Viewing Day

Today is the viewing from 2 to 9.  I am kind of nervous about it because we don't know how many people will be coming.  I know some are, but I don't know how many or mostly who.  I only know about a few of them.  I hope Mom looks okay, I know they can't add extra pounds on her but I hope she looks okay.

I am picking up Richard in a few minutes.  I am going to leave a bit early so I can get some food along the way and make sure I am not late.  He arrives at 11:35.  I am very excited to see him.  I haven't physically seen him in 2 years.  I am bringing a book with me to read so I won't be bored waiting for him.  Well, I will be, but not as much with a book in hand.  Then we will head straight home and then to the viewing.  It will be a long day for me.  I have a bit of a headache right now which is probably not the best way to start the day.  It hurts more than the usual headache.  I will be taking medicine for it right before I leave.

Mom will have an open casket.  Yes, I know, some family members wanted it closed, but I want it open so it will be.  Everything is mostly my choice for Mom.  I picked out everything for her.  I planned everything for her tomorrow too.  It was a few of the last things I could do for her.

I am heading out now to go and pick up the big brother.

day before everything happens

Today will be another quiet day.  I don't have much to do today because everything happens tomorrow.  Tomorrow morning I go and pick up Richard then we race back to be back in time for the showing.  Then, of course, Saturday is the funeral at church.  They called today to ask if the menu was okay.  I said yes, it was fine, because 1 - it was fine and 2 - I don't really care about food right now.  Richard wants to talk to me on the way to the viewing.  Works for me as I haven't really talked to much to him in the last few months.  We have both been so busy, me with Mom and he with his family.  We do need to talk about my future.  It is looking a bit bleak after a few months, but I am not thinking about that right now.  I will deal with all that next week.  Maia is working on copying the slideshow she made of Mom onto DVDs right now.  Tillie is in the shower.  One of them is picking up Danielle tomorrow for the viewing and then Danielle will be going home with Tillie and coming back for the funeral on Saturday.

It is slowly sinking in that she is really gone.  It seems so impossible to me that just a couple of weeks ago she was perfectly fine (well, as perfect as someone gets with Alzheimer's) and now she is gone.  I had been expecting it, but still, when it happened it was a shock.  I want my Mom back.  I want her now.  Right now.  I know it isn't going to happen, but still I can wish even if the wish will not come true.

I think I will make cookies for dessert on Saturday.  I am not sure, we will see.  Maybe I will order a cake instead.  I don't know.  what is proper for these things?  I have never been in charge of one before so I don't know.

I wish this weekend was over already.  It is going to be really hard.

wednesday

The man from the hospital bed company is here removing the special hospital bed Mom had.  It was an air type bed to help heal her sores.  They never got worse while she slept in the bed, but since she couldn't eat, they didn't heal either.

I am alone right now for the first time since she died.  It seems so unreal at times to me because I have always lived with her.  When I was healthier and younger all my friends were having issues with their roommates and roommates boyfriends, so I didn't want to get into that situation.  I was able to just pay Mom rent and stay home.  Then when I could afford my own apartment, Mom became ill so I was needed to stay home with her.  I never minded, I mean, it isn't like she could tell me what to do or ground me or anything.  We were just roommates.  I liked living here.  The choice of an apartment over a house was not even thought of.  Our house had room to entertain if we wanted to, which we did when she was healthier a lot.  My friends would come over and we would play board games.  I love board games.  They are so much fun.  Mom and I were able to play board games up until about a year ago.  She loved moving everyone around on the board.  It was quite cute to see her do that.

