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Mom on her Last Cruise
It's a funny title I know but it's what she wanted, a Party to celebrate her life. It was a strange event for small town Texas, held at a Mexican restaurant, but it was what my mother wanted.
Irish Whiskey and Margarettas, and some beer for those who were weird. Daddy and I stuck to Irish Whiskey, he wore red, I wore fushia and my sister wore green. Mom, of course, wasn't there in person as she might have been in a real Irish wake but she was in Spirit. I know this because mom had, rather has, a very strong spirit, and no way is she leaving before she has her party.
How do we feel now that the party? Honestly I don't know. I'm still numb. Immediately after the party I cried as I haven't cried in a long time. The last time I cried this hard Zeus my greyhound had just died. Yeah, I know strange comparison but my animals are my family too, so their loss is every bit as bad as losing my mother was, or vis versa.
Today, tonight actually, I'm extremely sad, somewhat lost and more than a little angry. You see I do stupid things when I'd sad and depressed, the worst two are I eat too much, and the wrong things and I spend money I can't afford to spend.
The last, spending I'm mostly controlled about, no credit cards, an allowance I set for myself and someone else controls when I get that allowance, so, 1st of the month, I get a rechargeable credit card so I can easily buy things and don't need to carry a lot of cash, but that card has a preset limit, can not access my checking account, and when the money is gone it's gone until the next month. A highly workable system.
Food on the other hand is another story. You have to have food to eat, preferably good, healthy and nonfattening food and in reasonable quantities. Well, let me get upset, really upset and all the previously stated goes down the proverbial drain.
Food has been a comfort and haven for me for decades, it doesn't work, of course, all it does is make me feel worse especially when I gain weight. So here I sit, in the dark, having just finished off some baked, sea salted and peppered chips, some pizza rolls and ginger ale, not all at once nor together, oh did I mention the grilled cheese sandwich? I had that with the chips, well some of the chips. There wasn't anything with a lot of sugar in it, I didn't buy anything with sugar, but it's tempting, yesterday I had three large cokes, something that I would never do in my right mind. Okay bad food habits are not detailed, and you're asking yourself, so if she knows about this bad habit, and that it's destructive and probably deadly, in the long or short run, why does she do it?
Because my MOTHER DIED!!! I can't get past the fact that my Mother is dead, she isn't coming back, she's gone, all I have are good and bad memories and a picture of her in my head as she lay dead in her bed, and she had her mouth open as if gasping for air, we couldn't close it. I'd rather the picture above be my last memory of my mom but it isn't.
Everything about that morning is etched, engraved rather, in my memory, how daddy reacted when I told him she'd died, how he was inconsolable, and thanks God for atavan, and how for two days after he woke up, he slept because of drugs, blessedly, he was totally silent, he spoke rarely, only when pressed and gruffly.
For the past couple of years my fathers grasp on reality has been rather tenuous, it is now much better, my mother dying did that, and I wish it hadn't in his out of touch world he was happy, we may not have understood why he had gone there, or what he was doing, but he was happy, but not the days immediately after mom's death. And we couldn't do a thing about it.
Mom and Daddy right after they were married
Mommy and Daddy were married 67 years, 6 months and 20 days, approximately. They were in love when they married and they remained in love to the day mom died, daddy still is in love. The love of his life is now gone, my sister and I are poor substitutes for company and to help him through this, we can't supply what is missing, mom's touch, mom's voice, mom's presence, it's not there for him and it's the most disheartening thing to watch him go silent and get a distant look on his face, and you know he's thinking about mom.
But then so are we...
Food? I learn to control myself, I hope, spending, pretty much out of my hands, sadness, no I won't lose that for quite a while. You see my daddy is 88 years old, has a bad heart, bad lungs and a sadness that no one can make go away. So sometime in the relatively near future I'll be going through this all over again, I hope it's not this month, or even this year, but it's not far. How will I get through that loss? Badly, very badly, but through it I will get, past the heartbreaking loss of both parents, being an orphan, I'll have my sister and her husband, I'll have Jerry a good friend, and my cousins, but I will not have my parents.
No one who hasn't lost a parent, or both can understand how an adult, grown woman, or man for that matter, can mourn, so deeply the loss of their parents, one or both. It's a loss you hope you never have to experience, but we all do. I hate death, I hate the loss it means, but mostly I hate that I never told my mother how very much she meant to me. That we would fight, we would say we loved each other, but not enough, we never said it enough.
Don't you do that, if your parents are alive, if you love them, tell them, visit them regularly, give them hugs and kisses, let them know how much they mean to you. I'm going to be sure my father knows how much he means to me, for however long I still have him. He'll know he my hero. Mom was my Guide, Daddy is my hero.
