It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.....

Mom had been sick off and on for a year or more and was going through bouts of not being able to eat. While this is never a good sign, for mom it was extraordinary. This was a woman who was very heavy for most of her adult life. When she was younger there were doctor prescribed diet pills and weight watcher meetings to try to get her weight in check. As she got older, she just accepted the fact that she would forever be heavy. She LOVED to eat! (That explains lots of my food issues!) Anyhow, when we finally talked mom into going to the doctor there were rounds and rounds of doctors and tests. For a woman who rarely went to a doctor, this was a whole new world. Each doctor and each of the tests were turning up nothing...until she went to see Dr. Jahaghirdar (more about him later), hematologist oncologist extraordinaire. I was taking mom to some appointments and my sister was taking her to others. My sister called me at work and said that the results were not good. Okay, now I need to tell you that my sister is really a glass half empty type of gal...she will tell you that herself. I, on the other hand, am mostly a glass half full type of gal. I just figured she was jumping the gun and that everything would be fine.Well, after running some tests mom was diagnosed with Myelodisplastic Syndrome (MDS). It's caused by a genetic mutation after being exposed to a chemical such as benzene and is a precursor to Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. Her red blood cells were not maturing in her marrow before being released into the bloodstream. These immature cells are called "blasts" and they do not work properly. Her blast % was 14%. At 20% it is considered leukemia.  It was the beginning of January 2008, shortly before mom's 69th birthday.

That night I went to mom's house after work. As I walked in the front door, she was was sitting at her usual spot at the kitchen table reading the paper. She turned around and we both started crying. I told her that that would be the only time we would cry about her illness....and it was. I cried many times in private and she shed a few tears of frustration sometimes, but we never cried together about it again...I told her that whether we had 10 months or 10 years, we would not waste a minute of it crying. There was shopping, lunches, and crossword puzzles to be done! She said that she really wanted to see the grandkids grow up, marry, and have kids of their own. She felt bad she for sure would never see Maddy (11) get married. I waited a few minutes and told her that, well okay, I guess under the circumstances I could let Maddy get married! You had to be there, but it broke the tension and both of us started cracking up! I have always been very close to mom and I could typically persuade her to do anything. It was at this point that I took over the role of "the rock"...the picker upper when she was down, the "you can do it" when she thought she couldn't, the "I can do it for you, I'm strong" for when she really couldn't, and the "you go girl" when she did. My role was to be ever positive so she could feel secure. Mom told me from the time I was little on that I could do anything....the roles were now reversed. I was the mom and I told her she could do anything. Like a mom, I stayed calm on the outside when scary things happened...it's what I just recently disclosed to my own kids is the "mom face"! We devised "systems" to do things like a great way for her to get up into my Yukon XL. I would put my leg on the running board and she would pull herself up on it and sit on my knee. I would transfer her closer to the seat and she would slide in. If anyone would offer to help, she would say " No thanks. We have a system"! Then when she was in and buckled I would say, "Easy peasy" to which she would answer "Easy for you to say" and then we would both laugh. I would turn on the car with the remote while I was helping her down the steps and turn on the heated seats, so when she got in it would be snugly warm.

I took her to most of her doctor appointments and treatments. We got to know everyone at Regions..and everything about them. And they knew everything about us! From Matt and Chong the valet guys to Albert the guy with the wheelchair to lab guy who's name will come to me at 3:00 tomorrow morning. We were like Norm at Cheers when we walked in! All the nurses on several floors and the Cancer Care Center and many of the doctors and nursing assistants...we knew them all! And they loved mom! She was witty and took an interest in each one of them. We would sit and read magazines and do crossword puzzles and chat and laugh with the nurses for hours while she got her treatments...it was like a party! After treatments there was almost always lunch and some sort of shopping. And then I would take her home and tuck her in bed for a nap before my brother would come over for supper. As I would go to leave she would say, "I love you Jill" to which I would answer, "I love you too Mom". And then I would cry all the way home. It was difficult at the time to be gone from my house almost every minute I wasn't working, but I am so thankful I was able to do it. My husband was a saint...my rock.  I would give anything to turn back time and do it again.

Finding Dimes

I'm sure almost everyone has heard about pennies from heaven. It is sometimes thought that when a person dies they come back to loved ones and leave pennies for them. Well, mom leaves dimes! Mom always like expensive things and she liked to spend money, so this is very fitting. I remember the first dime I found was right by my car that was parked in front of mom's neighbor's house. It was very shortly after mom's death and I was having a hard time. I didn't think anything about it until my sister mentioned that she was starting to find dimes too. At first I thought we were really reaching in the midst of our grief, but then we started finding more dimes in more unexpected places.We have found many dimes in different places and know that it's mom. Here are a few examples....

When we were looking through mom's things, there was a small wooden bowl filled with pennies. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be neat if I turned over this bowl on the table and there was a dime in there?". Sure enough, I tipped it upside down and there was one shiny dime on top of a heap of pennies!! 

Going to the State Fair this year was a bit traumatic (mom and I went to the State Fair together for some 30 odd years...I will write about that another time). I was getting my things ready the night before we were to volunteer and in my small backpack I found the ticket stubs from Walt Disney World and Sea World. We had been at Sea World when mom died. (I'll write about that another time too) and just seeing the tickets with March 14, 2010 brought a flood of tears. I hadn't been expecting it. As I finished emptying the pocket of the backpack, I pulled out one lone dime from the very bottom. No other change, no pennies...just one lone dime. I knew mom was trying to comfort me.

Last week was our church fall festival. My husband, Brian, and I have co-chaired a booth for about 10 years and for several of them mom helped out. We wear carpenter aprons and put the money and tickets we collect in the pockets of the apron. A lot of times  mom would sit behind us and when we got really busy and our aprons were full, we would hand her fistfuls of  bills, tickets, and quarters to be sorted out and stashed away in the cash box. She was a huge help. Brian had to work the second day of the festival and I was feeling blue about mom not being here. I went to mass first and I prayed that God would allow mom to visit me. When mass was over, I went out to our tent to set up. I moved a box under one of the tables and there was a dime!! You may not think this is a big deal since we were handling money, but we take quarters and tickets. The night before we had about 6 dimes and 3 nickels and very few pennies when we closed after being open for 8 hours. We had about $300 or more in quarters! To find a quarter would have been logical. And if an odd coin, why not  a penny or a nickel? Then when I opened my cash box to start the day there were dollar bills and quarters and on top of the quarters was 1 dime!! When these things happen, they make me both happy and sad. I'm happy that mom is still with me, but I'm sad because I just miss her so much. Even so, I hope it continues...