The Hiding Place

From The Hiding Place:

Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed.
"Corie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam--when do I give you your ticket?"
I sniffed a few times, considering this.
"Why, just before we get on the train."
"Exactly.  And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too.  Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie.  When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need--just in time."

Dreaming She's Alive

Last night...or rather, this morning...early...I dreamed I was sitting in an office at a funeral home.  Behind me were two couches.  My grandmother Pelham (mom's mom) was on the couch to the left, my mother was on the couch to the right.  They were both dead but looked like they were just passed out/sleeping.  My mom didn't have any hair.  I was discussing details with the funeral director and seemed to be without my family...but there were a few others there.  The director was asking me questions about my mom and suddenly, she began to answer them.  We were stunned.  Now, when my mom was alive, I remember thinking she was asleep and answering questions and she would suddenly pipe in.  It was like that...she was piping in.  Then, she sat up, turned around smiled and yawned.  The director and i were freaking.

She was weak but could move around.  The setting went from a visitation for her....because people were coming in to see her...but moved into a salon because my aunt Kam was in another room doing people's hair!  I remember Charles Morgan and Connie being there (old co-workers of my mom's).  My mom was laughing, joking, teasing....and her hair was back.  I just kept looking at her in awe.  I knew this was temporary and wanted it to last so badly.  I touched her.  I hugged her.  I just kept staring at her.

And then I woke up.

My Mom's Funeral

What I read at my mom's funeral:

Some of you may be surprised I'm up here speaking.  I took some B Complex before hand...and if you know this about my mom, you'll know that's so her.  She was always giving it to me when I came home from dad's to help calm me down.  "What time did you go to bed?" She would ask.  "Oh...about 1:00 a.m....after we were done watching the Shining."  She didn't appreciate that.  But I did, Dad :)

For those of you who don't know me, I was affectionately known as "the baby."  Holly Ree, Holly Roo, Hol, Babe (we were all Babe), Marie

My mother's life was cut short....66 years young...too young to die in my opinion.  A life cut short but fully lived.  She traveled X amount of states...and I know this because she kept a map in the drawer of her work station with an X on each state.  She has been to several countries (again, marked on the map).  I am so very different from my momma...our styles, our sense of humor, our views....and I'm so very much like my momma....our little notes all over the house, cutting out comic strips (although I stopped doing that a long time ago), our love of music, our humor.  I have my mother's eyes.

I'm up here today to share what I have learned during this experience....as horrible as it was and continues to be.  These lessons must be shared.

1) The short story of my mom's battle as so many have asked.

She had a mammogram on July 3, 2012.  It was clear.  She felt a pain in her left breast in September but it went away.  She had the flu for three weeks in December and her stomach never recovered.  She had tests done and was seeing a specialist but no one tested her correctly and she was misdiagnosed.  She found the lump at the end of May, had a mammogram and biopsy, had a PET scan and liver biopsy and was officially diagnosed in the middle of June.  In regards to her death, she died at home in her bedroom with Dean, Lyn and I present.

2) Ring Theory--comfort in, dump out

Please, don't ever tell someone in the circles closer to the center that you don't want to see that person.  That you would rather remember them a different way.  That is an unfair statement to make to the people who love the person the most...who would most definitely do want to see that person a certain way.  Tell your spouse, kids, friends, co-workers but remember...comfort in, dump out.  Besides, I will remember my mom for everything she was.  Not just the cancer patient without any hair.  And know this, too.  We will all have our turn in the center of the circle.  

3) My mom's service.  I was watching the pilot episode of ER one of the nights I stayed in the hospital.  Carter runs outside to vomit after seeing something horrible and Dr. Green goes to check on him.  Dr. Green tells Carter not to lose his emotions....emotions are good when they are checked.  "These people come to you and they are scared, looking to you for answers...looking for you to help them.  Suck it up, put your emotions aside and do it.  Help them."  My mom lived this out.  She brought my sister and I to funeral homes for visitations and funerals of her clients.  It was important to her to respect and love on those left behind.  Mom went to people shut in their homes or in nursing homes to do their hair.  She also did the hair of people who had passed....even her own mother's.  How?  Simple.  She just couldn't stand the thought of these people not looking themselves so she pushed aside her own emotions and pain to serve them one last time.  She sang to them as she worked. 

Yup.  I got that one, mom.  I wanted to run the other way.  I wanted to hide from what I was hearing and seeing.  I couldn't take one more piece of bad news.  But I stood and faced it.  I cried all the way to the hospital and all the way home...but I held it together while I was with her...as much as I could.

4) This brings me to the fourth thing I learned: you've got what it takes.  I knew nothing about breast cancer.  I knew nothing about chemo.  I got a crash course in her medications from my sister and only half listened because it wasn't my thing.  But I quickly learned all of it.  I had to.  I had to know what was going on with her.  And I couldn't leave her alone.  I couldn't take any of this from her but I wasn't going to let her be alone.  So, I spent the night, because she asked.  I researched alternative meds when hers weren't working.  I called doctors and RNs and called last minute staff meetings when things weren't working.  I tried.  I tried to cure cancer.  I investigated constantly and with the same fire I investigated my faith.  Take that time.  Learn the truth.  Don't go based on the fact that you are just a stay-at-home mom and have no medical degree.  Dive in deep....and investigate Jesus, too, if you haven't.  Today is October 1.  The first day of breast cancer awarness month.  Stay aware.  Research if you know someone.  Or just send them my way.  Let me share all I learned. 

