What I've Learned About Mothering

Sometimes people say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger; I have to say, though, that that's a sentiment with which I cannot agree.

I don't feel stronger as a result of the challenges I have encountered, but I do feel changed - and I recognize that I have learned some things from those experiences.  Much of what I've assimilated is on the pages of this blog, and I suspect there is even more to come, from grief and perspective and just life in general.  Many of those things, I am realizing, can be valuable, useful lessons, serving to make me more solicitous, more introspective, and more appreciative of what I have - all of which are easily applied to perhaps the most challenging thing in my life: mothering.

From the road I've traveled, I've learned that the life I have won't last forever; it will change in many ways, some over time and some quickly, some for the better and some tragically, and that because of that I need to work hard to appreciate and remember each day.  

I've learned that it's easy to take it all for granted - and sometimes to wish it away.  I've learned that at some point there is an end to the sleepless nights, the piles of laundry, the hectic mornings filled with things like looking for a missing shoe and packing lunches and kisses goodbye, the nerve-wrecking parent-teacher conferences, the disarray of toys and books scattered everywhere, the lazy summer mornings that stretch into afternoons, the shopping for what I hoped was the perfect birthday or Christmas gift - the Tickle Me Elmo or the Jessie Cowgirl doll or the Furby that I stood in long lines to buy, ready to elbow my way to the front of the aisle to get my child what I thought her childhood wouldn't be complete without.

What I have loved most of all was seeing the trust and happiness in my children's faces, hearing their infectious giggles, feeling their hand in mine, and recognizing things in them that they had learned from me.  Little by little, those days of not being able to shower or go into the bathroom by myself have transformed into closed bedroom doors and teenaged eye rolls of embarrassment that only a parent can still interpret as love, and somewhere along the way it hit me that it's impossible to go back and do one single minute over; I can't take back words said in anger or exhaustion, and I can't rewind the time from even one day to allow myself to better remember or to better react.  All I can do is hope that what I've made up on my own and what I've figured out with the help of those who have advised me or in some way mothered me has been right, or at least right enough, and then try to do my best with what comes as time marches forward, as we go through more proofreading, conflicts with friends and teachers and roommates, texting, phone conversations, choices of class schedules and fashion purchases and even more important things, being sure to celebrate the victories - both big and small, and just trying to keep up with everything.

These days I'm amazed when I think about how I used to think that mothering a baby was so easily definable as the hard part; it's really all the hard part, especially, as I now know, letting go as they make their own decisions, watching them stretch their wings, realizing that they are their own people, swiftly moving towards adulthood and independence, despite the feelings of joy and relief I get when they occasionally come to me for help.

When I look at the hundreds of family photos from over the years, I remember and I cherish the special moments captured on film - the birthday parties, the school programs, the first days of school, the Christmases and the Easters.  But the moments that I treasure the most when I think back are those that no one thought to capture on film, the everyday moments, those from days that I think were accurately and brilliantly labeled along the way as perfectly ordinary.

I wouldn't trade them for dollers or barbies either!

Not Knowing - Grandmom's Story, Part 5

Continued from Grandmom's Story, Part 4

Mourning the loss of my grandmother in between the time that she died and the time of her funeral brought with it many emotions; even in the midst of the series of aftershocks that my family felt as a result of the compounded, extended grief after first my dad's death and then his mother's, I found it hard to believe that she was really gone.  She had been slipping away - and it could even be argued that she had already slipped away in essentially all forms except for the physical - for several years, and we knew her time was near, but not coming together as a family to grieve during those few weeks made it difficult for me to accept.  

I knew that I wanted to be prepared to say something about her life to those who would gather to honor her memory; I spent many nights sitting up, intending to write down what I wanted to say but not being able to, either because the words just wouldn't come or because the tears that flowed kept me from being able to see clearly enough to record my thoughts on paper.  I re-read some of the many letters that Grandmom had written to me over the years, and I looked at lots and lots of photos of her from during her life, many of which had also been taken with my dad by her side.  I created a slideshow of many of the pictures and selected background music to go along with it.  None of it helped me to process things or to come up with what I felt were the right words to say as a tribute, though; I ended up leaving to make the trip to the town where my grandmother had lived for 5 decades and some change - and where my dad had grown up - without a firm idea of the words that I wanted to say during the memorial service.

My husband, my daughters, and I met my mom, my sister Nancy, and her husband David at the hotel where we were staying for the weekend; many of the members of my dad's side of our extended family were staying at that same hotel, and, after not having seen the majority of them since I was a teenager, it was a little surreal to keep running into them a little at a time in different settings, in the hotel elevator, the lobby, the parking lot, and the Waffle House next door to the hotel.  I had to tell myself countless times to hold it together, because, as each layer of the family reunited, the subject of my dad's very unexpected illness and death was naturally piggybacked onto that of my grandmother's passing, a recurrent one-two punch that I didn't think I had near the stamina to withstand.  

I didn't sleep much the night before the funeral; I felt unsettled and almost inconsolable.  I texted back and forth with my sister Jennifer who had not been able to make the trip from California that weekend, and together we came up with a message that I planned to communicate at the service the next day.

It's difficult to organize a funeral from out of town, especially in a town with limited resources and where one has limited connections - and especially in a state of compounded grief.  Not knowing what the best thing to do would be, we planned to have the service at the funeral home and then, at the invitation of the members of my grandmother's church, to have fellowship and food afterwards at the church.  Based on a decision my parents had made before my dad had gotten sick, my grandmother's body had been cremated, and my mom had the task of transporting her remains to the funeral home, allowing my grandmother an opportunity to go home in yet another sense.

