Preparing for the End

Here is Mom, with Miranda and I, a few months ago.   There aren't too many pictures of Mom, unless there is a baby getting held, played with, or being cared for.  She has been there for each of her children.  She has been there for each grandchild and great-grandchild and loved them all.

Now, her time has almost come.  I went over to visit her today, with Serena and Timmy bouncing along beside me.  They slept in today and were in very high spirits.

What a shock it was, when I went to hold her hand, to find out that her left hand was ice cold.  As I read the daily notes, I see that she is now being given morphine for her heart. 

She cannot walk - a tiny step to pivot to the wheelchair is a great accomplishment.  She does not stand without assistance and holding onto something, and that is very difficult. 

Pete and Ginger left to go to the store, so the kids and I watched Mom.  I put on a country western cd and read her from the Bible.  Then the kids started talking about how they wanted to die.  Shocked, I went to shush them, then thought well, no maybe we should just let them talk this out.  So they talked about dying, about heaven, about Jesus, about others in heaven and then they wanted to play.  So, I put on a christian cd, Serena took off to play in the yard and Timmy and I played cards until Pete and Ginger returned.   Mom had fallen asleep and was softly snoring--I didn't know she did that!

Mom cannot speak, except, maybe a "hi", although I don't think I heard her talk today.  She has moments when she will focus on you if you talk to her or do something loud, but it will be for a short time.

A few weeks ago I was sitting with her up at the hospital and she was sitting up in bed.  I don't know what I was doing, maybe reading the paper.  Suddenly she said, "There is sure a lot of dead people here."  I was startled and looked over at her.  I then looked around and kinda out the hall and through the window to the hallway, but there was no one there and very few people crossed her door to go to the only room down the hall from her. (I wrote first that Mom looked around-but it was I that looked around.   Mom was looking ahead and kinda to the left, which does face the window to the hall which is next to the door and this is the side she has vision on.  I can't say for certain that she was actually looking out in the hall or out the window.)  I now wished I had asked her where these people were and if they were standing or lying down!  At that time, she was talking to us and was totally lucid.  Although she might have difficulty remembering now, she still recognizes and knows us. 

We all grieve that there is nothing we can do to take away the hurt.  The woman that spent her whole life dedicated to her children and their children, to make things better for them, has to now fight this battle on her own.  We can do nothing, except pray and hold her hand.   And, give her comfort care, which her children provide--an act of gratitude, love and respect to the one that gave so much.

My Mother

The 90 year woman now sits, staring blindly at nothing, barely aware of her own children, as they care for her.  This is the same woman who just weeks ago had started her garden inside in containers, waiting for the frost to end.  The woman who knew everyone's birthday, their friends, and the history of all those around her. 

My sister took her to the doctor a couple of weeks ago.  The aging mother of six, who had never been to a doctor, except for the birth of her children, now went to the doctor for help.  She was sent to the hospital and tests were run and now she, who had never sought help for herself, was sent home to die.

As a teen, she helped her brother watch for the Nazi as they came over the Norwegian mountains and he then radioed that position to the Americans on a navy ship.  After the war she sailed to America.  Speaking no english, she found refuge with norwegian relatives in Minnesota and then traveled on to Montana to live in the mansion my great-uncle had written home about.  The mansion on his homestead turned out to be a tarpapered shack, with a bedroom, living room, kitchen and a porch, where the oil burning stove warmed up the little home.  All the farming was done by horses and fields were watered by ditch irrigation.

Later Mom got a job at the Snack Shack in Shelby and she soon caught the eye of her future husband.  She loved getting teased and loved dancing and he loved teasing her and taking her dancing.  He also played with a small band at the local school where neighbors gathered for dances.  He was the son of a rancher and worked as a ranch hand.  He had fought in WWII and after the war he got his own plane.

Mom and Dad married.  They lived first with her Uncle Pete, and here their first child was born.  Then the Ekholt farm went up for sale and my Dad bought it and took his little family to their new home and soon the little family turned into a family of eight.  Life wasn't easy, there were very harsh winters, there were summers with no rain with a hot sun that dried up the crops, there were emergency repairs to the machinery done by hammering out parts taken from the iron pile, or salvaged from somewhere else, or if unfixable a new part was gotten.  She survived the summer with five little children the year my Dad was almost killed in a car accident.  Dad survived and spent the summer recouperating, while neighbors helped with the farm operations.