How long has it been since I've posted here? Absolutely have no idea, but it's been a very long time and for that I apologize. And now I'm going to enter again with a very long one. Please be patient and read through it. I won't be editing it, probably can't but I'll do my best to be cohesive and clear in what I write. Welcome back dear readers, and remember I write these for myself, and for anyone who can learn something from them. Thank you for waiting for more from me.
Life here has been very difficult, my parents entered a nursing home about two years ago, something I never wanted and was against. But they made the decision and they were sticking to it. Daddy was going down hill quickly and mom hadn't been in good health for quite awhile.
Neither my sister nor I were able to take care of them, and they wouldn't allow us to do so if we could. So they trotted, not literally, off to the nursing home near my home and my sisters. It's a nice facility, good people and very caring staff.
We were encouraged to decorate their room in any manner they wanted so we did. The walls were painted a dark reddish brown, a new floor was put in that simulated wood grain. Their bedroom dresser and night stands were put in and their favorite lift chairs, which they lived it, where also placed in the room. One china cabinet for mom's dragons was the final accessory. It was lovely, but as time passed got more and more crowded.
Daddy fell and hurt his back, badly, and was then in a bed full time. Mom continued to be in her chair, although ti was ruining an already miserable back. Finally last Christmas day she fell, again, and this time shattered her ankle. She was now in her bad. That made all the furniture, except the chairs, well one stayed for mom, if she was allowed to walk again. She never got the chance.
A couple of weeks ago daddy was hospitalized with pneumonia, we were surprised that he not only responded to the treatment, the fogginess that had clouded his mind, dementia by any other name is still dementia, was cleared somewhat. He was much more lucid for longer periods of time and was discharged eventually. He returned to the nursing home and was home about five days when mom was sent to the same hospital, with an undetermined illness. The nurses at the nursing home were just worried because she was going down so rapidly.
When she got to the hospital ER, she was admitted with probably congestive heart failure and a UTI (urinary tract infection). He doctor didn't agree with this and decided she was suffering from sever dehydration, and a mild UTI. He continued the antibiotics but changed from the glucose drip to a saline drip with vitamins and other goodies in it. Both doctors were right.
Mom had stopped eating in January, she'd eat just enough to keep her going, drink a fair amount but not a lot, and wasn't hungry. We were becoming very concerned before she went to the hospital, but as she never complained anything, never said her stomach hurt or that she was nauseated, we weren't terribly worried. But in the hospital it became apparent that there was a very serious problem. She couldn't keep anything down, not even water. The doctors had a CT preformed on her abdomen they found a "possible" small bowel obstruction.
Mom and daddy both have DNRs, these are directives for Do Not Resuscitate, which also means no extraordinary measures to prolong life. They are 87 and 88 respectively and to take extreme measures would actually be cruel, or so their thinking went and my sister and I agreed. Why did I mention this, because if mom had an obstruction it would require surgery and at her age, her health and such, surgery would have been extraordinary measures.
Anyway, by Saturday mom had perked up a lot, ate dinner with no problems and was told that if she was still doing well on Sunday and able to eat breakfast she could go home.
We told our father this, and were very happy, celebrating even, since early in the week it looked like mom wouldn't live much longer. On Friday I saw her early in the afternoon, she was asleep but grey around the mouth, and breathing uncomfortably, when I saw my therapist, remember I'm mentioned her in the past, I told her I'd be surprised if mom lived past Tuesday.
Because of this, I had decided to go back to the hospital that evening after dinner. When I got there they were taking vital signs for shift change and mom was awake and her thinking was clear, heck she could even hear clearly anyone speaking to her, something very unusual, since she was deaf, very deaf. But not Friday night. My sister came in and we talked, I couldn't believe the change. and as I said by Saturday she was doing great, although I did notice a decreased ability to understand and process information. My sister and the nurse weren't sure I was right.
Sunday, I decided to take the day off, I'd just go to the nursing home in the evening after mom got there. My sister had to head in the direction of the hospital anyway so she'd stop by check on mom and take her the things she'd requested.
When Carol got there mom was doing very well, she'd finished a good sized breakfast, and was talking about going home, quite excited. Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, she was having difficulty breathing. My sister got the nurse in there who called the doctor immediately, meanwhile mom has gone from excited to labored breathing, to barely conscious.
The doctor got there quickly, he was doing rounds anyway, and told my sister that she should call any family since he didn't think mom would make it very long. My sister asked if they could help her survive about 4 hours, long enough for us to get the nursing home to bring my father to see her. He said they'd try and they did. They not only tried the managed.
My father got there early afternoon, and mom and he talked for about an hour. Both lucid and thinking clearly. I'd already told daddy that mom was dying, he had a terrible time accepting this but did and was reasonable calm when he talked to her. They said their good byes and were more or less at peace with mom's death. Or so it seemed.
