing they could all do to remember Hank was to always wear helmets while riding and skateboarding.

My son has more poise than I would have ever imagined.  Somehow, someway he has learned to avoid the cliches of grief and to reach out through his own sadness to genuinely comfort others with sincere words and hugs from the heart.  He seems also to have found a wisdom beyond his years that lets him know when no words are necessary and silence is the biggest comfort.  They are skills so many of us adults lack.  They are things that he and his friends have in spades.  It was a day for the parents to learn from the kids.

Fast and Furious

I used to be so organized.  This isn't my first blog.  I used to write daily and post a couple of times a week--writing that felt strong to me and carried my voice to the page.  I am trying my best to find that rhythm again, but with no luck.  Lately it has been as though life is rushing at me going something like 80 miles an hour with no brakes.  Crazy pieces of road debris and madness are slamming into me causing a sadness and confusion that I can't seem to begin to describe even though I am desperate to.

My older kids lost a good friend today.  In some house less than a mile from where I sit typing in the quiet still of the evening there are two parents going through a kind of hell I cannot even imagine.  While I was hugging my boy in the kitchen, and wishing my eighteen year old daughter still lived at home, they are struggling with the fact that they will never get to see their sixteen year old son grow up.  My struggles are nothing compared to theirs.  I cannot even imagine the starkness of a world that was missing one of my children, even less can I imagine losing an only child.

Under the best of circumstances parenting teenagers is hard.  The sharp blast of their music grates against the edges of my raw nerves.  I find myself second guessing every small decisions I make in regard to new freedoms, independence, choices made on their own and consequences tended to.  I am completely uncertain how I am going to handle contrast between meeting the needs of a newborn next spring and at the same time working my way along the process of letting go of my older children as they grown into adults.  This baby isn't even here yet and already I feel their different needs wrenching me in a dozen directions at once.  The strange thing is that even the painful uncertainty feels like a gift to me lately and especially today.  I am well aware of how incredibly lucky I am to be moving towards this sweet final refrain of baby days and childhood.  The experiences of raising my older three children have taught me well the value and flying speed of time.  I am relieved that as my first baby leaves to test her wings, I have the security of knowing that I will likely have at least another eighteen years before my nest is completely empty.  It is as though I have won some small victory over the passing of time, temporary though it may be.

I am undeniably proud of my son today.  He visited his friend in the hospital shortly before he passed this afternoon.  He spent the afternoon with their friends at the park, crying and reminiscing and grieving together.  Then on his way home he stopped at his friend's house and with more courage and maturity than I could have imagined, he visited with and tried to comfort Hank's parents.  At fourteen I have raised a a boy, a young man really, who is kind and open-hearted and understands about reaching out to others even when he has his own pain and sadness.  I have seen those same traits in my daughter as well.  I have no way of knowing if it is something that I taught or modeled, but I am so terribly grateful and proud to see it and I hope with all of my heart that I can replicate those lessons as I raise my younger two children.  I am  lucky in a million different ways tonight and on top of that I am lucky enough to know it.

Tonight I will go to sleep wishing some delicate and lasting peace to Hank's parents, in whatever possible way they can find it.  There are no words for the  depth of my sorrow for their loss.  The best way I can think of to honor their son is simply to hold my own children a little tighter for as long as they will let me.

My Boy--More grown than I want to admit.  

Bumbling Beginnings...or Endings...Maybe Both.

