Category Archives: family

sweet dreams

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I went to a baby shower for a friend’s daughter on Sunday. At first, as I watched the radiant mom-to-be open one cute pink gift after another, it made me happy. But I have to admit that by the end of the afternoon I practically ran out of that room. While slipping into my coat before I made my great escape, I overheard another friend say that she had just finished addressing her own Christmas cards as well as her mother’s cards. I had just finished addressing the invitations to my mom’s memorial. My own granddaughter was due on September 7th, my mom died on September 30th. As I drove home under a canopy of golden autumn leaves, I had one of those moments that sneak up on you, that suddenly wash over you just when you thought you were doing really great handling the trials of your life. I let the tears fall freely and I remembered a dream I had when the kids were still pregnant.

Two weeks before Andy and Meagan found out that the pregnancy was in trouble, and three weeks before they lost the baby, I had this dream. In the dream we had a house full of family and I was scurrying around like I do when I suddenly saw this little baby sitting in a highchair at a table. The baby wasn’t part of the crazy dream, it was slightly transparent, blond and blue-eyed with a faint glow surrounding it. I sat down across from the baby as the rest of the dream paused and fell away. I asked the baby if it knew what the sex of the coming baby was. The baby looked at me, smiled, and answered, “Can’t you just be patient and wait two more weeks until they find out?” I said, “No, can you tell me?” (not at all surprised that the baby, who looked to be about nine months old, was talking to me). The baby giggled, a sweet, sweet little laugh like the sound of peeling bells, then it looked down shyly and said, “It’s a girl.”

Of course, now I wish I had asked the dream baby if the baby in my daughter-in-law’s belly was healthy, if everything was going turn out okay. After they lost the baby (it was a girl) I was angry that I’d had that dream because a part of me was hoping that the baby in the dream was the baby that I would be holding in my arms by my birthday come September. If I could ask for any dream right now it would be one where I see my mom, young and healthy, her arms cradling a blond, giggling blue-eyed baby girl.

lullaby and goodbye

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Two weeks ago today I was sitting in a darkened room in a hospital ER, my hand gently holding my mother’s wrist, my index finger feeling for her fading pulse. As the fragile beats grew more distant, then seemed to stop, I glanced at my sister who was sitting next to my mother’s head stroking her hair. My sister is a nurse and I looked to her like a child looks up at their mother after they fall down to see how to react. Was this it, was she gone? My sister didn’t say anything though, so we kept talking.

I don’t remember now what we spoke about that afternoon, it doesn’t really matter. I think me and my sister and my father just wanted to erase the sounds of the hospital and fill it with our own hushed voices, a lullaby to a dying mother, wife, and grandmother. Sometime later a nurse floated silently into the room and quietly asked us if we needed anything. My sister shook her head no, then she said that mom had passed away about ten minutes before. So that was it then – no trumpets blaring, no final gasp, no last words, no dramatic goodbyes. Unlike the spectacle of birth and that fierce first breath, there was just sleep for my mother, deep and peaceful, a measured crossing on a whispered river of words.

my mom

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I had written a post about my mom Carol for September 30th, saying that we were going to have to begin hospice care for her, but before I could post it my dad phoned and said that he had called 911, that she was having a bad morning. When we got to the hospital they were not able to stabilize her breathing. We dimmed the lights and they initiated comfort care right there in the emergency room. She passed away peacefully hours later with my sister, my dad, and me by her side. We are saddened yet relieved that she is no longer suffering. We were also blessed with a hospital staff that was kind, caring and respectful. It was heartbreaking, powerful, beautiful…I think we felt just about every emotion possible that afternoon. I made a memorial website for my mom. We have a busy weekend of family bonding ahead of us so I don’t know when I’ll be back to blogging:)

