Little Moments

I just can't get my Mom off my mind today and I want to stop dwelling on how much I miss her and instead focus on the great life she lived and what she taught me. So I decided to write down little things I remember about this most amazing woman, who I luckily got to call, Mother.
I remember...

- twirling with her as a kid. Wherever we were: gorcery store, walking on the sidewalk, on the soccer field, at home. She would grab my hand and start spinning me around.

-she never missed any type of performance or activity I was involved in. Dance performances, choir concerts, oral reports, school trips...she was always there!

-having family prayer with her everynight. Even if we got home late from a date or activity, she made me wake her up and have prayer with her.

-when she scared my 2nd grade principal into apologizing to me after chewing me out over something silly. He never crossed her again!

-getting in massive trouble when she found out I kept ditching my English class my sophomore year to hang out with my boyfriend at the time. I was grounded for a loooonnngggg time!

-her also scaring my junior high choir teacher for accusing me of something serious that I did NOT do. I learned never to cross my mother unless you wanted her wrath!

-many, many road trips, especially the long ones back to upstate New York for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We would sing, sing, and sing some more.

-I remember (also at the Hill Cumorah Pageant) confessing to her that I held hands with a boy for the first time. I thought she was going to be mad, instead she laughed at me.
-Telling me (and all my siblings) that she "loved our guts." She felt like if you could love someone's guts, that was true love!

-going to New York City multiple times and seeing Broadway musicals together. She fully supported my dream to become one of those crazy Broadway folks. Doesn't matter that it never happened; she believed in me.
-her carting 5 children to live with her in Paris, France for half a year while she studied there (this is even more amazing/crazy to me now that I have 4 of my own kids)!

-her taking us to museums all over the country and world. This led to my deep love of the artist, Renoir.

-her obsession with the symphony, opera, and ballet. I shared many symphony dates with my parents. The dates didn't mind because hanging with my Mom was pretty awesome!
-getting in "trouble" on our European tour after my senior year, because my chaperoning mother kept breaking all the rules by taking me and my friends to cooler places than the tour had set.




-going to see Celine Dion in London (also on the European tour) with her.  It would not have happened without her "breaking the rules" so I could see my favorite singer in concert. It was amazing!
-crying on her shoulder when Randy went on his mission.
-when we were in Manhatten and she saw a homeless man on a cold night. She took him by the hand and took him to get some warm food.
-fighting with her because she didn't want me to get married so young. (she later decided it was a good move).
-what a morning person she was. On Saturday mornings she would jump on my bed singing "Good morgin' to you!"

-telling her everytime we needed to have an "Ice Cream Party" (which was only 3 times for me). Yes, she also taught me not to give ice cream out to just anyone.
-seeing the ambulance while at the Hill Cumorah Pageant 15 years ago. I saw it and ran across the field; I had a bad feeling it was for her. It was the first time they took her to the hospital for her heart. Unfortunately not the last.
-watching her get ready when I was a kid. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world!

-the way she looked everytime she held one of my kids for the first time. Being a grandma was her favorite thing in the world.

-how whenever she would get bad news from a Dr. she would say, "but it's all going to get better".

-how I felt when she was too sick to make it out for Lincoln's baptism and Kennedy's baby blessing last year. It was the first time I accepted she might get more out of life by leaving this one.
-her love of all plants and flowers. She was always out in her garden, singing and talking to the plants. I, who kill plants just by looking at them, did not inherit her green thumb.
-when she taught me to stay home with my (future) kids. She was always sad she didn't get the opportunity to stay home with us and she really encouraged Tiff and me to do what we could to make that happen.
-hugging her for the last time. I held on for a long time, fearing it could be the last.

Love Your Guts!

It was Sunday afternoon, just one week after returning home from our long, three-week trip from Utah. We were at church and I was taking a break from leading the primary children in singing time when I went to check my phone. That's when I saw an emergency text from my sister and a missed call and message from my father. When I listened to my Dad's message I knew something was horribly wrong. I walked outside to call him and just hearing his voice, I knew. It took him awhile to say the words aloud but once I heard my mother had indeed passed away, I fell to the ground in sobs. I had honestly never felt anguish like that in my whole life; it was overwhelming to say the least. Thankfully Randy was there and helped me to the car and gathered the kids so we could go home and tell them together that their grandmother had died.