The PowerPoint is finished.  Maia did a nice job with it.  The dress uniform is on mom's dressmaker form.  We had to get a different blouse because it got donated with the rest of mom's stuff in March.  If I had seen what they were doing I think a few more military stuff would not have been donated but they were and it is too late to get them back now.  I did try but they either went to a different store or they were put out a long time after they were donated.  I emailed the war museum in Ottawa, Ontario yesterday letting them know Mom has passed away so they can get her military record for them.  I am donating all Mom's military stuff to them.  They don't have a lot of post WWII on display so this will add to their displays plus Mom was one of the first women to become a major in all of Canada.  She was the first in Ontario.  I am so proud of what she accomplished while she was in the military there.  Although I remember as a child being afraid that Canada and the USA would go to war at each other and then we would be sent to concentration camps.  Amazing what children can fear isn't it?

It is a quiet day for me.  I plan to read and get some papers together to send to the State of Michigan.  I just don't plan to do much for the day right now.  It is beautiful out so I do plan to take my scooter and go for a walk after I get it together.  Mom loved going for walks so I am going to go for a scooter ride and remember all the good times we had going for walks.

plans

I have all the plans all ready.  There will be a viewing on Friday from 2 to 9 at the Gramer Funeral Home with the funeral service on Saturday at 11 am with a luncheon right after.  I think I am going to have Richard read the Eulogy.  I wrote one, but he can write his own, whatever he wants.  I am singing with Katie.  We are singing "You Raise Me Up", the Celtic Woman version.  It has a verse that we are both unfamiliar with, but it fits nicely with the song.  I didn't think I could sing alone and well, I didn't want to mess up either so Katie is singing with me.  I have called or face booked so many people that I lost count.  I have had people already tell me that they are coming either Friday or Saturday.  One of my cousins will be there Friday but not Saturday because she is planning to go to the burial which is close to her home.  It will be a nice service, I think she would be happy with it.  I hope so.  We have one of her military uniforms ready to be on display next to her.  We are working on getting a Canadian Flag to drape over her coffin like they do with American Flags.  All of the military stuff, except the pictures that I want, will be going to a museum in Ottawa, Ontario.  That is where the Military Museum is at.  I couldn't send her stuff a few years ago because they couldn't get a copy of her Military Record.  Now that she has passed they can.  I have to email them today.  I will do it in a few minutes.

I miss her a lot already although I am handling it okay.  I have my bad moments, like when Margaret, the No One Dies Alone volunteer, called to tell me that Mom passed quietly and without any pain.  She was with Mom at that time she died.  I was glad I was not with her because I don't think I could have handled it very well.  Mom wasn't alone and that is what matters.  Mom waited for me to go home for the night.  I was with her most of the day.  She slipped away 15 minutes after I left.

my lovely Mom

Mom passed sometime between 5 and 5:15 this evening.  I was at the hospital until about 10 to 5 and then went home.  I received the call at 5:15.  I have an appointment at 11 am for the funeral home.  I am not sure the exact date of everything until tomorrow.  It is hard to believe she is gone.  She will never walk through our front door again.  The good thing though, is that she doesn't have Alzheimer's anymore.  That is HISTORY.  She is healthy and happy and will be missed.  I hope to show some pictures soon of her so you can see what she looked like.  I miss her but I have been missing the woman she was for 2 years now. Now I will miss the woman she became.  She isn't scared all the time anymore.

sunday

I was at the Emertons today.  We created 3 picture boards of her this afternoon.  Looking at some of the pictures made Lily and Emily laugh.  Especially when they saw some of the hair styles I had.  Mom's were not too out of it, but mine were.  There is one picture board left for her military stuff.  Some of the certificates will be shrunk down so they will fit on the board.  If we need more we can get it.