It was my intention to start this blog off again on some strong, resilient feeling initial post.  But...Surprise--I feel like a dishrag today and the inspiration just isn't coming like I want it too.  I started this week with a lot of really great and highly motivated intentions.  Yet it is Thursday already and all that I really have going on is this feeling like the time has gotten badly away from me and not in a direction I am terribly happy with.  This is not to say that things are looking bad necessarily, but not good in all the ways I had hoped for.  I suppose I had better explain some things about myself if I would like you to understand.
I am currently 13 weeks pregnant with a very unexpected, but terribly wanted baby.  This little one will be number 4 for me (I know, I'm crazy...but just wait because you haven't even touched upon the extent of my crazy yet.)  but only number 1 for my dear sweet husband.  My older kids, who are my heart and have been my life for more than 20 years now are as follows:  My daughter Cait- 18, son Rob-14 and littlest guy Zack-9.  Last but not least I should mention the three years I parented free-lance with my step-son Josh (24) before I had my own little crumb-crunchers.  Did I mention the crazy part yet?  That would have to be the fact that I found out I was expecting this last little wonder the week I planned my daughter's graduation party, (from high school--she was valedictorian of her class!  Yay!!!!!) , that my youngest is NINE years old, that I always swore I would be done having babies by 30 because I started young and didn't want to spend my entire life raising kids--and oh, did I mention I am 37?  and that the fertility specialists we saw after the miscarriage in 2009 felt we weren't likely to have another baby with out serious, expensive fertility treatments?  So, yes, currently I am more than just a little crazy.
I am getting excited about this baby.  I relish the idea that having come along at a time in my life when I KNOW the value of time in ways I had never before been aware, I will be able to slow down and ENJOY this baby.  At the same time I am grieving, but not about this particular baby.  It is about my first baby.  My baby that turned eighteen and graduated this year and then this week, in a fit of righteous teenage indignation about being made to clean up after herself, moved out, to live with her boyfriend and his parents.  I am not ready.  I suspect that she is not ready either, but that I am keeping to myself, because I do understand her need to try.  But that doesn't make me hate it any less.

Finding My Way Back

How do you explain depression to someone outside of it? It seems unlikely that words exist to describe the way it can creep up on you over the course of a lazy Sunday afternoon, in total absence of anything really going wrong. True, some days it's shadow is present from the moment you open your eyes. Other days that shadow is weighty as concrete, pressing hard against you even as you sleep. But the most frightening times it comes seemingly from nowhere. It starts as the slightest twinge of discomfort, almost like an itch you cannot reach to thoroughly scratch. At first you try your best to ignore it, to simply proceed with the activities of your day as though all is well within your own mind, hoping beyond hope that the feeling will recede. When it doesn't, when in fact it just grows in the tiniest of increments you find yourself trying to rationalize it away. “I am having a good week, a good day. This is silly. Everything is just fine. I am beating this thing....it can't come back right now.” You doggedly attack your to do list. You check off item after item. You make yourself a sensible dinner as you remind yourself that for your mind to be healthy your body must have good food to work with. All your efforts fail and you find yourself falling off task, staring at the wall or out of the window, giving in to the dull ache in your chest, letting the fear wash over you, each wave larger than the last until the tears come. Then, if you are lucky, he will notice and stop to hold you for a bit if there is time. You let him wrap you in his strong arms and you curl against his chest with your ear against his heart., the warmth of his breath against your forehead.

I know that is is a good sign that the last few days have felt carefree and easy like days used to. I know that means that I am starting to beat the depression back once more. I also know that it will be a process of stops and starts, more and more good days mixed in with a few here and there that still carry with them that unbearable hurt. I am so grateful on those days that I can still nestle into his arms and let the steady drum of his heart lull me off to sleep, feeling safe as long as he is nearby.

Dear Mom,

Dear Mom,

It's been three months. Three long, crazy months. I miss you like mad but I guess that goes without saying. Everything here has changed so much without you. Not just bad changes either, lots of good things too, but I'd trade it all to have you back. One of the hardest things is not being able to tell you how excited I am about this new stuff. Every time something new happens I catch myself thinking, I CAN'T WAIT TO TELL... and then my heart breaks all over again because I can't. So I'll have to settle for telling you here and hope it helps to ease the ache of not having you with me.

I think you would be proud of me, of all of us really. The kids miss you, but have handled themselves like real champs. Every one's behavior has been tip top since school let out, not perfect, but not all that craziness we had for so long. R got all caught up in school and has been so polite and kind these last weeks. K doesn't argue so much anymore and Z is still, well, Z--smart and scary and awesome.

I'm starting back to school in the fall. It's time to finally get that degree you always wanted me to have. It turns out I only have ten classes to take to finish up, so I'll be a college graduate by next spring. It seems crazy to me that losing you was the only thing that made it possible for me to do the things you dreamed of me doing. I hate that-- that you won't be there to see me finally succeed after screwing up so much, even so it feels good to be going back. Next fall I'll start nursing school and with a little luck in a few years I'll have my RN and my masters. I figure why do it halfway--this is my big chance and I want to do what would have made you proud of me. Don't get me wrong, I know you were proud of me, but I know I gave you a lot of reasons to worry too. I'm glad you knew about B and I before you got sick. I know it meant a lot to you to know we had each other and that the kids and I had someone who would take good care of us. he's one of the best things ever to happen to the bunch of us. he has us acting like a family again. We've been doing a lot of fun stuff with the kids and we'll be spending Labor Day weekend in our favorite spot again this year ( my only regret is that you won't make it there with us.)