                       Click to view the slideshow from my grandmother's funeral

When we arrived at the funeral home, we took a few minutes to set up the video projector and my computer so that the slideshow of photos of Grandmom could be shown on the wall of the chapel before the service, and then we met briefly with the funeral director, at which point it came to light that a burial service was not planned as part of the arrangements for that day.  When that realization hit me, I felt the floor drop out from underneath me; it seemed so utterly disrespectful and as if Grandmom's death - and her life - were being disregarded.  I hadn't known that a ceremony for the burial hadn't been planned, and I felt strongly that as a family we needed to lay her to rest, essentially to take the opportunity to do the last thing that we would ever be able to do for her - and maybe for my dad as well.  In the midst of the back-and-forth banter about if and how the arrangements could be changed, my brother-in-law David saw the look on my face and took the funeral director aside.  I'm not sure what he said to the guy, but a few minutes later David came back over and said, "After the memorial service, immediate family can meet the funeral director at the gravesite for the burial of the ashes; is that ok?"  I felt hot tears of gratitude and grief spring to my eyes, and a minute later we were called to come into the chapel for the service to begin.  

The music was playing and the photos of Grandmom were being projected as planned; again things seemed surreal, and I felt as if I were floating to my seat on the front pew.  My father's brothers were in the aisle behind us; his sister had not been able to attend from out-of-state due to her own poor health.  As the music ended, the minister from my grandmother's church stepped up to the microphone and began the service; my grandmother and this woman had not known each other, but the minister knew of my grandmother and certainly of the decades of service that she had given to the church.  She gave an eloquent sermon, a fitting tribute to a woman who had so loved her church and her community and the people of both.  After she had finished, she invited me to come up and speak on behalf of the family.  I pulled out my scribbled notes, and here is what I said:

I know that my grandmother truly appreciated the love of all of you and that she would want to thank everyone who helped her during her life, just as she helped so many of us with her smile, her openness, and her perspective.  So thank you to everyone who visited her and kept her company over the years and to those who ran errands for her once her vision began to fail, especially those who drove her to her doctor's appointments and to Fairfax Methodist Church, which she loved so much.  She would also definitely want to thank my mom and my dad, who did such an amazing job caring for her, particularly over the past few years.  When my dad was sick, he worried so much about his mother.  My mom promised him that she would be there for Grandmom, just as she and Dad had always been, and she was.  When Grandmom passed, Mom was with her, holding her hand, and, for that and for everything else, Mom, Grandmom would want to thank you, and I do too.  

I finished up by thanking people for coming to honor my grandmother's life, although the exact words that I said to convey that part of the message probably got lost somewhere in the midst of my tears, which had started as soon as I said, "When my dad was sick, ..."   I am not a crier.  I felt somehow that my uncontrollable tear-shedding was something of which Dad and Grandmom would not approve - and possibly even something they wouldn't understand; I could almost hear them telling me from behind the scenes to get it together, but I just couldn't do it.  I looked over at my family and at my dad's brothers as I walked back toward my seat on the pew, and I saw that they were all crying too.  The sadness was palpable in the air; after the family members had walked from the chapel into the lobby, we could still hear one man in particular sobbing.  We later found out that it was one of Grandmom's long-time neighbors; while I felt great sorrow at the man's apparent grief, it was a touching reminder of my grandmother's impact and that she had touched so many people, many of whom we didn't even know.  

After the service, family members congregated in the foyer and thanked people for coming as they filed out in the parking lot.  In a quiet moment, I told my dad's cousins Carl and his sister about the dream I had had about their grandfather; the three of us agreed that we were comforted by the thought that our loved ones who had gone on ahead were together now.

After that, we drove to the cemetery and parked near the place where my grandfather had been buried many years before.  The funeral home director and his assistant met us there with a flowers from the service and a shovel; we stood quietly with the sun beaming down on us as we watched the burial of Grandmom's ashes.  It was a simple ceremony, but yet it felt tender and unabridged. 

I will never forget the meal afterwards at the church where my grandmother had been a member for over 50 years, where she had volunteered as the church librarian, and where a couple of years ago the church library was dedicated to her.  The food, which had been prepared by church members, many of whom had been friends of Grandmom’s for decades and some of whom had known Dad since he was young, nourished more than just our bodies.  We didn’t  know most of them, and most of them didn’t know us; but we knew each other’s hearts because we all knew Grandmom, and she was nothing if not heart and spirit. 

Before we said our goodbyes and left the church, we went upstairs to the library that bore my grandmother's name.  We admired the plaque with the engraved dedication to her for her years of service to the church, and we thumbed through some of the neatly organized books on the shelves in the room.  My sister and I came across several sticky-notes tucked inside books; on the notes were two things that made us smile: the name of Dad's business, letting us know that he had donated some office supplies to the library, and a sampling of Grandmom's unique style of penmanship; she had written notes about each book, possibly to herself or maybe to future readers.  

After we'd gotten back to the hotel, some of our group decided to go antiquing in a few nearby stores; my sister Nancy and I walked to a convenience store and bought some beer, and then we sat in the sun and drank it, still wearing our funeral dresses, on the tailgate of my husband's truck in the parking lot in back of the hotel.  Whether it was the sun or the beer or the company - or a combination of all three, sitting out there felt somewhat curative; we knew it was exactly what Dad would have done had he been there, and somehow knowing that helped a little bit, too.

