Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Beginning









I'm writing the story of the loss of my mother and brother, a great lesson for me in love and living.  You can find day one here.



When I was a teenager my mother's mother came to live with us.  She was ill and my mother brought her to our house to care for her.  A few years later my stepfather's mother came as well for care.  My father's brother cared for my paternal grandparents until they both passed away.  I think you may see a pattern.  It is what I learned in my youth.  We care for our own.

Even though my brother passed 19 years before my mother, I wanted to concentrate on her first.  Maybe because it is more recent or maybe because the pain remains so great.  Bear with me these next few days.  I need to tell this story.

I lost my father at the age of 10 to a massive heart attack and my mother remarried 3 years later.  We called him Dad. In order to tell Mom's story you need to know about Dad. He never made it passed the 8th grade, but he rose to be the head of maintenance at the Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake City close to Houston. NASA became a common destination.  Dad was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2004 and died in February of 2005.  I quit my teaching job and returned to Nursing full time so that I would have a schedule that allowed me to drive him to chemo every week. My mother was suffering from severe emphysema and needed monitoring as well.  In the midst of this we were planning my oldest daughter's wedding and it was suddenly called off. I don't know how we managed.  I do know it was one of the roughest spots.

The day Dad passed is one I will never forget.  There are details I still cannot reconcile and many I'll never have answers to, but in the moments immediately after he died my mother suffered a massive nervous breakdown.  Over the next 10 days, my mother did not leave her bed.  I planned a funeral with the help of my husband and arranged 24 hour care for my mother while we buried my father and tried to figure out how to proceed.

Tomorrow.......  The fall.

" Thank you for listening to my story.  I've never publicly told it, but writing it out is therapeutic and I hope that something may be beneficial to a reader."

3 comments:

  1. I understand how healing it is to write about our lives. God bless you my friend and give you comfort!

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  2. "We care for our own" I am so glad you are sharing, more messages like this belong in this world of 'me, me, me'...the sharing helps others see the possibility. You have lived a life of love, that is for sure.

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  3. I'm so sorry. My dad passed away last May and it has been a tough year. I admire you for writing about your pain. It's tough to do but I'm sure it's healing. I know in my head that he has gone ahead but it's my heart that can't make sense of it all. It's so unreal to lose those we love that I still can't talk about it. I'm sure you know what I mean. It just stinks.

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