B and I have been heading out camping almost every weekend the kids have spent with their Dad. It's been good to have the freedom to travel so much and so cheaply this summer. It makes me feel young again and less like I missed something by starting a family right after high school. You were right about a lot of things, but it all seems to have turned out for the best anyway. I've been scattering your ashes with Dad's, a little bit in every beautiful place we go. We even rented a boat a few weeks ago and the boy's helped scatter some out in the middle of the lake. P will be helping out by taking you to Ireland when they go next week.

I guess the biggest news is about the house. We just can't stay here. It's far too empty without you and every detail of every room is yours. I think you'd like the house we found though. It's in the neighborhood you chose to raise me in. There are memories of you and Dad there, but not such painful ones. It's just big enough, with good sized rooms and lots of light...It will be so hard to leave here in September, but I think it's what will be best for us all. I will carry all the best parts of you with me--in my heart of course. It will be good for B and I to have a fresh start in a house that is ours together with no memories in it of anyone but us.  I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep in my own bed again, because it seems like lately the only time I sleep straight through is if we are bedded down in our little tent in some state park far away from the place where I lost you. When we are at home and everyone finally settles in for the night it seems my thoughts always drift to those last moments with you and with Dad. They haunt me, make my heart ache for all that I have lost in this house. It will be good to move on.

Well, it's late and it's my turn in the shower, but I'm sure I'll write again--there just so much I wish I could tell you....

Love,
me

The Longest Week of My LIfe...

The last time I wrote here I was so happy that Mom had been transferred from ICU to the step-down unit. Unfortunately the move was not the good news we anticipated. When I arrived at the hospital Sunday afternoon to visit her condition had declined significantly, and in keeping with her wishes we opted not to return to ICU. Instead I began working with Hospice to arrange to have my mother brought home to spend her final days here in the home she enjoyed with my father and her family, surrounded by the people who loved her the most. It took all of Sunday evening and most of the day Monday to get everything in order, but by six o'clock Monday evening my Mom was back in her own bad talking clearly with myself and her twin sister for the first time in four days. What follows is a collection of thoughts I had and wrote in bits and pieces over the past week and a half. They are not continuous or all inclusive, but they are significant and it is important to me to record them here. My mother didn't have many clear moments after Monday and after Thursday morning she didn't regain consciousness again. She passed away at 12:35 AM on Friday, April 24,  2009, lying peacefully in her own bed, with her sister and I holding her hands and my fifteen year old daughter lying beside her. My husband rubbed my back as she took her last slow breaths and my middle son lay sound asleep on the floor of her room in the corner. Strange though it may seem, it was tragic in it's enormity and beautiful in it's simplicity all at the same time. Our house feels empty without her and my heart aches for my amazing mother...but there is peace in knowing that I made her last moments on this earth as free of pain and and fear as I possibly could.

Monday, April 20, 2009--12:30 am

I can't believe this day. Bart and I are here waiting with Mom to be transferred upstairs to the palliative care floor in anticipation of her discharge to home hospice care later today. Just twelve hours ago I was thinking we had turned the corner, that we might have bought some time at least. When we got here about one o'clock yesterday afternoon though it was obvious that things were in decline again. Mom's mental status was unclear and confused again, indicating a worsening of the pressure and damage in her head. Now she has a fever they can't find the source of and bleeding in several places due to her low platelet counts. The problems she is fighting are many and seem to be multiplying by the hour. It is apparent now that they are simply too numerous for her to overcome, and when she is conscious it is only to say that she has had enough and wants to go home with me. I'm terrified--of losing her at all, but also of not getting her home in time, being unable to give her that most simple of things-- the comfort of her own home.

I am amazed by the quiet of this tiny corner of the hospital, with it's hardwood floors and flat-screen TV's, devoted only to the care required for maximum comfort, no efforts made to cure or treat. I have stood here at the dark window for more than an hour now watching the street lights blink yellow all the way down Main Street and Liberty Avenue. Here I sit in the silence watching over the sleep of the man I have always loved and the woman who has always loved me. I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders and in only a few more hours, with no sleep in more than twenty four, I will spend hours on end in a frantic flurry to accomplish everything necessary to get her home again, because I promised.