My grandparents' house, where my dad grew up

The next day, we packed up the car and drove around the little town one last time.  We ended our tour by driving past the old textile mill where both of my grandparents had worked for almost all of their adult lives.  The building was in the midst of being torn down, overseas outsourcing having taken the work that had provided a living for many of the townspeople for so many years.  I watched in the side mirror as the mill got smaller and smaller as we drove away, and I felt unexpectedly sad to know that this would probably be the last time I would ever come to this place, a town that held so much of my grandmother and my dad - and even a little bit of me. 

"The Mill"

Knock, Knock!

On the next to the last day that my dad was on this Earth, I promised him that I would take care of my mom and my grandmother and my siblings, and I told him that we were so thankful to have had him to pull all of us together as a family.  And then, as I knew I needed to say for him, after all he had done for me all of my life, I said to him, "You can go. But you have to come back to me!" Dad, who had lain still for more than a day except for the slow rise and fall of his chest from rhythmic breathing, started stirring in the bed, moving around and kicking the covers in an agitated fashion.  Instantly I realized that he had heard me, and I was ashamed of the selfishness behind what I knew he thought I was asking him to do.  "Oh, Dad," I cried. "I know your body can't do it anymore. I know you are doing everything you can to stay here with us, but it's ok if you can't. You've finished the race: you've done everything you needed to do, and we will be ok."  He immediately settled down again, and I just sat there beside him, quietly crying, biting my lip to keep from wailing because I knew if I did that he would hear and be upset by that too.  I wanted to tell him that what I'd meant was that I hoped he could try to send me a sign, after he'd gone on ahead, and that he could come and be with me and the rest of the family later, in spirit.  I didn't tell him that, though, because I didn't want to risk causing him any more distress, and so I told myself that he would do it anyway, without having been asked, if he could find a way.

There are so many times these days that I feel him right here with me, and my sisters and my mom feel the same thing at times, too.  Sometimes I feel his spirit when I look up into the sky and see big white clouds contrasted against a blue sky - or when I see a beautiful sunset or sunrise.  Sometimes it's when I see or hear or even smell something that reminds me of him in such a strong way that it's impossible to ignore or overlook.  And sometimes the thing that makes me feel a connection with my dad is seeing a redbird, something that often happens at times when I need comfort or encouragement or when I just need something to make me smile and think more positively.  

My sister Nancy was the one who first commented that she had been noticing a redbird around her house and in other locations on a frequent basis.  After she said that, I started thinking about it and realized that I'd seen one around more often that I usually did, too. Other people in the family began to comment that they had seen redbirds in certain locations at different times, and over time it has evolved as a symbol of comfort and positivity whenever any of us sees a redbird.  

I sometimes think that Dad's spirit takes turns spending time now with each person he loved and watched over while he was here in this world.  If one or more of us are on the road, I think he's probably traveling along with us; if one of us is having a particularly difficult day, he's likely there to comfort us, often in redbird form.  

Yesterday morning, not long after I'd gotten to work, I checked my email and saw one in my Inbox from my sister Nancy's friend Suzanne, who, along with her family, has been having to make some very difficult decisions and plans as her dad enters into hospice care.  In the email, which Suzanne had sent to me and both of my sisters, she told us about something that had happened that morning as she was getting ready for the day.  Suzanne knew my dad and has heard us talk about the significance that redbirds have to us, and she has given me permission to share her words and a that photo she took:

I was getting ready in my dad's bathroom for a meeting at the hospice home. I was thinking about you girls and what you went through and how tough this all is. When I hear one knock at the window.  I think it's something to do with the storm. 

Knock again.  So I look, and this determined cardinal is there.  Going back and forth on the window.  Making sure I see him.  He only delivers one knock at a time .... but they are forceful.

Notice me!  I run to get my iPad to get the photo and capture the moment.  He knocks while I run away.  I take the photo and return to getting ready.  KNOCK.  

I turn around and say out loud, "Yes, I see you. And I know everything will be ok."

He knocks one last time and then is gone.  

And I have chills and an unbelievable sense of peace at the road we are about to travel.//

~Suzanne

Here is the photo she took - the redbird is in the bottom right corner of the window, looking in at her.

Country Road Take Me Home

If you know me, you probably already know this about me: I have zero decorating sense.  Seriously, I live in a house with very little decoration and with several rooms with no curtains, and I've lived in this same house for more than a dozen years.

It's not that I don't like home decor or fabric or color - it's that I like so much of it that I can never decide what I want to have displayed, what I want to live with on a daily basis.  It's also a little bit that I've never liked knickknacks, things that some people might call "collectibles" but that I usually refer to as "dust-catchers."  If I have something out on display in my house, it's because it means something to me, not because a magazine or some decorator who doesn't know me suggested it or because it seemed like there was a hole on a bookshelf that needed to be filled.

That said, I know what I like in home accessories, furniture, and art when I see it.  And when I come across something in my price range that stirs up memories and/or emotions, I usually try to find a way to work that item into the scheme of our house.

Awhile back, I found out about the work of Kallie North, a photographer who lives in a small town in the Mississippi Delta.  She's from Texas but married a farmer from the Delta and settled down in the area near where I grew up.  She's a songwriter and a singer too, but it's her photography that makes me feel like she sees things in that area the way I remember them from many years ago.  

I've decided that I am going to order some of her prints to frame and display in my house; I love the way she shoots things that others probably don't notice and the way that, in her pictures, the beauty of things that probably isn't usually recognized is made clear to see.  I love the colors and the shots of crops and things that are unique to the Mississippi Delta.  The agriculture-related photos remind me of my dad, whose career was in the field of ag-marketing and consulting.  I exchanged a couple of emails with Kallie a few months ago, and she has agreed to take some photos this fall of the grain elevator where my dad worked many years ago.  I plan to display those shots and a few others of hers in the Mud Room of my house so that I can see them every time I come in the back door.

