It's Been a Year

One year ago today, I was in between classes when I saw that I had missed some phone calls on my cell phone, but I didn't have time to check them. Shortly after I sent around a sign in sheet someone came into my classroom and told me that I had a phone call and was important, they lady on the other line was crying...

I had spent the last 3 weeks taking care of my mom here in Billings. She had recently gotten out of a nursing home after about 3 months. In the 7 or 8 months before my mom came to Billings she had "died" on at least 2 occasions. Doctors kept saying that she had overdosed on her prescription medications, but we weren't convinced that was the case--though I will say that I knew her medications weren't helping as much as she thought they were. We decided to have her come to Billings to see a doctor with "fresh" eyes. She did end up seeing a doctor while she was here who suggested that she needed to go to the Mayo Clinic which terrified my mom--how would she pay for it, how long did she have to be gone, where would she stay and how much pain would she be in without her medications? She didn't want to go...

My sister Beth had recently come home from California and was able to see here while she was in Billings, but it wasn't ideal, mom wasn't feeling good, she wasn't herself. She was acting very strangely. She had trouble walking, she was saying off-the-wall things; not exactly the way you want to see your mom.

On Monday June 23rd I took my mom home to Great Falls. She still wasn't doing well, but there was really nothing else we could do. I asked her one last time to consider her medications and what they were doing for her and she cried...Alan and I told her that we loved her and we headed home.

Three days later, I got that call...it was my Aunt Rita saying, "honey, she's gone..." I knew right then what she meant. Surrounded by my friends and co-workers, I began to cry and wonder what I was going to do. Who was going to teach my classes? How was I going to plan a funeral? What needed to be done? Leanne told me that all I had to do was cry. I called Alan and told him, he met me at my work and we got ready to go back to Great Falls for the second time that week.

That week I went through the most difficult things I had ever dealt with. Making decisions about my mom's body. Wwondering why and how she really died. Writing her obituary. Reading the song that my dad wrote for my mom, though they had been divorced for years. Watching my sister scream and cry as she saw my mom's body in the viewing room. Watching my grandparents cry as they had lost their daughter. I watched my cousins cry because their aunt was gone. I wastched my aunts and uncle cry because their sister was gone. I watched her husband cry because his wife was gone. I cried with my sisters because our mom was gone. Together with our husbands, children, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents and many others, we just cried, and cried...

This past year has been one of the most trying years of my life, but through it all, I have been able to hand on to my Savior, and my husband--the two people in my life strong enough to get me through it. It's been a year...