John died January 18 this year....
August 30 2007 HCG
John died so suddenly, in the beginning mourning was complicated. Because I felt abandoned…Selfishly I panicked, who is going to take care of me now. Do I have money to live on? Do I have health insurance? My daddy took care of me…then John took care of me and I knew at the end of my life, I had a home in heaven with Jesus….But When John passed, I was 62, statistically and genetically I had many years between John and Jesus….Were they going to be the hard years?
All of that has been sorted out now, and I am fine….I do not know how mourning is suppose go…I thought it would be traumatic, full of dark days …But how it is working for me is, a memory will be triggered and I will be very sad and I will cry, other times a memory will bring on great bouts of laughter….thankfully my mourning has had more laughter then tears….Maybe because there are no regrets…No sorry left unsaid… What with John’s time in the military, we learned to leave nothing unsaid…Bad or good.
My mother lives with me, she has been with me since 1998, when she broke her hip and I brought her here from Nebraska. Mother is 92 she is fading; not so long ago, she lived for car rides, afternoons on the front porch, watching Oprah and the evening news….none of that interests her any more. Oh, once in a while there is a spark….A few weeks ago, the morning of the primary election, she told me she did not think she would try to vote… “Because I have not been keeping up” I had to chuckle… mother has not voted in years. The feelings I have, watching mother pass, are not unlike the mourning of John…I laugh and I cry
Mother’s decline began when John died. She has become quite frail; she still walks, but is unsteady. It is a struggle to get her to eat…she no longer gets hungry…. no one enjoyed food more then mother…but her food cravings are gone….the last thing she enjoyed eating was a plate full of sliced tomatoes, back in late June, when they were first beginning to get ripe…she was devouring them with great enthusiasm, when she asked, “Are these Bob Kemp’s Tomatoes?” I told her they were. She said, “I knew it”
Mother talks very little now. But not long ago she said to me, “You know Gloria there is nothing wrong with me except I am old.” Mother has no pain, I am so thankful. She seems to be dieing in slow motion. Several times over the past months, I have thought mother would not live through the night….Just the other night , When I tucked her in to bed, she took my hand squeezed it tightly and thanked me for taking care of her….I was sure she was telling me goodbye.
Mother is not afraid of death; she wants to go live with Jesus… Watching mother as she waits patiently for Jesus to come and take her away, I am reminded of an occasion many years ago. Way back to daughter Angela’s first day of kindergarten. Angela wanted to go to school so bad….For years, Angela had stood on the front steps and cried, as she watched her older brother walk off to school. So when Angela’s first day of school finally came…I was happy for her.
Love to all