Here's a link to her photo gallery:
http://www.kallienorth.com/portfolio

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity."  ~Plato

The Night My Husband Went Bald

Two days after my dad went on ahead, my siblings and I, our spouses, and our children all spent the night with my mom.  My brother-in-law Peter sat at the dining room table to work on creating a slideshow of photos of my dad to play at the memorial service the next day; with the rest of us taking turns handing him pictures to scan and giving input about what music to use, he worked on the project for hours into the night.  In other areas of the house, there was talking, comforting, and some crying going on; mostly I think we were all just trying to absorb what had happened and to keep ourselves together any way we could so that we could make it to and then through the memorial celebration we were hosting the next afternoon in my dad's honor.  

Just before midnight, we set up pallets on the floor of my parents' bedroom to the side of their bed, and then Mom and I went to bed in that room with the kids.  Exhausted, we fell asleep just minutes after we had closed the door to the room.

At some point in the night, I woke up and went upstairs to get in bed with my husband; the problem with that plan, though, was that when I'd gone to sleep downstairs it had not yet been determined where the other adults besides Mom and I were sleeping that night.  It was chilly upstairs, and I was anxious to get into a warm bed and go back to sleep.  I peeked into one bedroom and then into the other and saw two bodies in each bed, and so I looked in the TV room and saw a single person whom I deduced was my husband lying on an air mattress completely covered up with a sleeping bag.  I tucked in beside him, and he stirred a little in his sleep, causing the sleeping bag to shift and giving me a little bit of a view in the mostly dark room of his face and his head.  

In that moment, my heart skipped a beat. It was my husband's face, but it didn't look like his head: every bit of his hair was gone.

Without even thinking, I reached out a touched his head; he woke up and said, "I got my head shaved."  

"What???" I said, in disbelief.

"This way your mom can just look around for a bald guy at the memorial service if she needs anything," he explained, still half asleep.  

I was touched.  Shocked, because I'd had no idea that head-shaving was even being considered, but touched.  My dad was bald, as are my brother and both of my brother-in-laws; Kevin was the only adult male in the family with hair.

We went back to sleep for a few more hours, and then we got up and got ready for the gathering for the memorial.  All day I kept looking at Kevin's bald head and doing a double-take; he looked so different than he did with hair.  It somehow fit, though, in that place and time, as an act of tribute to my dad and as an act of protection and support for my mom and, by extension, for my sisters and me.  His newly bald head and even the grouping of the quartet of bald guys at the memorial were quite the topic of conversation, and thankfully it made getting through one of the hardest days of our lives a little bit easier.

Two Years Ago

Today I am remembering my family's Journey of Hope exactly two years ago, when we took my dad to The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University Medical Center in search of a treatment - or maybe even a cure - for brain cancer.

After Dad had gotten his first round of chemo and the "Magic Bullet" drug Avastin there, we spent the night in Durham, as we'd been told by the doctors that we had to do after the treatment in case Dad had any side effects after the first round that required medical attention.

We hadn't planned on staying that night originally; we had been told that we could get to Durham on the Monday before Thanksgiving, go to the first day of appointments at Duke on Tuesday, meet with the advisory team of neuro-oncologists on Wednesday morning, and then hit the road to travel the 500 miles back to my parents' house, in time to make it home that night so we could be there for Thanksgiving.  Our Back-up Plan was to drive part of the way back on Wednesday, spending the night at a hotel along the way and then getting up early on Thanksgiving Day to drive the rest of the way home.

But we also hadn't expected for the team to recommend that Dad start treatment there at Duke, right then.  And, since part of the deal for his doing that was that we stay in the area overnight, we agreed to stick around.  While I sat with Dad in the clinic as the medicine dripped into his veins, my mom and my sister Jennifer met with a hospital social worker to go over insurance coverage issues and other things; the staff at the Brain Tumor Center seemed much more well versed on several important matters like that than did the people with whom we had been dealing at the local oncologist's office.  My brother-in-law, Peter, who had taken a red-eye flight from California the night before to be with us in Durham, hastily searched the city for a hotel that had a suite-style room or two adjoining rooms - one of which we needed to be wheelchair accessible - available for that night.  Evidently, the night before Thanksgiving is a big night for hotels in that area, though, and the only hotel with enough available space for all of us to be in close proximity was not set up for handicapped access.  It was what it was, though, and so after a flurry of text messages back and forth between all of us, Peter booked the rooms and drove back to the hospital to pick up Dad and me, as Mom and Jennifer will still in a meeting there.

Once we got to the hotel, we got Dad situated in the wheelchair, and then I pushed him and Peter carried the luggage up to the room.  Dad wanted to sit in an armchair by the window in our room and watch TV ("It's way too early for bed," he said, as much to himself as to anyone.).  Peter went to the vending machine and got Dad a big bag of peanut M&M's and a Diet Coke, which he poured over ice into a styrofoam cup.  He put the goods on the table next to Dad, and then he and I took a look at the set up in the hotel room bathroom; I was very apprehensive about the fact that there were no grab bars (and essentially nothing else for Dad to hold onto) by the toilet, and, to make matters worse, the toilet seat was low, which would make it even harder (and more dangerous) for Dad to get up and down.  Peter and I decided that he would go to a drug store to try to find grab bars that could be installed temporarily; that seemed to be our only option at the time.