My mother was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy 15 years ago which caused her to go into heart failure. She spent many years on the heart transplant list. About 9 years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent intense radiation treatments and was able to beat the cancer but with consequences. 2 years ago she had an infection that spread to her blood and she almost died in the ICU. She, once again, recovered but was never the same. Her kidneys started failing along with many other things and she needed to be an oxygen round the clock. The other side of her heart, which had always been okay, had also started failing which meant pneumonia would be a constant in her life. She kept beating it, again and again, but on July 8th, she was done fighting.

After sitting and crying together as a family, we decided the only thing to do was get in the car and drive back to Utah as quickly as possible. Within a few hours we were on the road (which quite frankly, led to more crying from the children). We arrived the next morning to be with my Dad, brothers and sister. It was the first time all of us kids had been in the same place since Tory's wedding, 9 + years earlier. This fact was quite painful for me as Mom wanted nothing more than for us all to be together for so long.

The next week was a blur as we made arrangements for the funeral, obituary, etc. Thanks to Greg Ballard, my amazing brother-in-law and mortician, for making the whole process much easier to bear. Before the viewing, he let my sister and I do her hair and even paint her finger nails. This was a touching and difficult feat. Tiffany turned to me at one point and put it best. "We finally get to do something nice for Mom." For a woman that always wanted to be strong and only wanted to give and never receive, it was an unforgettable moment.

The viewing was tough and exhausting but also such a testament to all the lives that my mother affected. This was even more apparent at the funeral, where all the words (and flowers) were reminders of the amazing life my mother lived. My Mom wanted to be buried in Idaho Falls, ID, close to where she was born and raised and where my Dad's parents are both buried. It's a beautiful cemetary and despite the fight I put up to have her buried closer, I can see why this peaceful, untouched area was where she wanted her final resting place to be. I didn't expect leaving her casket at the cemetary to be so difficult and once again the intense grief surprised me. On the way back from the cemetary we stopped at my Aunt Sharlene's house where she fed us and let us change and relax before heading back to Salt Lake. At one point, it was just my Dad and I downstairs. I asked how he was doing and he tearfully looked at me and said, "Now what do I do?" This summed up what we were all feeling. That first week while awful, at least we were busy planning. Now we had to go back to our lives but lives that were now foreign to us.

I wasn't ready to head back to Cali yet so I stayed a week longer than Randy so I could spend more time with my Dad and family and try and go through some things with Tiff. My Mom kept everything and it will be a long, slow process to go through all of her things but we tried to at least scratch the surface. One day in particular my sister-in-law, Ang, took all of the kids so I could go though things without the interference of my energetic children around. At one point I was the only one in the house. I was in my Mom's room and the Celine Dion song, "Goodbye's the Saddest Word" came on. If you have never heard the song, it talks about a mother's love and how saying goodbye was going to be the most difficult thing. It was the first time I had been completely alone since her passing and I lost it. It all had felt so surreal and it was like reality hit me. She really was gone. I would never have 3 hour long conversations with her. I would never get voicemails from her checking in on me and the kids and, probably the most difficult part, my youngest children would never have memories of her.

I've had many people tell me that her passing was for the best and saying we "were expecting this, right?" It's so hard to put in words how much harder this is than I ever would have believed. I thought I was prepared. I thought we had had so many close calls that I had, in a sense, already grieved. But the truth is I'm shocked and heartbroken. Still. I had an amazing mother. I am happy for her becasue  I know she is free from her sick, earthly body and she is happy now but it doesn't make me miss her any less. The greatest comfort in this difficult time is knowing that I will see her again. From some very personal experiences that I will not share, my faith has grown a great deal. I know that she will be a part of our lives. She will be our guardian angel and she will be watching and cheering her children and grandchildren on every step of the way.

Love your guts, Mom!