  

5) Sometimes the most beautiful moments are the most painful.  Through all the pain, watching people love on mom was incredible.  Watching as Kristen cut mom's hair away.  Witnessing Fawn take control of mom's mouth medication to help get rid of the thrush and mucositis. She came in before work, during lunch and after work to make sure the medication was applied.  Marylee rubbing mom's feet and Ellison helping, too.  Seeing my kids kind of hang back a little when they first saw Nana without hair but fully accept her...oh...about 37 seconds later.  Watching Lyn help change mom's clothes and clean her after she passed.  Being next to her when she died...even though I wanted to run out of the room....standing still and knowing Jesus had taken her.  Beautiful pain.

5.) Mom's tolerance--this wasn't fair and mom often said it.  She cried because of the pain and nausea.  But there was another side of her that just accepted anything that had to be done to help her.  Her port.  Her feeding tube.  Her billiary drain.  She called them her paraphenilia.  I don't think I could have endured what she did but she wanted to live.  She wanted to stay with us.  She did it out of love for her family.
  

6.) Asking the why--I've asked the Lord why over and over again....and I remember something I learned awhile ago.  If you ask God the whys about the bad, then shouldn't you ask Him the whys about the good?  Why did you take our mother?  Why did you allow her to suffer?  Why did you give me my husband?  Why did you make me a mom to two beautiful babies?  Why did you prompt me to search for Ellison a year ago tomorrow....finding her in our pond and saving her from drowning?  He is still a good God.  

I'm too young to lose my mom....but looking out at the crowd, I know so many of you have lost a parent...both parents....a sibling....a child.  I thank you for that knowing comfort....knowing what to say by sometimes saying nothing...just holding a crying, snotty face mess me.  The pain is too heavy.  The hole is so large.  I will never, ever understand this....but....I was thinking the other day....she does.  I truly believe that my mom now knows why she had to die.  I think God showed her the plan....the layout....perhaps "the baby" would start advocating to change unfair laws when it comes to medicene.  Perhaps, it's the friendships I've developed and family ties that have strengthened.  Perhaps it would help save someone from cancer.  Perhaps, it would save someone's life by giving them a Savior.  Whatever the reason for it up there, I know down here it hurts.  I just want my momma.  But I think now that she is there and she knows the plan, she's okay.  She sees how she saved many or maybe even just one.  

Pulled Away

This scene right here from Once Upon A Time helps explain how it felt saying good-bye to my mother forever on earth.  The cloud of death rolling in, the way mother and daughter look into each other's eyes, Jesus taking her right before the cancer did, reluctantly letting go of her...of our history, or our present, of our future.  I had no choice.

Payoff Notice

October
It was a Friday night and I drove in the cold toward my mom's house.  There were 4 things I had to get:

1.) Orange necklace
2.) Letter about President Kennedy
3.) another necklace
4.) Closet organizer drawer

I turned into the neighborhood from Aurelius Road, the back way, the way she liked to go.  I started to get this feeling that something was pulling me back...I didn't want to actually go inside her house.  I called Dean and he said he was at the Crystal having a beer.  So, the house was empty.

I found the spare key under the deck and let myself in.  My mom's presence almost swallowed me.  I tried to shake it off but her smell, her touch....it was everywhere.  I got the creeps and after shaking them off, I went to find what I needed to find.

Necklaces.  CHECK.
Closet organizer.  Found it in the garage.  CHECK
Letter about JFK.  Unable to find it.  So I start searching through random papers in the garage.  I suddenly saw something different that Dean, Jeff and Lyn needed so badly: the payoff notice to my mom's Trailblazer.  I decided I could look for the JFK letter at a different time.  I needed to leave.  I called my sister as I was about to drive by her house and said, "did you still need the payoff notice to mom's truck?"

"Um...YEAH."

"I'm pulling in with it."

Weird how things work out.  Finding things you aren't looking for.  I ended up at the Crystal drinking a crappy glass of wine talking to Dean about heaven.

Music In Heaven?

October 30, 2013
Driving down Cryets Road after BSF.  "Free And Easy" is playing on the radio.  I start to sing it and suddenly wonder if God allows people to listen to their favorite music or do they sing hymns all day long.  I silently asked my mom, "does He?"  I quickly pushed the thought out of my head and smiled because I will never know the answer to that until I'm there.  Felt a little foolish.

Song ends.  Radio is quiet.  Straining to here next song.  No WAY!  It's Lori Morgan's "Five Minutes" comes over the airwaves.  One of my mom's favorites.  One of her kareokee songs.  An oldie.  A classic.  Sooooo rare to hear on the radio.  I turned it up, laughed and sang at the top of my lungs.

An answered question?

Later that day, I started to drive to Kroger.  I was on Willoughby and it hit me so hard that my mom was gone, gone, gone.  She should be at work.  All I had to do was drive straight through the light and pull into the parking lot.  She should be there.  We are having financial problems.  I always called my mom and talked to her about those because she could relate.  Can't call her.  Super, straight up angry and just....MAD.  Pull into a parking spot and can suddenly hear the radio.  It was a song I used to sing all the time when it came out and I would think of my parents...and how I was their baby girl.  The lyrics made me almost freak out,

"Dear Mom and Dad,
Please send money,
I'm so broke that it ain't funny.
I don't need much just enough to get me through.
Please don't worry 'cause I'm alright.
(I'm playin here at the bar tonight)
This time I'm gonna make our dreams come true...
Well I love you more than anything in the world.
Love,
Your Baby Girl"

I'm broke.  I can't tell my momma.  I love her....still.