In the midst of our conference by the bathroom door, we heard a noise from the bedroom area where Dad was.  We hurried in and saw Dad nonchalantly sitting in the chair watching TV, with most of his drink and the majority of the M&M's spilled all over the floor.  "What happened?" I asked him.  "I didn't try to get up," he responded, which made me think that either he did and didn't want to admit that he couldn't do it, or he had no idea that I was referring to the fact that there was stuff spilled all over the floor next to his chair.  Peter grabbed towels from the bathroom, and, as he and I cleaned up the mess, I noticed that the table where the drink and candy had been was on Dad's left side, the side that was his dominant but in which he had impairment in sensation and strength because of the tumor.  It was evident that he had either accidentally knocked over the stuff on the table by just moving his arm, or he had reached for something on the table and knocked it over, or he had tried to get up out of the chair by pressing down on the only thing around him - the table- and then the table had tipped slightly, causing him to have to sit back down and the stuff on it to spill.   In any case, he seemed to have forgotten that anything had happened.  When he saw us cleaning up the spill, though, he started asking questions: "Did I do that?" and "Where is Vicki [my mom]?" and "When are we going home?" - and - the one that I thought was the most alarming - "Am I going to get chemo today?"  Shit, I thought.  I had been so hopeful over the last few hours as we heard from the Duke team about the benefits of their treatment protocol and then as I sat beside Dad in the Chemo Room watching him get the Magic Bullet treatment.  Now I was just scared, because with him not noticing or not remembering how he'd spilled and then with those questions, it seemed like he was getting worse.

But, as we had been doing during that time, Peter and I exchanged a look of concern, but we held it together and moved on to the next task at hand: while I sat with Dad in the hotel room, Peter drove to pick up my mom and Jennifer at the clinic.  He dropped off my mom back at the hotel and then he and Jennifer went on a quest for the safety rails, which, as seemed to be par for the course for us, turned out to be not nearly as easy as we'd thought it would be.  Traffic was nightmarish, and none of the drug stores in the area had what we needed in stock.  My sister tried to look up medical supply companies on her cell phone as Peter fought the traffic, but cell phone signal was sketchy.  Finally, they found a little hospital supply store that had the rails; they paid for their purchase and made their way back to the hotel.

Once back in the room, Peter and I looked at the directions for installing the grab bars and realized we needed a screwdriver.  He called the front desk and got connected to the hotel maintenance guy, who agreed to let us borrow one.  Peter handily removed the toilet seat, fastened the frame that was connected to the grab bar to the toilet, and replaced the seat.  Good to go.

The sun was just going down by that time, and Dad was already fighting sleep.  Like every night, he talked us into helping him into the bed and then talked about how he wasn't hungry but would try to eat something for supper and how he knew it would make for an odd sleep schedule to go to sleep that early but he was so tired he didn't think he could help it.

We let him sit up in bed watching TV as we came up with a game plan for what to do for supper. Peter volunteered to sit with him while Mom, Jennifer, and I went downstairs to the hotel restaurant, and we said we would bring food back to the room for the two of them.

I remember sitting in the restaurant thinking about just how surreal the whole situation was, from the fact that my dad had brain cancer, to the way his treatment had been started much more quickly than we'd anticipated, to how we'd been directed to stay in the area for an extra night, which meant we wouldn't make it back in time to join in on the Thanksgiving feast with the rest of my large extended family who had been expecting to celebrate with us after our trip.  As we ate, we talked about what a whirlwind the trip had been, how grateful we were that the Duke team seemed to be in our corner, and how hopeful we were that the treatment would help.

After we'd gotten back to the room and Peter and Dad had eaten, Dad announced that he was going to sleep, which was a cue for Peter, Jennifer, and me to retreat to the hotel room next door.  We positioned the door between the adjoining rooms so that it was almost closed, so we could hear if we were needed in my parents' room but so that we could whisper in our room and not disturb my parents.

As usual, Dad had to get up a few times during the night to go to the bathroom, and we were glad for the grab bars each time.  Because he had been started on the chemo pill just after he had the IV treatment that day, we had been instructed to be sure that the lid of the toilet was closed each time before he flushed and to make sure he thoroughly washed his hands after using the bathroom to protect him against toxic chemicals (Doesn't it seem weird that they were having him ingest the chemicals but he had to take extra precaution to avoid being exposed to them externally?).  We tried prompting him through the bathroom door to remind him, but, because he didn't always listen to us before he did something like flush or try to stand up by himself, eventually my mom just started going in there with him to be sure that he was following the safety procedures.

The next morning, on Thanksgiving Day, everyone but Dad woke up early and packed up our gear; we were eager to get started on the drive home.  We had a hard time getting Dad up and getting him ready; he wanted to have his face shaved, and it took major negotiating to skip it so we could just load up and go.  It was quite the antithesis to his usual tendency when it came to starting out on a road trip; every other time, he was the one getting up early and urging the rest of us to hurry.

Many restaurants and even some gas stations were closed along the way on the long drive home, and, by the time we finally made it back to my parents' house that night, we were hungry and exhausted.  We ate leftover Thanksgiving food that had been packaged up and put in the refrigerator for us after the big family meal that we'd missed.  Dad ate a little turkey and dressing and then went to bed; as usual, though, even with as tired as he said he was at the beginning of the night, he had a hard time sleeping and battled a headache all night, finally falling into a medicated sleep just before the sun came up.

The ringing of my parents' telephone woke us up early the next morning; it was a nurse from the nursing home where my grandmother was calling to tell us that Grandmom had taken a turn for the worse.  My siblings and I hurriedly got dressed and drove to the nursing home to be with Grandmom, and the challenges continued all day long.  A cold front had come through overnight, and it was very cold and windy outside, which added to our problems, especially during the family photo shoot.  

