Just For Me (unless you really want to read it.)

Okay, if you must, you must.
So this is the first Christmas on this earth for me that I won't have a Mom or  a Dad to call to wish a Merry Christmas and thank them for all they are to me. I have been thinking a lot about them this season. What will follow might be rambling and thoughts, but I need to put them in my journal.

My thoughts are going back to September of 2011. I flew out from Pennsylvania to help take care of Mom as she was dying. Humbling to be sure. I learned from that experience how sacred death is. As we all took turns caring for Mom, I felt the same strong maternal relationship with her as I had with my babies as I cared for their every need. What a scared opportunity to help my mother.

She orchestrated that last hour of her life. Yes, she did. She had been preparing to die all morning, from 5:30, when the overnight nurse let us know there was something happening. That gave all of us time to be by her side. Jana was miraculously already in the area having dropped Jason off at his work in Provo. She came right up. Everyone that could be there, was there (Even if Karen and Melinda were by phones) except for Brad. He was racing back from St. George. It was also Sunday, General Conference. So this next part is my take on it. Mom refused to go until Brad got there. He and Debbie pulled in at 1:00. Brad got his "I love yous" in and we sang 3 Primary songs to her. (The ones we sang at the funeral.) She then died so we could catch the Prophet's address at the last session of conference. All the grandchildren did just that as the sisters helped the nurse prepare her body for the mortuary to come pick up. (She would never have wanted that to be a spectacle and she would have wanted the grandkids to hear the prophet.) As conference ended and we were waiting for the mortuary people, the grandsons came in and asked for permission to empty the fridge because they were starving. I gave them permission to have anything they could find. (And they literally emptied the kitchen of any food left.) While they were doing this, the mortuary people came and transported Mom away. (She would have liked knowing that she was feeding her grandsons one last time as she slipped away.)
It couldn't have gone any better than if she had been there telling everybody where to go and what to do. I guess she was.  Just as the grandsons were starting for the food storage, the neighbors began showing up with mounds of food. Neighbors that Mom had served for 40 years.
Wow, writing all this down is really helping me feel better.
In May, the family did this all again. I remember Dad saying many times how wonderful it was to have all of the kids "take care of their Mom like that." He hoped we could all be there for him. And we were.

We spent 2 days with family coming and going, always someone holding his hand and being right there. So many grandchildren were able to come and go and call in on phones. He heard them all. On Saturday afternoon there was a pretty good sized crowd. Rachel and I noticed his body was behaving in 2 very distinct and different ways. When he was breathing heavily, he was probably beyond the veil, and when his breathing was more shallow he was responding to us with an eyebrow lift. As I took my turn wetting his lips and mouth with a litle sponge, he grabbed a hold of the sponge and gripped his mouth around it. I pulled the sponge out to get more water and returned the sponge to his mouth and he did this again. I was grateful to be helping him because he seemed so thirsty. Just as I was getting more water, his body just gave in and he left. Now I realize that he had been very much with us and that was his way of telling us he was ready to leave! Wow! He said Good-By in the only way he could by gripping a little sponge with his lips. This has really humbled me as I have looked back on it.

After Mom died, I felt her with me many times after I had returned to Pennsylvania.  I was hoping for the same thing with Dad. Sadly, I have never felt him. I play the organ in the temple every Friday night and love playing his favorite hymns and thinking of him.  Last week, I was just sitting there at the organ in the temple, playing the hymns as always when someone came up from behind and touch me on the arm. I looked around to see who it was and there was no one there. I looked at my arm and saw nothing and thought maybe my muscle was twitching, but it never did it again. I really, really like to think it was Dad because he knows how much I have been wanting to feel him with me. So now as I type this I am crying and crying. Is that you, Dad?