This is such precious and sacred time with my mom. It is beautiful and heart wrenching. 

I keep physical contact as much as I can when I’m with her. And every time I leave the room for something she stirs and wakes up. Spirit to spirit, she knows when she’s alone, and when she’s not alone. It’s such a tender mercy to care for my momma this way.

And yet I’m so sad. I’ve thought so much about that and pondered about my feelings and if I should cry knowing such a beautiful eternal perspective. One of my favorite verses of scripture is simply “Jesus wept.” He wept with his friends in their sadness. I believe in a Savior and Heavenly Parent's in whose image I am made, and in whose emotions I feel. So I weep. 

We talked about how to announce all that is happening. We decided on a simple social media heads up. Lexi helped gather some pictures to share. This has always been one of my absolute favorite pictures of my beautiful mom and baby. I wouldn’t be where I am today without these two. 

And then with our girl all grown up. 💕

Her house is covered in pictures of her grandchildren. Each one is so beloved to her. 

Forever grateful we came together to celebrate our mom for her 70th birthday. I believe in celebrations. 

Today she will come home and be able to be fully surrounded by love around the clock. The days feel long and short at the same time. Embracing every beautiful moment. 

Momma update

My moms health has been a roller coaster. She’s had good moments where it was easy to let myself think she was doing better, but mostly it’s been setbacks. She was having cardiac events, so after a cardiac scope, she got a pacemaker. She had clotting, but then other problems with the anti clotting medicine. She struggled to eat and drink enough each day, so she got an iv and they talked about a feeding tube. They discovered she suffered an ischemic stroke, and the cause. She went from rehab back to the hospital to telemetry, back to rehab, back to the icu. I didn’t even know how to update people, because how do you quantify a day life that. It’s been hard not being able to see her too, just hard to fully understand and not to be able to use my own judgement. 

We had it planned out that one of us would be with her nonstop until mid- March, with Joe and his family filling in the in between times. My turn to fly out was going to be February 28th. 

We had a snow getaway already planned for Presidents’ Day weekend, and with all of the difficult things going on we were all really excited to just come be together. I gave a talk in the Bowie Ward Sunday morning, an easy, spirit led talk about the temple that went really well. The crew came with me and it was fun for them to see another ward and be visitors in our stake. We left from there for Canaan Valley, WV. 

Dan, Chantell, and Zoe met us at our cabin and I made warm soup and salad for dinner, Matt lit a fire in the fireplace and we had a wonderful first night. We also discovered the WiFi was down at our cabins, but 2 days unplugged is not a terrible thing. 

I had decided I wanted to snowshoe this year, but there’s not any snow on the ground. Whomp whomp. Chantell and I plan b’d it and planned a hike instead. We got everyone off to the mountain, dropped off lunch for them, then went to the lodge to send a few emails, then back to the cabin for our lunch. We were chatting after lunch when I got a sibling text asking to call asap and that it wasn’t good. 

We went straight to the lodge and Chantel sat with me as I joined in on an already in progress sibling call. My moms kidneys were failing and she needed emergency dialysis, and we needed to decide that day. But would she want that? everyone shared their thoughts on her medical directive and sara left to the hospital to talk to moms dr and set up a conference call with us, and also to try to talk to my mom. 

Chantel and I walked, (it was a beautiful day) and cried, and prayed as we waited for news. Then another emergency call. We sat by a beautiful stream and listened as Sara shared with us a very personal talk with my mom. 

So now we are switching gears into hospice mode. Matt had been telling me for a few days that he thought I should fly out sooner than the 28th, so that was an easy decision. I waited for the crew to be done snowboarding and talked to him. 

Chantell had made dinner, so we ate and then headed to the pool at the lodge. D&C took the girls and Matt sat with me as we went through every scenario. We figured out which flight would work and Southwest was wonderful when I called. 

Dan and Chantell offered to keep the girls so Matt and I can leave early. Then their fun trip isn’t cut short. Matt will meet up with them tonight in WC after he drops my dad and I off. 

I cried a lot today. I cried with my siblings, then with chantell, then with Matt, then with the girls.

Tom, Amy, Frey, my dad, and I will all fly to Texas this week and Alli will extend her trip. I’m hoping we can bring my mom home so she can spend her last days in her home instead of a hospice center. 

I’m so grateful to be able to see her before she goes. I’m so grateful she is at peace. I’m so grateful she is able to make decisions about her treatment. 

We’ll talk to her Dr today and make more arrangements. I’m grateful for a group of siblings that are open and honest and respect each other. We are all being gentle with each other as we all process and work through our emotions.

