Starts With Fireworks!

So the weekend began in Cloverdale with a day off for me and a whole gathering of friends for the rest of the family. 

It was really cool. Mom wasn't sure if she'd be up to the whole shebang but apparently Dad and I are good convincers.

Also she stated home and napped until it was time to leave. So, you know, that helped too.

The kids had a lot of their friends around--who knew a small town an hour away from home, church, and social life would be crawling with everyone they'd ever met?

Jason hammed it up. 

And continued hamming.

We hung out with a revolving crowd of kids, old friends, new friends, church acquaintances, and neighbors until dark.

At one point, Mom had a difference of opinion with one of the siblings. She thought her child should be acting differently. When Dad didn't make a move to reprimand the Offender, Mom left her wheelchair seat and did it herself. 

Me: Mom's getting crotchety in her old age.

Dad: No "getting" about it. I know she's feeling better when she acts like that.

So, yeah. A few tense words, some hurt feelings, grumpy attitudes...it felt just like normal. :-)

Fireworks were beautiful. I don't want to spoil a well-kept secret, but it was a good place to celebrate the Fourth of July.

I spent that night in Willits with the family.

The cats wanted to do yoga with us again.

Jaime and her dog have a special bond.

Mom came downstairs and announced that she needed a pedicure. Her last had been in April and she needed a new polish color. So I jumped right on that and we went into town together.

(Never pass up a pedi opportunity.)

And that was about all for that trip. The pedi and my quick pop into a new store while she waited in the car tired Mom out for the day.

(Look! The Blackhawk berries are almost ripe!)

I hung out with the kids for a little longer once we were back home and spent more time upstairs with Mom after she'd gotten settled in bed.

She doesn't seem to be any worse with the Third Spacing. She needs oxygen most of the time, but went without it all evening at fireworks and most of the pedicure trip. I think she's upped the morphine (in frequency, possibly in dosage) but whatever she's doing is working. Sometimes she complains of how morphine makes her too sleepy, but on the whole I think it's doing a good job. She's not disoriented, just sometimes sleepier than usual. Which is quite okay.

I checked in on Dad's leave from work; I'd originally thought he had two months and was worried he was close to running out (yes, Mom, please die before Dad's absence is up, thanks...geeze). But I was wrong. He has gobs of time. She doesn't, but she has more gobbish time than we thought she had back in May.

I know everyone is different, and there is no telling how or when Mom will go, but I felt a lot better about her death being less looming when I read a short pamphlet her hospice nurse had left. It talked about the signs a dying person presents as they approach death. It gave a general timeline and the stages of detachment. I saw some if those in Mom, but not the "On Death's Door" signs.

And I've felt a little less worry ever since. A little less wondering if I'm going to get a call first thing in the morning to say she didn't make it through the night. A little less fear that that hug was the last I'd give her alive.

She's still making her exit...it's just not happening in the next few seconds.

So I can breathe a little, and enjoy this time instead of grasping onto it too tightly.