When I think back to that day, one of the most difficult days of my life, I remember the brutal cold, the confusion, the fatigue, and the extreme concern about Grandmom, but what I remember most is how hard Dad worked to take part in what was going on around him - and the feeling of love between all of us.  I remember noticing how difficult it was for Dad to tolerate the cold weather as he was helped out of the car, as he sat in the wheelchair for pictures to be taken, and as he was helped back into the car so he could get back home.  Like a lot of things going on then, the photo shoot seemed almost dreamlike: for as much as I was in denial about the prognosis of the brain cancer, I guess some of the reality had sunken in because not long after the news of his diagnosis had been given to us I scheduled a family photo shoot for the day after Thanksgiving, knowing (desperately hoping?) that the whole family would be together then so that we could have our picture taken, all together.  

We made it through the photo shoot and through the next couple of days, trying to keep all of our spirits up as we watched over Dad and Grandmom.  

I don't remember a lot from the time my dad was sick, including the details of what else we did over that weekend, but I do remember that I felt a sense of unease (even more than usual) when I left my parents' house that Sunday.  I really wanted to be present when the "magic" we had been promised happened; I envisioned Dad suddenly standing up from the bed or his recliner, steady on his feet and with clarity in his eyes and a smile on his face.  But more than I wanted to be there to witness first-hand the miracle, I just wanted one to happen.  I wanted to see the fulfillment of the cause-and-effect; I wanted the promise of the hope that we had to be realized.  It had been a whirlwind past few weeks, especially the one leading up to Thanksgiving, and I was exhausted both mentally and physically, but I was so very thankful for the love and the time together that we had.

Outpouring

Some people make New Year’s resolutions or set personal goals about trying to be practice kindness.  But not my dad.  He didn’t have to set a goal or even really think about being kind; it was so innate for him that he never considered acting otherwise, and he couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t be kind to someone else.

It has always been apparent to me that my dad was grateful for everything he had; he had goals and dreams, to be sure, but he was the most contented person I ever knew.  This trait held true for him in the best of times and in the worst of them, and having had the opportunity to gain that perspective from him has in large part made me the person I am and the person whom I strive to be.

During the memorial service for my dad and afterwards, the outpouring of love and respect for Dad that my family and I witnessed was our greatest source of comfort.  It was as if the kindness he had bestowed upon so many came back to me and to the rest of my family, yet another gift from Dad to us that he didn’t even realize he was giving.

When Dad came home from the hospital on hospice, his swim team coach Ashley set up a schedule so that Dad’s teammates on the swim team and others who were so inclined could deliver meals to my parents’ house.  At the memorial service, Ashley told me that Dad’s friends on the team still wanted to send the meals for Mom as a tribute to Dad.  We were so touched by the generosity of the offer, and again we agreed that Dad probably never realized how many friends he had.  One of the guys on the swim team called my parents’ house the day after Dad got home from the hospital and offered to help if we needed anything.  The really remarkable thing about the call was that neither my mom nor my sisters or I knew him, but he told Mom on the phone that Dad was one of his best friends.  

So many kind words were spoken about Dad at the memorial celebration, and lots of memorable stories were told involving him, some of which we heard that day for the first time.  

On the day after the service, a man who had recently moved into the house next door to my parents saw me in the driveway and came over to ask about Dad.  He had heard that Dad was sick but hadn’t gotten an update in a couple of weeks.  Tears sprang to his eyes when I told him about Dad; he said that when he and his family had first moved in Dad came right over to welcome them to the neighborhood, and, when he learned that they were first-time homeowners, he gave them a hearty congratulations.  “What he said to us that day made us feel proud and brave instead of anxious about buying our first house,” he told me, “and we will never forget it.” 

A couple of weeks later, a man that my dad knew through work mailed a handwritten letter and a CD of photos to my mom; he said that Dad had impacted his career and his life in a way that he would always appreciate and remember.  The photos he sent of Dad were wonderful; several of them told a story of their own and have since become some of my favorite pictures of my dad.

My mom, both of my sisters, and I also each received a handwritten letter in the mail from a man with whom my dad used to be good friends but with whom we hadn’t had much contact in many years.  His words and even just the gesture of jotting down some fond memories about my dad were of great comfort to all of us; we really appreciated the time and love that went into such a thoughtful act.

The messages we received during the celebration of Dad’s life and in the days that followed were heartfelt, tender, and very touching, and they helped ease some of our pain; we were moved by the genuineness of the emotions we saw in everyone who had ever known my kindhearted father, and I hoped that Dad could see or somehow sense the outpouring of love, respect, and admiration that came from so many.

Part 50 - Saying Goodbye

Continued from Part 49

The time our family had while my dad was on hospice was intimate and special.  We’d spent what time we could together and had taken every opportunity possible to hoard all of the good memories we could while he was sick, and having those last few days to care for him in the peace of my parents’ house and to be with him just a little longer was something for which I will be forever grateful.

Dad was the leader of our family, and he led us through this too, showing us the way.  We kept vigil, waiting for what we knew was coming but what we so didn't want.  Dad waited too. Maybe he was ready to die, but more likely I think he was just ready to be done with the suffering.  By all accounts, he waited as long as he could for us to be ready.  I’ve heard it said that sometimes people who are dying can control the exact time that they go; I believe with everything that I am that this was true for Dad, yet another display of just how strong he was, of just how much he was willing to sacrifice for his family, and of just how much he loved us.