I am getting used to being in the house alone.  I have been alone here since yesterday morning.  Tillie and Maia will be here tomorrow, Maia in the morning and Tillie in the afternoon.  There is some business for me and Mom that needs to be done in town that Tillie will take care of in the morning.  We all know how I am just not awake that early.  I will go see Mom in the afternoon for a while.  She was awake when I got there.  I talked to her and stroked her hair.  You can't really move her anymore because she is so stiff and it causes pain for her.  I don't know how much she understands, but I hope she understands me telling her I love her.  That is all I can do right now.  I am very thankful for the chance to say goodbye because I know some of my friends didn't get the chance that I have to say that.  They didn't have the ability or opportunity to say how lucky they were to have a Mom like theirs, or in my case, mine.  I am lucky.  I am the luckiest girl in the world.  I had a great Mom and I told her everyday for the last two years how much I loved her.  I would say, "Did I tell you today how much I love you?"  Sometimes she would say yes, I did tell her and others she would say no, I didn't.  So I told her everyday.  I have been reassuring her that the boys love her too.  You never know how long you have on this earth, it is so important to say I love you.  It is so important because someday it could be too late.  My heart is still breaking but I know somehow, someday I will be okay and I will smile and laugh without the tears just under the surface.

I don't want anything done to the house right now.  I want to be able to smell her pillow with her scent on it.  Okay, I do need to wash the sheets and the blankets as they smell a bit, but not her pillow.  I don't want anything done to her room.  The only thing I want done is to have the hospital bed in the living room removed and they can do that in the next week or two.  It isn't a big deal.  Since she barely slept in it, a few weeks is all, I have no attachment to it.  The living room will go back into it regular look and that will be good.  I will be here in the house for a few months before I decide what to do.

I miss her already.  I know she couldn't do much at the end, and this summer she really just sat and rested, but I miss her.  I have been missing her for a long time and now she will be gone.  I won't have her sitting next to me at the table where we watch TV anymore.  I will be able to watch TV again, but it hasn't even really been on the last week.  I just don't really care about TV, I haven't in a long time.  It was used to pass the time and now the time is over.

I think I will head for bed shortly.  I leave lights on because I can't sleep in the house by myself in the complete dark.  Mom used to leave her light and the bathroom light on so she could see the last 6 months.  Then it was just her room.  I need a night light.  It is easy getting ready for bed now that I only have me to get ready.  I miss our routine.  I would take her upstairs, we would head to the bathroom where I would change her (it was much easier there than the bedroom), and then I would help her to her room.  We would sit on her bed and chat until she was ready to lay down and go to sleep.  The I would move her legs and she would say, Oh, oh, oh, (because it frightened her, but I had no choice) and then I would move her in the middle of her bed so she would move her legs over the edge and cause a back ache.  She would Oh, oh oh, then too.  I was fast so she wouldn't be scared long.  At the hospital they tell her when they are going to do anything so she knows what is going on.  She doesn't seem to be scared like she was.  She was frightened so much of the time because of the Alzheimer's.  Mom doesn't have to be afraid anymore.

I am grateful for all the time I have with her.  I have had a few days more than I thought I would but this week will be the end because it will be 10 to 14 days without food or drink.  A person can't last any longer than that.  I hope someday my heart becomes whole again.  Right now it is broken into pieces and I can't seem to put them back together.

It has been almost a week now since the beginning of this.  Mom was coughing on her food last Saturday, but was here at home with me.  I called hospice and they said to mix it with ice cream making it a frosty like substance.  Seems like a life time ago.  I have had 6 days to get used to this idea, and most of the time now, I am used to it.  She will never come home here with me again.  Her bed will never be slept in by her again, nor will her clothes be worn by her.  She lies in the hospital very peacefully.  She is sleeping most of the time.  Mom doesn't open her eyes very often, but she can't focus on anything when she does.  There are people there when I am not.  It is a program the hospital has so Mom will have someone with her when I am not.  I am so happy with that program despite the reason why they have that program.  I spoke with Margaret who has sat with Mom several times now.  She is hanging on, I don't know why.  I told her it was okay with all of us to go.  My aunt is waiting for her so is her grandmother.  My heart is breaking but her long, terrible journey of Alzheimer's is gone.  She will no longer be the fragile person she became and while I find comfort in that, my heart is breaking.  It is difficult to sit there with her and watch her barely breathe knowing that she can hear me but can't answer me.  She can't recognize me anymore and that is hard because most of the time she knew who I was so I didn't have to go through the agony of her not knowing me.  I know she will be better off, but despite all these things, my heart is just breaking.  I will be strong for her because she wants me to.  She raised me to be strong, despite being ill.  I will miss her and I miss her now even though I can still see her.  I can still touch her but she can't hug me so I hug (as best as you can with someone who is lying down) hug her.  I tell her how much I love her and how lucky I was that she is my mother.  God knew what he was doing when he gave me to her.  She was the best mother in the world.  The complete best.