We got daddy seated comfortable in a recliner, next to mommy's bed, so he could hold her hand, mom slipped into an uncomfortable sleep with the help of some Demerol and daddy sat and held her hand. They brought dinner for her and daddy, but she wasn't awake and couldn't eat anyway, so I got to share dinner with daddy while he watched mom.
After he'd eaten, he said, loudly and clearly, "Mommy can't die, I'm not ready I need her to stay with me." This woke mommy up, of course, and suddenly she changed, the peace was gone, replaced with what I've seen many times in my mother, determination and resignation. She would try to stay with daddy longer, even though it was going to be hard.. Daddy repeated the same thing several times. Mommy squeezed his hand and he calmed down.
At this point I knew we had to get daddy back to the nursing home, he was fading quickly, tired and ready to lay down in a bed, not a recliner. He need to rest and sleep. Suddenly it hit me, get mom back to the nursing home too, since the hospital couldn't do anything for her, except maybe make her comfortable, she could be taken care of just as well at the nursing home with daddy and people she knew. We would also get hospice out to care for her.
The doctor and the hospital staff agreed that this was a great idea, and arrangements were made. Daddy was taken back to the nursing home in their van, which they had left for us so we could return him. And hospice was contacted and an ambulance arranged for mommy.
On the way to the nursing home her blood oxygen level dropped to 50 which meant she was getting almost no oxygen. When she got to the nursing home, the nurses and aides got her settled quickly, daddy sitting beside her holding her hand. The hospice nurse had just given her some morphine to relax the muscles that were knotting and making breathing not only more difficult but painful. Hospice's goal is the comfort of the patient not the survival.
It was talking to the hospice nurse we found out that pacemakers can be turned off, and that they can keep a heart going way past the life of the person. This was something we didn't want, so we told the nurse to turn it off, they do this with a magnet. It was a help.
My sister headed home since daddy was in bed and finally sleeping and so was mom and both of us were exhausted and needed sleep. I finally fell asleep around 3:00a.m. The call from the nursing home came in around 5:00a.m. telling us that if we wanted to say good bye and see her one last time we should come straight over.
When we got there within 20 minutes, my sister was walking in ahead of me and says she saw mom's chest rise, I didn't, when I got there, seconds behind my sister, I knew my mother was dead. I could see it, I'd missed the last breath but I knew I hadn't missed her by much and that she might have still been there to say goodbye.
The nursewalked in and was starting to tell my sister all sorts of stuff, I have no idea what, when I said, "My mom isn't breathing". This stopped the nurse cold, she immediately checked my moms heart and breathing and she was indeed dead.
My mother Frances Mae Cali died at 5:25a.m. on February 21, 2011. She was 87 years old, she had two daughters, Carol and Janice. She is survived by her loving husband of 67 1/2 years Lloyd William Cali.
She was a smart, talented, and loving woman. She had a difficult and very hard childhood but after marrying my father she had a loving and happy life. The last 40 years were more than most people have in a lifetime.
They traveled, they entertained close friends and they were loved by friends and family. Mom made a home for all of us and devoted her life to her beloved Lloyd.
Frances was a success by any standards you wish to apply, she was self educated, and very well. She could sew a suit, win any sport she tried, and talk to presidents (yup she got to meet a couple). All this with an 8th grade education and a poverty stricken childhood.
My Mother, Frances, was by any standards an amazing woman and I'm very proud to say she was my mother. She was very special and I will miss her until the day I die.
But now my sister have to devote ourselves to making daddy less lonely, help him find peace with his loss, and ease his pain however we can. When we've done that we can mourn our mother and our loss.
The Mountains of Arkansas
Last week was a very expensive one for me. After all the torrential rains we've been having my roof finally gave out. Now mind you that roof wasn't all that old, had cost more than a couple of $$$ and now it needed replacing. That was more than a shock. $6500.00 to replace a nine year old roof, that should have lasted 15 to 20 years. This would be the third or fourth, depending on how you look at it (I'm not going to explain now maybe later).
But, on the good side I got to take a nice long day trip. Jerry and I decided to go up to the Ozarks, just over in Arkansas and, you'll never believe it, Oklahoma.
Remember I'm the pessimist in this group so looking at the good side of anything is very unlike me, but I am. I believe that this is a good thing, it's going to save me some very costly ceiling repairs, repairs to the walls, etc. So a new roof is a good thing.
And, because I didn't want to be here the whole time they were roofing I ran away to the Ozarks and got some really nice pictures which is today's reason for me writing this blog.
Below are some of the pictures I took while we were in the mountains. Please remember the Ozarks are some of the oldest mountain ranges in the Continental USA and therefore are not the highest, most dramatic in the country, they are merely some of the most beautiful.