As the sun came up on the morning of January 5, 2011, my sister Nancy, Mom, and I sat around Dad’s bed, taking turns holding his hand and talking softly to him.  I knew in my heart that he was holding on with every bit of determination he could muster.  It was obvious to us that he was waiting for something.  As the sunlight poured into the window, my mom, realizing the date, told my dad, “You made it, Bill!  You’ve made it to January 5^th.”  Five was Dad’s lucky number, as anyone who knew him well knew, and we thought it would comfort him to let him know that it was the fifth.  I knew that as much as it must have hurt Mom to give him the permission that we knew he needed to go, she did it because she knew he needed to hear it and because she loved him so much.  I told Dad that my middle sister Jennifer was on her way and that she would be there late that afternoon.  He didn’t respond, but I knew he heard us, and I knew he felt he needed to wait.

Over the course of the next few hours, his extremities began to get cold to the touch and, by late morning that day, his heart rate was up, his breathing was raspy, and his skin color was changing.  We knew he was not going to be able to hold on much longer, but, as well as we knew him, we knew that he would do everything he could to wait for Jennifer.  

As you would expect, there was a lot of crying that day.  We weren’t just crying in anticipation of the loss we knew was coming soon; we were crying for the loss of things that Dad had experienced in the ten weeks since his diagnosis, for the pain and anger in our hearts, and mostly for the time in the future that we would miss spending with him.  My aunt and uncle came over and brought food for us; my uncle said a meaningful prayer over Dad and then they said their goodbyes.  Mom, Nancy, and I each spent time alone with Dad, lying with him and talking to him, each of us promising him that we would take care of the others because we knew that’s what he was most worried about.

My other aunt picked up Jennifer at the airport and delivered her to my parents’ house as promised late that afternoon.  We had about five hours together after she got here.  We each had time to lie in the bed with him and talk to him. He fought right until the end, and saying goodbye was the most difficult thing any of us had ever done.

During the time I spent alone with Dad that day, I thought back to the dreams that he’d had while he was in the hospital, dreams he later told us about and in which he was so scared because he thought he would be lost and we wouldn’t be able to find him.  I so did not want him to be scared or to worry like he had in the hospital; I told him repeatedly that day that it was ok to let go and that he did not have to be afraid because we would know exactly where to find him and we would always have him with us in our hearts.  I believe he needed to hear those words, and I believe that he heard me.

When we realized that his breathing had changed, we knew it was time.  Our cries rose like sacred smoke, mournful and sad, with each of us doing our best to support him by telling him that he had finished the race and could go on ahead while knowing in our hearts that we would give anything – except requiring him to live in misery – to keep him with us. The moment we were waiting for had finally come, and Dad was released from us.  Into the stunned silence, Jennifer said, “Is that it?” and the hospice nurse nodded her head as we cried and tried to convince ourselves of the reality of what had happened.  After about a minute, Dad gasped one last time, fighting to the end.  We kissed him and tearfully told him we loved him as his body quieted.  It was, by far, the most emotional moment in my life.  My dad was the most vibrant person I had ever known, and I knew I was so lucky to have had him as such an influence in my life, but, in that moment, there was only sadness, and emptiness, and a sense of utter purposelessness and loss.

What I have known for sure from that moment on is that no matter how many days, weeks or months you are aware of an illness, no matter what the doctors have said, and without regard to the changes you have seen the illness cause in your loved one, you are never truly ready to say goodbye.  I realized even in that moment that I was going to have to work harder than I ever had before to gain perspective that would hopefully keep me afloat and eventually pull me through and, ironically, I knew that my dad was the one who throughout my life had given me that perspective.

Pictures that were on the wall in my parents' bedroom

After we had made the necessary phone calls and things had settled down, we took turns sitting in the bedroom with my dad while we waited for the head hospice nurse and then later the people from the funeral home to arrive.  As I sat in the room, I – a person who considers myself to be relatively unafraid and someone who  is able to witness most any medical procedure or gruesome detail – struggled mightily to hold myself together.  I found that it was so difficult for me to look at his body, so small and pale in the bed, but I didn’t want to leave him in the room alone.  I sat on the edge of the bed and looked only at the photos of him that hung on the wall.  I made my voice tell my mom that I thought Dad should be dressed in jeans and a running shirt and running shoes.  He had always looked so handsome in a suit, but that wasn’t really him.  Of course, none of this seemed like it was really him or me in my mind, and the only way I was keeping from completely losing it was to let myself think that none of it was really happening at all.  I desperately wanted to find a way to reach back in time and pull him back, all the way back to before whenever it was that the first cancer cell had started to grow.  But I knew that I couldn’t.  I was sick to my stomach, and I was engulfed by sorrow.  After awhile, I went upstairs and, for the hundredth time since the diagnosis came on October 23, I called my husband and cried so hard that I thought the phone would short out with him on the other line. 

We knew that Dad would no longer be where he was after that night but that he would always be wherever we were.  He wasn’t going to be lost; we would know just where to find him, and that would be in our hearts.  That belief, and the thought that Dad wasn’t having to endure anymore, was the only thing keeping me from coming completely undone.

We called my aunt, and she came over with a bottle of wine; none of us knew what to do or how we were going to get through the night, through the days ahead, or through the future without Dad.  While the hospice nurses were in the bedroom with Dad, we sat in the den and had a surreal conversation about funeral plans.  (I kept hearing “This isn't really happening” in my head, and I’m pretty sure there was some screaming going on in there, too.)  For as long as I could remember (WAY before he got sick), Dad had said that he wanted to be cremated and that he wanted a celebratory memorial service to be held after he died.  He had brought these topics up in conversation many times over so many years that we had just accepted them as not really being morbid or sad; we just looked at those wishes as being a part of Dad’s personality.  For as much as he loved winning a race and dancing center-stage at each of our weddings, he was very modest and didn’t like being “gawked at,” at he put it, and therefore an open casket or a big funeral service was not what he wanted.  And with his positive attitude and fun-loving personality, it was no surprise that he had stated his preference was for a celebration of life instead of a more traditional funeral.  Again, we followed his lead, and the plans were put in motion.