11:50 pm

It's done. She is home and resting quietly next to my aunt. Her meds have been picked up from the hospital and supplies have been ordered. We talked a bit before she faded off to sleep. She knows she is home and in my hands now (as precarious a situation as that seems to me, it seems to comfort her knowing that I am now in charge, not the doctors who don't know her or nurses with other patients to care for.) We have said a preponderance of "I love yous." I am overwhelmed but calmer than I have been at any other point today because at least I know my promise has been kept. I brought her home and now whatever happens I will know that I have done all that I could. I have done all that she taught me by example when she did it for my father just five short years ago. So now I will sleep, restlessly I'm sure, but finally, just sleep.

Thursday, April 24, 2009

There have been no good moments today as there have been the past few days. No moments of awakeness, no requests for food or chapstick, no complaints of thirst or discomfort, not even any restless turning in the bed, despite a bath and my efforts to let her know I am close by. Her breathing is growing more labored and ragged as the evening stretches on, and I know from experience that the end is close by, that she will not likely see the dawn of another day. Under the instruction of the hospice nurse on call her doses of liquid oxycodone and ativan are given closer together to alleviate the anxiety of being unable to catch her breath, if she is able to feel any anxiety at all now. I spend most of the evening brushing her thinning hair from her face and whispering my love close to her ear.  The oxygen concentrator thumps steadily in the background of everything we do this evening. My two oldest children have fallen asleep on either side of her in the big queen-size bed. As the night stretches on we move my ten-year old son to a pile of blankets in the corner and my daughter awakens to spend these last few hours with her beloved Nunny. I am restless myself but the last moments come just after the birth of the new day and are anti climatic, quiet. My mother's dear friend of forty years ( and a nurse for hospice) comes and performs all of the necessary tasks-- the pronunciation, and the phone calls, gently wiping her friends face and later telling me it was an honor to perform for my mother those final necessary tasks and to know that there was great dignity in her passing.

I stay with her body while the funeral home wraps and carries it from the house. I could escape to the upstairs but I feel I need to see her out, to assure that I have followed everything through to its endpoint, to know that my job is done a thoroughly as I know how....

But now I am lost, completely lost, an orphan of sorts.....

GOOD NEWS!

Mom made it out of ICU and was transferred to the step-down unit!!!!! YAY!!!!!

Thursday Afternoon

Thanks to everyone who left their good news in comments on my last post. It's good to hear good news. I had been hoping to come across good news of my own soon, but so far, not so good. They moved my Mom to ICU this afternoon to monitor a bleed in the right side of her brain (caused by her plummeting blood values.) Wish I knew more. Really wish I could get off this roller coaster already.

The sh#t-storm can stop any minute now....

Mom finished up her first round of chemo today and then we found out that a stem-cell transplant is on the agenda after two rounds of consolidation chemo. Then my ex-husband called to tell me my dog died. He was only three, but German Shepherds often have fatal troubles with bloat. My kids all came home crying today because of the dog. I hate to see my kids hurting like that. I would really like some good news now. Anything. Anyone????

At the End of the Day...

It has been so crazy here these last few months; so much chaos and all of the extremes of emotion. Like I mentioned yesterday, my Mom started her chemo last night. My heart is aching and my brain spends the day searching mental statistics and looking for a way out of this current health crisis, though it is obvious to me that there is no way out, only a possible way through it. We will just have to wait and see for now. I do know that my Mom is tough as nails. She worked her full-time night job right up until four days before she was diagnosed. Her platelet count was only 9000 instead of the 150,000-300,000 it should have been but still she went work and struggled through every single night. So now I am trying to concentrate on the idea that it is not the odds that matter so much right now, but the fact that as a family we often find a way to beat the worst odds that will make a difference here.

Still there are good things happening too. On Sunday I can take a pregnancy test to see if my intermittent stomach troubles are from stress or an early sign of the new addition we are hoping for. And even more than that right now, every night I cuddled up in the crook of B's arm with my head against his chest and the steady rhythmic pounding of his heart in my ear and I do my best to dream about babies and summer days at the pool with my family. In that spot, that moment I know that the only thing I can afford to focus on is how very loved I am and at the end of the day that is all that really matters.

One step at a time...

Diagnosis for my mom-- AML. Prognosis uncertain pending genetic studies. Starting chemo at 9pm tonight. More later.

Really? You've got to be Kidding Me...

