« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »
That's the 'diagnosis'. Two weeks or less. Hospice would be surprised if it's more than two weeks.
Silk - check
Burial ring - check
Casket - check
Burial plot, funeral home - check
Handsome, touching photo - check
Maman still knitting? - check
Yup, she's still knitting. Go figure.
I haven't really updated about my mother recently, and it is time.
From the top, after Thanksgiving my mother stopped going to work. Physically, she couldn't do it anymore. She called Hospice back in.
She can no longer walk on her own. She is eating very little, and signs of organs failing are beginning to show. We no longer feel like we're crying wolf.
My brothers and I are here with her, and my sister will be joining us shortly. My brother will be getting married, here in her home, in a month. Her goal - at least a few days ago - was to make it to the wedding. It's been a rough few days, though my father said last night was better.
My cousin and his family came out yesterday. His daughter (8 years old) walked up to my mother, put her head on her shoulder and asked my mother how she was. My mother replied, "I am very sick." Isis simply replied, "I miss you" and my mother could feel the girl's tear running down her own cheek. My mother was so touched, feeling that here, finally, was someone who understood.
Thank you for letting me share this with you. Despite the impending grief, there is a peace to this I simply cannot explain.
Making good use of our brand new zoo membership card, gratis Uncle Nathan!
Thanks so much, Nae! So thoughtful. I was near tears. Of course, life is sort of emotional at the moment, but all the same, thanks Nae! Mark is using the card as I write this. (we were invited to the zoo with his brother, Fred, but it was too late in the evening for Liam, so Mark went alone.)
Liam and I will find other uses for this card soon, I'm sure!
Which is why I'm writing. I've had oodles of ideas of what to write on my blog. Of course, I can't think of any of them right now.
Anyone have experience getting iron drops into a baby who doesn't like them, won't eat spoon-fed food and refuses bottles and sippy cups? Basically, Liam's iron is crazy low, but it's okay because his body seems to handling it as if it's normal, except that brain development really does need iron, so we have to get him pumping iron, so to speak.
I will soon be 32. When did 32 get so young?
I don't think I'm going to have any more children. Ever.
If I take a virtual reality vacation (a la total recall), will I forget all of my real-life concerns while I'm on vacation?
Funnily enough, even though when I look at my life objectively I think it's pretty crazy and kind of crappy, I really do have to admit I'm pretty happy. Or numb. I might be numb. I mentioned to someone that I wanted to ask my mother whether she had a preferred charity for people to make memorial donations. The person's response was basically like, "wow, you're really dealing with some weighty stuff, Mara." I sat for a moment and tried to see what emotion I felt, I just shrugged. All I could think of was, "enh, whatever." Is this the new normal?
And now you know what I'm thinking ... scary, ain't it?
Update: I've uploaded 3 new videos of Liam - crawling, discovering a cupboard in the kitchen and playing with his new shelf space in the living room.
Here's the crawling one. For more, go to my You Tube link at your right.
That's definitely how stories of this day will start one day.
Do you remember the time when, you'd just finished your first term back at OSU - it'd gone horribly in and of itself - we got a call telling us our son's hemoglobin counts were down. We spent the next few frenzied days in lab work, doctor's appointments. But, wow, that one day ... we had an 8:15 appointment to see the doctor. We woke up to at least 4 inches of snow - oh, ooh, I had a migraine, too -, left at 8, arrived at 9am. Mark was supposed to be at work at 9. Then we had to pick up iron for Liam, but somehow it fell out of the car, we had to ask the doctor to call the script back in, Mark didn't get to work until after noon. He got his grade for chem that day, too - man, was he bummed over that first silly chem class. Wow - you don't get much crazier than those days...
That's what we'll sit around a fire and laugh about.
Some day.