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!