I will be heading out to go see Mom shortly.  My cousin and her daughter are on their way.  Mom is still hanging on.  I am trying to wrap my head around this whole thing.  It isn't working.  I can't believe I am here.  I have known all summer Mom was failing and that by fall she might not be here.  I tried to prepare myself as best as possible.  There is no way to be ready for this.  I am learning this too well right now.  I have Tillie and Maia here with me.  Tillie spends the night and Maia spends the day here.  They are a big help.  I got a nice email from Andrew and I just talked to him.  He is in the same shape I am in.  I told him I loved him and that we would get through this together.  Somehow we will.  I just don't know how right now.  I already miss her.

Mom

Mom is hanging on as of tonight.  She was expected to pass last night, but is still with us.  I told her tonight that it was okay to go home.  I told her that her grandmother and sister were waiting for her.  I don't know what she is waiting for but she is waiting for something.

We have everything planned, the service, the viewing, and the luncheon.  She will have a service at our church.  The pastor has been up to see Mom several times.  It is just waiting now.  She has strong vital signs at this point.  There is a niece who coming tomorrow.  She knows she may miss mom, but she will be here for me.  She is heading for vacation on Monday and I don't want her to cancel the vacation.  It will be good to see her again.

Thank you for the thoughts and prayers.  I really appreciate them.  I just can't believe we are at that point.  How did this happen so soon?  I was not ready for it.  Mostly, Mom is pain free.  She was in a bit of pain this evening, but they give her some pain medicine and then she fell back asleep.  It seems so unreal.

sad day

It is with such a heavy heart I write this today.  Mom is dying.  As you know, on Sunday she was having problems with swallowing.  She can no longer eat or drink.  We took her to the ER Sunday night.  The hospice nurse came with us.  She was asperating.  The doctors feel even with a feeding tube, she would asperate the food or drink so they won't put one in.  Which I totally understand because she would get pneumonia and that would be rather painful for her.  They say she won't feel any pain, but if she does they have morphine for her.  Her bottom is sore because of the pressure sores so she had some morphine last night.  My Uncle Ken, who we haven't seen in years, came to see her.  I am so glad he did.  His son, Kenny and his daughter, Audrey came with him.  I was so glad to see them.  They stayed for about 2 hours or so, Uncle Ken is very upset by this.  I think he may come again.  I am not sure what Richard is planning to do yet because he didn't believe me when I told him in the morning that this is it.  He thought that she would pull through.  He totally understands now and so he is processing this.  I figure I will call this afternoon to check on him.  Tillie will be here with Maia this afternoon too.  I plan to spend as much time with Mom as possible.  I know I will see her again, it is just that it will be a while.  I am at peace knowing she will be with Jesus and that there is no doubt about.  That being said, I am not ready for her to make a journey like that without me.  These next few weeks will be the hardest I have ever gone through.  I am just blown away by the quickness of all this.  At least, she will not be in pain and doesn't have a clue to what is going on.  I have asked them not to tell her because 1 - she isn't going to remember anyways after a few minutes and 2 - why upset her with those few minutes, she needs to be comfortable and peaceful.  We have had visitors all evening last night which I so appreciate.

Please keep me, Mom, and my family and friends in your prayers.  There are so needed this week.