I’ve been praying that my mom will feel her mom, dad, and sister around her. I just know they’ve been encircling her bed for weeks, and I want her to feel them close. The veil is already so thin. I’m so grateful or the prayers I feel buoying me up. I am sad, I thought I’d have another 20 years with my mom. But I’m grateful for the time we’ve had together. I’m grateful for both gospel and life perspective. I’m grateful I was able to sleep for a few hours last night and for a fun and distracting day for the girls today with family that loves them. So much to be grateful for, even in the hard times

Fridge of fame

On Wednesday after jiu jitsu we went to the store. D brought her phone and listened to music. 😂

These two have been friends since pre-k and now they’re just a bunch of big 4th graders doing safety patrol with Ms. Blakely. I walk to school with Delaney every morning, and some days she asks me to hang out and some days she dismisses me. I’m happy she likes me to walk with her. 

These three jokers worked together in Maker Space one day. I forget what D said they created, but they were all very proud of themselves. 

We’re Tenkor sitting this week while Alli is in Texas with our mom. I get so stressed taking her for walks because she’s so naughty around other dogs. She’s also attacked, and been attacked by other dogs while I’ve been with her and it makes me anxious. Thankfully Matt mostly takes her out and I persevere the rest of the time. D still loves her T-baby. 

Today I ran to Ruby’s house for one last short assessment. I have worked with that girl for 3 years and it’s so weird not to see her all the time. I had a good chat with her mom and they assured me they gave me glowing reviews. 🤗 😉

Then Matt and I had a lunch date at Noli’s. We split a meatball appetizer - delicious, lemon chicken - delicious, and a fugedaboutit dessert - kind of meh. They used Hershey syrup, which I don’t like and didn’t expect a fancy Italian restaurant to use, hence my non delicious rating for it. But it’s a super cute restaurant and we definitely recommend. 

Then Matt and I continued our date at the school where he volunteered in Maker Space with me. We didn’t have any 5th graders so we got to talk about all the things. I also was able to grab a picture of Delaney on the fridge of fame. 

He’s so good with kids. Except when he blew in a straw to make it make noise and then all the kids did it too and we had to throw away a bunch of straws, but other than that. 

Puppet playtime. We sent this chaplipped cutie to nanny because nanny gave us this puppet. 

And also a Frankie shot, since I’ve sent lots of d shots. 

Emmi is potty training so we sent him some cute boxer briefs and Carter a happy garden toy. Then we got to FaceTime and watch car car eat his gnocchi soup. I’m trying to get out to see them soon!

I’ve been making lists and checking them twice. There are so many little things to do for womens conference, and then catching up on life after a few weeks down and out. I have gotten my 10,000 steps the last 2 days, even though I had to ask Matt to slow down today. I’m doing my bum foot stretches and yoga, and I made dinner several times this week. For our scripture study for home evening we take turns picking conference talks to watch, and Frankie chose Elder Uchtdorf. I’ve been thinking all week about this:

Do you want to change the shape of your life?

Change the shape of your day.

Do you want to change your day?

Change this hour.

Change what you think, feel, and do at this very moment.

A small rudder can steer a large ship.

As I do little things each day to remind me of my savior or my covenants or my goals, I am steering this large ship. Its so good. 

My mom still isn’t doing well. She’s not eating enough, so her dr’s are talking about a feeding tube. She’s doing all her therapies, so that’s good, but there have been so many complications and setbacks, it’s just really hard. Still praying for a miracle. And also for God’s will to be done, and to be able to gracefully and with a soft heart accept it. . 

More January

We still go to the dentist a lot. Thankfully Delaney’s expanders haven’t been coming off as much anymore. We’re all excited for them to finish their treatment.  

I’m teaching the girls to pump gas. They’re getting pretty good, except that time D left the cap off. 😳

This baby boy loves his daddy! They’re so cute. 

Nanny shot. 

I really love doing it the days of Valentines. It’s been a fun tradition that I hope the kids will continue as they have their own families.  

Punxatawney Phil said we’ll have a long winter. We’ve had a few really warm and beautiful days, but mostly really cold. 

Delaney has her turn to be Safety Patrol this quarter. She said it feels good to wear that sash. 😂

So then bubba showed her his sash, but we all agree D’s is cooler. In preparation for deployment, Christian and crew spent a month in Louisiana. Unfortunately his crew got captured in all of their training exercises. Hopefully they get a handle on that before deployment. 

Emmett loves Carter soooo much. 😂

And a surgery journey. I came out of surgery sooo hot. I was hot most of my time there, and my wonderful nurses brought me lots of ice packs. On Monday I slept all day. I didn’t eat dinner, talked to the crew for about 5 minutes, and then back to sleep. I took this picture after a nurse check in at 3am. I think I was trying to see my wound, but failed. I have zero pride otherwise I wouldn’t ever share this. I had marks on my chin and injection marks there and on my neck by both ears. And back to sleep. 

8:30 check in. I ate a few bites of brekkie and back to sleep. 

9:30. Waking up a little more every hour. 

Dr. Chen checked on me and by 11 they were getting my papers ready to send me home. 