When the people from the funeral home came, Nancy and I sat upstairs; we could hear what was going on downstairs but we couldn't see it.  I knew I would not be able to bear seeing his body taken from the house.  There were more tears, and paperwork my mom had to sign, and then more tears when that was done and my aunt and then the hospice nurses told us goodbye.  

So much had happened over the course of that day and night; the shock and sadness of it all was almost crushing.  When I think about how my mom and my sisters and I went to sleep that night, I am sure the only way we did it was out of shock and sheer exhaustion, and mostly the former.  I remember that I was bone-tired, but I had trouble sleeping.  I somehow simultaneously felt like I had no energy but I also had restless, unfocused energy since I was not physically tending to Dad any longer.  I felt helpless and hopeless, and so much more; mostly, though, I felt lost.

After a few hours of sleep, we woke up and made phone calls as we drank coffee.  Mom called the funeral home and was told to come in that morning to make the arrangements.  We quickly got dressed and got into the car.  As we drove along the winding road, the same road that I had driven on with Dad when I was taking him to Sonic and listening to him sing Christmas songs just a few weeks before, I found myself getting angry at the obligations that I felt were pressing down on my family that day and in the days to come.  I thought about how odd it is that family members are expected to plan an important event (“to make arrangements”) when we are at our most vulnerable, in shock.  It seemed ridiculous, yet here we were, on our way to doing what was expected, mostly because we didn’t know what else to do.  

When we got to the funeral home, the funeral director (salesman) started things off by telling us that we couldn’t have a graveside service until after that weekend (even though it was only Wednesday) because they were backed up from the holidays and wouldn’t be able to complete the cremation process right away. As I sat there processing that information. Jennifer said angrily, “I am so sick of the ‘holiday’ excuse!  We couldn’t get our dad what he wanted to eat on Thanksgiving Day because it was a holiday, he didn’t get the medical care he needed in the hospital because of the holidays, and now this??”  The director apologized, but, just like the other things that couldn’t happen due to the other holidays we’d had while we were coping with Dad’s illness, it was what it was.  The funeral director said they needed to have the information for the obituary right away so that it could run in the newspaper the next day, which we felt was important so that notice about the memorial celebration we were planning on the following day could be included.  We started off trying to dictate our thoughts to the guy, but after a few minutes of watching him struggle to keep up with the many thoughts and emotions in the room, we convinced him that it would be better if we used his computer and just wrote it ourselves.  With that done, we finished up with the “arrangements” (a term I was growing to detest more by the second), and then we drove back to my parents’ house, exhausted again.

Sitting on the couch in my parents’ den that afternoon, I could see his car keys still on the dresser by the back door, and I felt like I might suffocate from the sadness.  His bike was in the garage, ready to be ridden; his shoes were piled in his closet, ready to be worn; his to-do list was on his desk in his office upstairs with items still to be crossed off … but he wasn’t there.  The anguish in my heart was palpable.

My brother arrived from out of state that afternoon, and my husband and my daughters got in just after that. Together, we made it through that night, and then we got up the next day and waited for the rest of our family to arrive.  Just before my sister’s husband and her children got to my parents’ house, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky, a comforting sight that made me smile through the stream of tears I had going. My cousin, who owns a restaurant in Nashville, coordinated the memorial service, which was to be held at her restaurant, and she and I texted back and forth to iron out the details. That evening, my brother-in-law set about creating a digital slideshow of photos to show during the memorial celebration, with contributions and suggestions from the rest of us about which pictures to include and what music to use for the show.   We took turns holding it together and, well, not holding it together, and, as it had been while Dad was sick, somehow it worked as a group effort.  

Mom and I decided to sleep in the master bedroom with the kids that night.  The slideshow creation and the supportive “togetherness” (Dad would’ve called it “binding”) continued after we had turned in for the night; in fact, as I discovered the next morning, because Kevin was the only male in the family with a full head of hair, the late night activities even included shaving his head in tribute to Dad and so that if Mom needed anything during the memorial service she could scan the crowd and look for a bald head.

From left:  my BIL David, my newly bald husband, my BIL Peter, and my brother Lee on the day of the memorial

Somehow we made it to the memorial service on time; we had asked my aunt to bring boxes of tissues in case those were needed, but we’d forgotten to get a guest book for people at the service to sign.  My sister-in-law dashed out at the last minute and bought one, just one of many things that seemed oddly important that day as we went through the motions like we were in a dream.  

The memorial service was a great tribute; we were touched by those who attended and by the words of love, respect, and gratitude we heard from so many people that day.  Did it matter how we handled the memorial service? I thought.  Did it matter what I wore or who came?  Really, nothing mattered, except that I was together with my family, but it helped a little bit to have others who cared about my dad and about me and my family surrounding us.  Did I understand why some people whom I felt would come to the service didn’t?  No.  Really, I didn’t understand anything that was going on or that had transpired over the past ten weeks.  I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t want to.  I just wanted to cry, and maybe even to crumble.  But I couldn’t, and I didn’t. 

This is what someone said to me at the service:  “The highest tribute you can give is not grief but gratitude.”  I appreciated the message, and I understood that the meaning was that I could best pay tribute to the man I loved so very much by being strong and by moving forward.  What I didn’t understand at the time was just how tough grief is, and what I didn’t know was how profoundly it would change me.

This is the end of the Behind the Scenes Story; however, it is not the end of the story.