2 months...
59 days...
1416 hours...
an eternity...
That’s how long I’ve been missing you mom.
I can hardly believe two months ago today I was in the hospital with you waiting anxiously as they performed test after test to determine their “prognosis”. I held your hand so tightly and studied your fingers realizing how much my hands look like yours. I listened to the beeping machines and the wheezing and whistling of the ventilator, sounds I will never get out of my head. I studied the bags of iv’s that led to the central line into your heart hoping that the medication would reach the infection soon enough to stop it. I talked to you and told you how much we loved you and how badly we needed you and how much Evie loved you and needed her Mom Mom and begged you to hang on and fight. I tried to comfort dad but watched helplessly as he paced the waiting room and back and forth to your room. I prayed continuously for a miracle. I agreed with dad to stop the testing and treatments once we knew that it was in fact brain death. I stood by your bed and held your hand and kissed your forehead a hundred times before you left us. My heart sunk when they finally came in to administer the morphine so that you felt no pain once the breathing tube was removed. I cried from the deepest part of my soul as the ventilator was removed and held on to you for what seemed like an eternity as your heart beat it’s last beats. We prayed over you to go to Him and be healed and to be with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. I said goodbye and promised we would all be ok.
I’m trying to live up to that promise mom and today I’m vowing to make more concrete steps towards that. I still have a lot of grieving to do and I miss you in ways I could have never imagined. But if I’m learning anything from this it is that life is precious and we have to make the absolute best of what we are given. We never know what may come so we need to be living every day to its fullest and not putting things off. There are a lot of things I want to do, changes I want to make for myself and for the benefit of my family. I’ve begun by setting some short term goals for myself, and today I can check off one of those items. The time for wishing things were different is done and if I want things to be different than I need to start making those changes.
2 months later, an eternity without you, I’m thankful that I can start to see some light and have the strength to begin to make things happen as a result of all of this. I really hope that this is a turning point and will do my best to stay motivated; to keep my promise. If you were here with me now this is what you would want and I think you would be happy. Even though you aren’t physically here with me mom, you continue to teach me and motivate me in so many ways. You’ve instilled in me things I only hope I can teach Evie. Please continue to guide me. You are missed so dearly and so incredibly loved.
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit....
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar.
So, stick to the fight when you're hardest hit...
It's when things go wrong that you mustn’t quit!