I ate a little lunch and got ready to go. My hair is hilarious. If it gets even a little bit wet it curls and frizzes out of control. I tried. 🤷‍♀️

Matt picked up all my meds and figured out all the timing. He ground them up and put them in my applesauce so I didn’t have to try to swallow any big pills. I had so many different prescriptions and they were taken at different times and intervals. He’s a good guy. 

Wednesday morning shot. Still so sleepy

One weird thing, something during surgery burned my nose. I could tell immediately that it was burned, and slowly it scabbed over on its own, but it’s still a little red. 

Something happened when they tried the iv in this hand and that little attempt bruised the heck out of me. 

Matt was able to take the whole week off to spend with me, so that was awesome. I couldn’t ask to be better pampered. 

Healing

On Saturday our baby boy got married. He will be deploying in late May, and it makes financial (and lots of other ways) sense for them to get married. Alexis and I offered our quick Mormon wedding planning services - 6 months is forever! - but they decided to have a small wedding now and a big wedding later. As a mom I’ve learned to give advice when asked or prompted, and then to love, love, love. So that’s what we did. Being the grooms mom is v v different than the brides, so we didn’t get details till a few days before the wedding, and it was all fine. It was a lovely day and everyone was happy. 

The girls decorated cans and Alli and I attached them to Jeanne’s car and wrote all over it. The cans lasted about 50 yards. 

After, we all went to Ruddy Duck where those sneaky snooks paid for everyone’s lunch. They are good kids. 💕

I went to the Calvert and Bayside wards on Sunday. Calvert got a new bishop, so that was a fun day to attend. It was my first time in that ward, and now I’ve got 9/10 done. Crazy that after over a year I still haven’t been to every ward, but Covid. I had a lovely and long day and came home exhausted. I have spent so much time at home, i think I’m becoming more introverted, or maybe it’s just due to circumstances,  but being around people for 4+ hours where I don’t know a lot of people and had to be very social was more challenging than normal and it really wore me out. It’s also interesting because some people know who i am. I’ve said some dumb things to people recognizing me and it’s easy to feel like a little dumb fish out of water, but thankfully I like myself a lot (I’m hilarious) and I’m pretty resilient. Kitty said sometimes she’d go home and cry and worry about things she’d done because she’s just little old stupid her and I swear  if that’s not so true. I was so happy to be alone in my car on the way home, and then I remembered that I used to call my mom on long Sunday drives home and that made me sad. I’m still over here feeling all the emotions. 

The girls and I prepped Super Bowl dinner when I got home and I remembered my one football platter. Most years I don’t remember, so we had to document it. 

We watched at papa’s house and my team won and Matt and papa’s didn’t so that was fun. We ate a lot of yummy food and it was a nice easy night. 

Monday was Valentine’s Day. Matt got me roses and delicious chocolates and I did our traditional last day of valentines scavenger hunt. The girls ran around as excited as they did when they were 5,6, and 8 and it was so cute. 

We got them a Bluetooth shower speaker because they’ve been asking to listen to music in the bathroom. It wasn’t the most exciting gift year, but I do think they’ll see the vision soon. 

Shot for nanny. I love these crazies. Also I thought I’d tamed my hair. 🤷‍♀️

Today I took D on a date. We tried the hottest new restaurant in Leonardtown (Noli’s) but needed a reservation, so then we tried Hong Kong Buffet because something she ate there with the Aina’s was “to die for!”, but they are closed Tuesday’s. So then we passed Wendy’s and Arbys and even Taco Bell/kfc, and went to McDonald’s.

We debriefed on goals and made thoughtful new ones. I heard the lowdown on everyone in the 4th grade realm. We clarified things and laughed. I love Delaney’s detailed descriptions of her days and even though I wish we were laughing over cannoli’s, it was still lovely. 

While we dated, Frankie cleaned papa’s apartment. She’s lucky she has so many easy ways to make money and he went very easy on her. When we picked her up they played on the treadmill and we oooohed and awwwww\’d. 

I had a presidency meeting where we talked women’s conference desserts for 30 minutes. Sometimes agreeing is hard, but we’re a good team and we figure it out. 

Tonight I was close to sleep and then convinced myself I was having a stroke. Lots of medical reading will do that to you, I guess? 🤷‍♀️ my sleep is still a mess, obvi, but I’m committed to healing. Healing, incidentally, is my word for 2022. I thought that meant more physical healing from this this surgery am then my deviated septum surgery, maybe friend relationships and my relationships with all sorts of things - food, travel, running. I know just choosing a word does not make things happen, but it kind of feels like I was asking for trouble with “healing.” 