Time is not what you think. Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning. ~Mitch Albom

birthday blues

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This Sunday is my birthday and it’s going to be a rather bittersweet one. Our first grandchild was due last Sunday, on Grandparents Day, so I was hoping to be holding my first grandchild on my birthday this year. But during a routine ultrasound this past spring my daughter-in-law’s doctor discovered that the baby had Bilateral Multicystic Dysplastic Kidney Disease and because her tiny kidney’s were failing, she was unable to make enough amniotic fluid to sustain the pregnancy. Our son and daughter-in-law named the baby Kylie Nicole and we are walking in the PKD walk to help raise money for kidney disease on Septmeber 20th. Our granddaughter’s kidney disease was similar to Polycystic Kidney Disease which is one of the most common life threatening, genetic, diseases affecting an estimated 12.5 million people worldwide. In fact, PKD is more common than Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and sickle cell anemia – combined. If you would like to learn more about PKD, or support Meagan and Andy, please click on this link or on the PKD Foundation logo at the top of this post.

… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. ~Kahlil Gibran

My Photo Friday shot for the theme Relationship is of Andy and Meagan and their puppy Tonka, who is now much bigger but is still just as cute!

fragile beauty

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When I was dealing with chronic health problems some years ago my mom once told me that she didn’t know how I did it. She said she wouldn’t have the strength or courage to do what I did, which was to go on. She has been very ill for a year now herself. This past week was particularly rough and she ended up spending twenty-four hours in the hospital. Yesterday, she said that a year ago she expected that she would be healthy by now and back her normal life. Now she is facing the reality that perhaps she will have to accept a new “normal”.

I remember struggling with the idea of acceptance and hope when I was sick. I think that when you face an illness, or most any other great challenge in your life, you need to embrace a little bit of both. You also learn that courage has nothing to do with strength or weakness, it’s really just a choice: to do the right thing, to find the blessings in the worst of times, or perhaps to simply choose to go on.

Mr. bookbabie took the photo above. It’s of a baby crane near his office that fell out of its nest is now living rather precariously in a small tree. The mother is still caring for it and we hope that it can survive until it’s big enough to make it on its own. Isn’t it beautiful?

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow. ~Mary Anne Radmacher

naked words

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I finished reading Mark Matousek’s book, When You’re Falling Dive last night. The author takes a look at how disaster transforms people by interviewing and seeking advice from many different people who have been touched with adversity. One chapter, entitled “Nakedness” begins with this passage: We must accept heartbreak to be fully human. We cannot love without tasting some blood, nor connect without braving some chink in our armor. Those who are most spiritually naked, most transparent, are also those who see most fully. “Let the scar of the heart be seen,” said the prophet Mohammad. “For by their scars are known the men who are in the way of Love.”

I like that term, spiritually naked. I think that’s how it is when you become a parent, the love you feel for your baby is so raw you have no choice but to become spiritually naked. Many new parents are surprised by the force of that love, the uncontrollable fierceness of it. They are both surprised and frightened by it because with it comes the possibility of such profound heartbreak. We love and we lose. Someone I know who is grieving a relationship said that she had wasted the past ten years with her lover because they broke up. Do you think that’s true? Can love be wasted?

Anyhoo, the book was a good read if you’re feeling introspective (as I seem to be lately). Check it out next time you’re at the bookstore. The photo is of my niece Ayrielle, I just want to pinch those chubby little cheeks every time I see her:)

weathering the storms

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We went to my sister’s for Father’s Day on Sunday. They all spent a rather hellish week at a children’s hospital with my niece’s one-year-old daughter who became very ill with Type 1 Diabetes that came on suddenly after a virus. We had no idea this could happen, it was very scary and quite a shock. After my son and daughter-in-law lost their unborn baby girl, my family could still count my parent’s great-grandchild blessings when they thought of our healthy, happy little Aryielle. Ha, said the Universe, not so fast! While googling Aryielle’s illness I came across a surprising fact, apparently the same rogue gene region that can trigger gluten intolerance can also cause Type 1 Diabetes. Something my family needs to keep in mind (I have one of the Celiac genes).

After we got home another storm blew in and this one brought along some marble-sized hail. Click on the pic above to see a larger version. It was pretty wild. Mr. bookbabie went out and scooped up a bowl of it (I have no idea why) so I took an iStock-like photo of it for him! What is going on with the weather? Is your weather as crazy as our is?