Quiet Sunday

Rachel is supposed to have a lesson today.  We shall see.  She was supposed to have every other week lessons and she has had 1 lesson since Labor Day weekend.  You can see how I am not very confident in her coming to a lesson.  She is a senior this year and plans to audition to music schools for scholarships.  Well, I am not so sure she will be prepared as she hasn't had a voice lesson in about 8 months.  She had piano lesson last month.  I have picked out her audition material and I hope she likes it because they were rather specific on what they want her to prepare.  The Classical Piece must be from 1900 to today so I picked a John Jacob Niles piece that we started but never finished.  The Italian piece will be from her Italian book and I hope she brings it with her.  The musical theatre piece she can choose from a few that I have picked out.  Then there is competition, well, we need a spiritual piece and a pop piece in addition to the classical and Broadway ones.  You can see why I am a bit stressed over this.  Having every other week lessons boils down to 1 voice lesson a month and 1 piano lesson a month.  Competition is in February and auditions start next month.  I am not so stress about her little sister as she will have 2 lessons a month.  This, of course, is if the come regularly, which they have not yet.  I want her to do well and get scholarships, she is so talented, but it isn't enough.  She has to be prepared and last year at competition, she wasn't totally prepared.  She will be up against more like her, lots of talented people will be audition and she needs scholarships to go to college.  She can't just skate on by like she has been doing.  It isn't enough to have a naturally pretty voice, it just isn't.  You must have good technique and that is her downfall at this point.  We have to work on placement, most of it is good, but that isn't good enough.  I hope to see her this afternoon and we will be working hard.  She should be tired by the time we are finished.

Maggie is also supposed to possibly stop by today.  I don't know what time because she is also visiting her mother.  She may run out of time but that is okay.

Mom is now having trouble swallowing.  It doesn't seem to matter how thick or thin the liquid or food is, she chokes.  I called Hospice because I was getting very worried.  They are sending a nurse out to check her out.  They don't want me to give her anything to drink until the nurse comes.  I have read about this happening but it such a different thing when it happens.  They also want me to keep her sitting up and not lying down so gravity can help her get rid of the cloggy stuff in her throat.  I am so scared that she is at the point she can't eat anymore.  Well, we shall see what the nurse says.  The joys of Alzheimer's.  I seriously hope this is one disease they can totally eliminate of the face of the earth someday.  It won't be in time for mom, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone, even my worst enemy, not that I have one, you know what I mean.

Mom is playing with paper again.  I don't mind when she does this because it keeps her mind going and active.  That is important.  It also keeps her very busy folding, unfolding, folding again, unfolding again. Can you just picture this teeny tiny little 5'3", 82 pound lady doing this?  If I know where the camera cord was for the computer I would take a picture of it and post it, as it is, I have no idea where the cord is and the other camera doesn't have a memory card in it.  Someday that will be taking care of, I just don't know when.  It is a cute little camera, it is pink, one of my favorite colors!  If they had had a purple one, I would have totally bought it as purple is my absolute favorite color with pink as a close second.  My old room has a purple rug and yellow walls that coordinated with the drapes and the bedspread.  I had a canopy bed that mom build the frame for until that bed was changed from twin size to full size.  I love my big bed.  I sleep directly in the middle of the bed, no room for anyone or anything else, just me and I love it!

Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving.  As a child, we used to celebrate both Thanksgivings, the Canadian one and the American one.  We would head over to my Grandfather's for the Canadian one and celebrate with all my aunts and uncles and cousins.  It was always fun.  We also would go there for Christmas dinner too.  We did this until my grandmother died when I was 9, then we were on our own for holidays.  We were invited to Tillie's, but with the problems Mom is having, we aren't going to go.  I am just afraid she won't be able to handle the drive.  It is an hour there and an hour back plus now with this swallowing issue?  Oh my!  So we are staying home and relaxing.  The nurse will let me know what to do with Mom so that will be nice.  She was able to take her medication this morning so that is good, but what about this evening?

Anyways, I hope this finds you doing well and having a good day.  I am just waiting for Rachel and her sister, Rebecca.

Oh, I was wrong, I misread the email, it is next week she wants the lesson.  I will get everything ready for her.  I have most of it ready.