The first photo, above, is of the mountains of Arkansas and in the distance, Oklahoma. Some people mistake these for the Smokies but in reality they are the beginning of the Ozarks. Imagine the distant mountains are at least 100 miles away.
Mountain Lake
I love the mountain lake. It is in a state park, Queen Wilhelmina State Park to be precise. This is a lovely state park with a great lodge at the top of one of the mountains. It was so nice, a restaurant in the lodge with an overview of the surrounding mountains. The lodge is open year round and I can just imagine how nice it would be to sit outside wrapped in warm clothes with a hot toddy just watching snow come down and the silence that snow brings. Then going inside and sitting by the large stone fireplace. It's a dream and maybe it will come true this winter. I'm going to save up for that trip.
The Trees, though bare, have a great view
This was a strangely enticing scene. Not the best photograph of the lot but this is how the trees now look. One reason is all the rain we've been having in this area, it has washed most of the leaves off the trees so the color is mostly gone. Until you look back at the mountain and the roads.
Amazing Arkansas Stick Bugs
As we were driving off the mountain we stopped to take some pictures and at this one pull off there was this wood seat, well it had been, and there was a whole bunch of stick bugs. These are the most amazing bugs, designed to impersonate sticks on trees or the ground. The female is the largest of the bugs and the males considerably smaller. What we came upon and photographed was a mating of stick bugs. There were about five smaller male bugs and one large female. It was amazing, funny and at the same time lovely. The bugs are fantastic to view and finally only the two were left.
As we got ready to leave the romantic stick bugs, a stink bug came over the top of the wood the others were on as if to say, “what the hell do you think you're doing down there? There are people watching!.” He was a very judgmental stink bug. Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the stink bug or I'd put it in here too.
Judgemental Stink Bug
Finally, as we were leaving the mountains I looked back and saw the road, with the glorious colors that fall brings. I was able to imagine the colors as they had been about a week before. Unfortunately the previous week was a rainy one so I wouldn't have been able to see the the colors in the glory of their light with the sun shining down on them. Maybe next year.
Arkansas Fall Road
As we drove off, there was this through the window. Not a great photo but the mountains saying good bye.
Good bye Sunset
My Bare Larder (fridge, actually)
The other night, the larder being almost empty, I hit my freezer. I always have something in there, even if it isn't something I really want to eat. For some reason I always have frozen foods that I just don't want to bother with, even though I had lots of ideas of what I'd do with them when I bought them.
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Artichoke in Bloom
First, I'd like to apologize for being so tardy lately. As I've stated in my other blog I've been ill and in the hospital lately, every thing is now fine and I hope to be able to continue my blogging from now on without too many interruptions. I also hope to get back to cooking and inventing recipes now. Also, thank you for sticking with my blogs and for remaining faithful to them
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Roux 'b Doux, watching
First of all let me say that my typing is horrible right now, as is my spelling, but with luck my spell checker and grammar checker (horribly wrong many times) will catch most of the mistakes. Maybe, maybe not.
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Brain on Fire
For the past six months, probably more, I've been on an emotional railroad, up one day down the next. Many think this is a fun, being without control of your emotions. I know in the 1960's many used drugs to achieve this state, and some still do, but mainly they use drugs to dull their minds.
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Natalina has inspired me to post some pictures. But not those that I love by other artists, but some that I love that I've had the pleasure of taking. They don't necessarily have great artistic value, but they all have some meaning to me. Maybe a memory of a spring day's drive in a convertible, maybe traveling down a Texas back road after an ice storm. Any number of reasons. I hope you enjoy them, and thank you, Natalina for the idea.
Mostly fall images from East Texas
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September 26th 2009 16:17
In My Face
It's dawned on me recently that although I've developed a stutter and the shakes, not constant but frequent enough to be very irritating, that my life is getting better. The picture is one of my Zeus when he wanted something, or wanted to comfort me, I'm not sure which, but he had this habit of getting right in my face and saying with those big brown eyes, “hey! Mom! What's up with you? Come on let's do something, at least rub my ears.” That was my Zeus. He could help with any mood.
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September 20th 2009 04:29
Merchant's Wife by Boris Kustodiev
I was sitting and eating the last of the watermelon that my sister gave me. It was a small one, it only lasted about seven days, and that was with Jerry helping a little. I love watermelon and tend to eat a lot of it, Jerry is no slouch when it comes to eating watermelon either.
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Comment by Janice M Cali
on Trouble in Arkansas
I and Me
Just Writing
Mom is running around, finding all kinds of things to keep skunks out... nets, fencing, traps, deskunkers, who knows what,
Wait she stopped... oh, she just remembered we had rabies vaccinations, we're safe...
Wonder how many of our brothers and sisters aren't?
Thanks Daisy and Scratchy for telling everyone about skunks and rabies, at least in Arkansas
Hugs and licks, Roux