Marching on

Life keeps moving forward. Men are that they might have joy, and I am thankful to be a pretty light hearted person a lot of the time. We’ve had lots of happy mixed in with the hard. Delaney put on the worlds cutest magic show last Saturday. She prepped for it for days - we had tickets days in advance, and she’d put signs up for everything. She had a ticket counter manned by Rachel Tomas (her pseudonym) and refreshments. She doesn’t have a top hat so she made herself   one. 

Lexi and Cade sent her a magic set for her birthday, so she used that and went through all her tricks. It was so adorable and she had so much fun putting it on. She had a tip jar, so we made sure everyone gave her a tip. 

This little cutie. Middle school continues to be not the most fun thing. She talks about home schooling, but with a trip to Texas, and possibly Montana coming up we are waiting things out. 

James was in town for work, so Matt was able to visit with him in dc. I would have loved to go too, but whomp whomp. 

My moms journey continues to be a roller coaster. Frey arrived Sunday and they could barely wake her up to eat. They had given her a muscle relaxer that threw her into a tailspin for a bit. On Monday she couldn’t even recognize him. It was a happy day when finally on Tuesday she knew who he was and his name. I reached out to her bishop and gave him my number to share with friends that want updates, so every day I’ve spoken to someone from the ward, it’s been such a blast from the past. She is only able to eat soft foods and loves pudding, so I sent her this one of fellow pudding lover, D. 

💕

Papa took the girls to see their award winning scavenger hunt photos and these pics have been all over our small town social media. The scavenger hunt is the gift that keeps on giving, it was fun to do and everything that came after has been just icing on the cake.  

We did at home church on Sunday. There was a stomach bug going around, and with stitches in my neck I cannot get sick like that. Matt had to work the Navy, so the girls and I stayed home. They are still masked at school, and then Johnna let us do virtual piano and then Matt took them to jiu jitsu and everyone showered as soon as they got home. Probably overkill, but life has been rocky, so we’ll overkill a bit. Amy brought over dinner that night and it was nice to visit with her for a bit. 

I went back to school for my Tuesday multiplication buddies and just thought these boxes of masks are the most 2020 (2020-2022 I guess) thing ever. My little buddies missed me and only one asked what happened to my neck, which was fine, I don’t mind telling them, I just thought more would ask. I had told delaney to try to come say hi to me and she remembered, so that is always nice too. 

I got to talk to Joy for a long time on Wednesday and she assured me I could take off my bandage. She gave me directions (clean Vaseline) and it came off pretty easily and nearly painlessly. 

And there she is. My cool little pirate scar. I’m going to have to be careful to keep it out of the sun this year, so hopefully it won’t feel gross to have clothing over it soon. 

It was 60° so the girls went out to play tennis and volleyball in these cute little skorts from Quinn. We’re sending lots of pictures to nanny lately. 

Like these ones from jiu jitsu. 

Delaney practicing with a much bigger boy. 

Frankie practicing with a much smaller boy. 🤷‍♀️

That night f and a had a pinewood derby at the church. Matt helped them make their cars, but they didn’t add any weight or do anything special. Adi was a little bummed her car came in last. I didn’t think she would care, and she didn’t really, but said she’d like to have won something. Oh well.

Today Alecia and I went for a walk and to lunch. It was another beautiful day and we walked over a mile so that’s my farthest day yet. It was so nice to get outside and be able to talk through all the struggles and joys of life. We went to outback for lunch and it was delicious too, just a wonderful afternoon. 

And then Lu called to let me know she’d taken Carter back to the hospital because his knee was swollen again. They X-rayd and scanned and sent everything over to the Children’s hospital to see what to do. I got home and went straight to bed. I don’t know if it was the long walk or the stress of Carter being sick again, or probably both, but I just couldn’t hang. I’m grateful beyond grateful to have the flexibility to give myself what feels like an excessive amount of healing time. It’s only been 2 and a half weeks, but I thought I’d be ready to rock after 1. 

We ordered Chicfila for dinner as a school fundraiser, so we all walked to pick it up and  I sent my mom my cool scar pic. I look so tired here, that’s just my vibe lately. 

The dr’s in Great Falls disagreed on what to do for our baby. first it was there is fluid around his knee and we want to drain it but we’ll wait for Children’s. Then a new one came and after examining him said he was fine, the fluid around his knee was probably normal, and to go home. Then another came and said she didn’t think they should go home and let’s talk to Children’s again. Carter was a little fussy, but he was walking along the furniture and playing. Finally Children’s said to go with what the dr said, so they went home. All the prayers that he starts improving again. I can go to Montana now, but I’m hoping I can make it to Texas first. 

Adi loves momma mia soundtrack and it reminds us of road trips with nanny, so of course we sent her this picture. 

I met with President Boyd over Zoom. He had some good info to share about the temple open house and some other changes for the stake. He’s such a good example to me and I’m so glad I get to work with him. 

Nighttime’s have been hard for awhile now. First with breathing troubles, now with worries. I hope I can get back to loving bedtime again soon, I miss it.