They farmed and ranched.  Depending on the year there were range cattle, sheep, chickens, turkeys and geese.  There were always milk cows to milk and gardens to grow.   Fruit bearing trees were put in and although there was no money, life was good.

Summers were fun and Dad, Mom and Uncle Pete would work from day break and on into the night, but they always had their coffee breaks.  Mom, Uncle Pete and visitors, who might stop by,  would sit at the table and enjoy listening to Dad's stories of his earlier days.  He enjoyed people and the stories were almost always witty and humorous. 

As always seems to happen to families, bad times happened.  Irreconcilable differences between Mom and Dad separated them.  The farm was lost and my Dad almost lost his life when he had a massive heart attack. 

Mom got a place in town and she set up a daycare that became a 24-hour operation.  I don't remember what her fee was to begin with.   Years later, when in Great Falls, she increased the rate to .50/hour and $3.50/day.   Even with the small fee she charged some parents still did not have money to pay her charges.  Many times the mothers would just abandon their children and not return until the next day, or days later, without a word being said to Mom. Or, the babies would come with no bottles, or food, and Mom would spend her money to purchase it for them.  Then she moved out of the town and down to Great Falls.  She started by getting a job cleaning at a local motel, but then ended up setting up another home daycare.    Then she bought a home with her great-uncle who would now live with her, in the basement apartment.  With her child care, she finished getting her kids through school and getting them into a vocational school.

Uncle Pete died and the children left home.  Sometime later she put the house up for sale and moved to a country home, which was a mobile home on five acres.  Dad returned and moved in with his camper, which he now lived in, and they began raising a huge garden, surrounded by a shelterbelt.  She had all the family over for holidays and had an open door for anyone that came to town.  Some time after Dad died she sold the home in the country, that she loved, and rented a mobile home in a mobile home park.  The landlady eventually sold the trailer that Mom was living in.  My sister bought a mobile home on a fenced lot across the alley and it became Mom's last home.  Her lawn was always weed free and freshly trimmed.  Every year she had a bountiful garden harvest which she then sent to her children.  Every winter she spent the evenings baking cookies and sending them out, in huge containers, to her children as they came to town.

Now this woman, who always made the best out of a bad situation, and turned it to good, by working hard and never giving up, will lose the final battle to death.  But death is not the end.  I was with Mom one night and I asked her if she remembered Dad's death and she said "yes."  I then asked her if she saw the light, and she said "yes" and nodded her head and I knew all would be ok.  This woman, who in the days when the family was together, took the time to get the family to church and the children to sunday school, vacation bible school and confirmation, was not forgotten by the Lord.

The day my Dad died he was in pain, he had been in pain for quite some time but he complained of a pain in his throat, not his heart.  He was to pick up his granddaughter and take her to school that day, which he did, and he then drove to the hospital ER and collapsed as he tried to get out of his car.  He was having a massive heart attack.  He was put on the ventilator, IV's and I don't know what else.  He was in a room on the cardiac ward and the family stood around when visiting time came.  Dad was out of it, but the very odd thing was that he was laying in a semi-reclined position with his head up and he didn't seem to be aware of any of us, but I could see this light that seemed to be above and in front of him and it was shining down and into his eyes and he was just staring up into it.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing and asked the nurse about it and she said it happens every once in awhile and couldn't explain it but said it may be just the morophine.  The light was not going out of his eyes, it was going down from above. He held on for five days before the end. 

I believe God has a reason for all things.  Certainly God did not have to leave that doorway open for such a long period of time, if He was taking Dad, why not just bring him up?  The light was a witness to his family.  It was hope and comfort to my mother that indeed God does keep His children and the best is yet to come.  Her work on this earth is finished.  It was comfort to the family (well, maybe just to me)  to know that Mom. too, as a chosen child of God, saw that light.

Here is a beautiful song (Never Grow Old by Patty Griffin) that we all can enjoy, as we look forward to heaven:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW4k2Kl1s8o