After a brief day of reflecting on all the great things going on in my life reality struck again with a vengeance. Yesterday was my baby's sixth birthday. I spent it away from him though, in yet another hospital, getting more bad news. My Mom has Leukemia.

Just Plain Old Angry

There have been a lot of reasons I haven't been writing here lately.

1. Tire blowouts. I had one last Friday, at a most inconvenient time and place and when B and I changed it: the spare was flat too. Total cost $83.90.

2. Drain Clogs. Yes, plural. Clogs. And other plumbing disasters. First my laundry tub drain clogged while my wonderful husband was pounding through our giant backlog of the children's laundry. Then while plunging the drain--the pipes underneath sprung some major leaks due to age. Bad enough right? Then we discovered that the mainline drain for the house had backed up raw sewage all over the basement floor. On a Saturday. On this one I got lucky. Instead of roto-rooters standard $300, I found an awesome Electric Eel service that cleared the sewer drain for $80. and gave me advice on fixing the rest ourselves.

3. Migraines. Again, plural. As it turns out my Mirena IUD was causing me some fairly frequent, totally rotten migraines. As a result we decided to have it removed.

4. Unemployment. Fired pretty much. Both of us. B and I were both working lots of hours ( for minimum money) and doing it gladly. When I say lots of hours I mean 3-4 hours daily plus between 4 and 7 twelve-hour overnights every week. We were taking care of his Grandma who I mentioned before has Alzheimer's disease. It was making ends meet for us, saving his mother an absolute fortune in caregiver salaries and giving us both a lot of joy to spend time with her every day. (his Grandma, not his mother!) So like I mentioned before his mother has not been overjoyed that we got married, and when we told her that we wanted to continue helping to take care of Grandma but needed to be able to spend Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday overnights at home with the kids from now on, she got angry. Very angry. The angrier she got, the more tense things over there became the more we realized that we not only wanted those overnights off, but we also wanted at least two days a week completely off, without having to go over at all. Suffice it to say that this did not make her any happier and after many tense days of thinly veiled accusations about inadequate care on our part( completely untrue.) she decided that we should keep doing what we were doing for no pay at all. While we would have loved to be able to do that for his grandma, necessity dictates that when you have three children to support someone must work for actual money to pay bills. Go figure. This resulted in us not returning. (after a scene in which she said she didn't understand why he was acting this way that everything had worked just fine until I came along---OMG. It worked fine because he was at her beck and call for six g%^D%&m years. Then she insisted that we leave because she was afraid of me because I told her pointedly and in a very unfriendly tone of voice that she was no longer dealing with a single man with limited options, but instead with a man who now has a wife and three-step children as well as unlimited other choices for earning an income.) That was around the third of March and we haven't been back since. No money and she has upset the hell out of my husband.

5. Life really sucks sometimes. B's Dad was scheduled last Monday, after months of chemo and radiation and waiting, for surgery to treat his pancreatic cancer. After only an hour in the OR they postponed surgery for now to do more chemo as they found at least one additional tumor site. This breaks my heart.

6. Finally the real reason I temporarily deserted my blog ( and even deleted it for a few desperate days--although I am so glad blogger added that undelete feature.) I am angry. Not a little bit angry or even run of the mill angry, but searing-red-hot-over-the-top-want-to-scream-out-loud ANGRY. Livid. I have been angry since the middle of February. I have been seething since the first week of March. I have barely mentioned(except for earlier in this post) the reasons for my anger here for two reasons. One I am so angry that I have little control over what I say about it once I get started on the topic and two I love my husband so very very much. You see, It's my mother-in-law. It turns out that the sweetest, most gentle, caring man I have ever met was somehow raised by the most self-centered, inconsiderate and controlling women I have ever met. And did I mention how much she hates me for occupying her son's time and attention.

So really my absence is all about how angry I am at her. I have tried to avoid coming here to rant about this. But now here I am. Let me tell you why it makes me so angry. She acted like an ass and in the process hurt my husband directly and my children indirectly (with all of the new financial problems) and I love them more than anything in this world. So now I am Mamma-bear type angry. In addition, B and I have been forced into making a round of very important decisions very quickly and completely unnecessarily. In short order we have had to decided if we really want to have another baby or not, and when might be a good time, if one or both of us should head back to school, and when would be a good time and what kind of work we should settle into in the meantime. So now I've said. Spilled the reasons for my absence. Time to move on. (although I reserve the right to revisit this topic from time to time as my anger comes and goes....)