I’m a little late on catching up… things are still hectic around here! Briefly: the house is still on the market, baby #3 is still baking, Oliver developed a bad wheezing cough that led to an aerosol treatment at the doctor’s office and an inhaler for a week, and today Andrew had a fever. It’s getting hard to keep up with everything; I may be spreading myself too thin but I can’t quit now. There is a yellow Post-it square taped on my parents’ computer desk, written in my mother’s angled cursive, that says, “If God leads you to it, He will lead you through it.” So through it I go.

Easter was bittersweet—our first holiday without my mom. As a distraction, my dad, my sisters, my brother, and one of my aunts (my dad’s youngest sister) went crazy on spoiling Oliver and Andrew. So they each received FIVE BIG BASKETS, mostly full of things like cars and outside toys (since everyone knows I’m anti-candy, lol) but also some chocolate, plus some bigger items from my dad. My oldest sister, who hosted us all at her house, even put together an egg hunt for them. They loved it! And it helped the rest of us, too. There is nothing so true to my mom’s memory as watching her grandsons’ little faces light up with excitement. I am grateful that everyone made it a special day for them as a way of carrying on her love.

While George and my dad took the boys outside to run off some of their candy energy, the rest of us sat down to watch a dvd created from old movie film clips taken by my grandpa. It’s amazing to have these images of our family so many years later, to see our grandparents and parents so much younger than we remember them! First was footage of the Queen Elizabeth ship: my great-grandmother, who lived in England until she married, took the whole family to England with her one year. (I believe it was 1969. Unfortunately my mom missed out on that trip because my sister Jennifer was only about 6 months old.) The recorded clips went backwards through time, with my sister Jennifer as a baby, then my oldest sister Debbie. There was no sound on the old film so we all filled in with comments and stories and laughs.

Then suddenly the film cut to my mother walking down the aisle at her wedding, and we all went silent.

She was nineteen years old when she married her first husband (my sisters’ dad)… so beautiful and young and happy. It’s hard to reconcile that day with the present. They cut their wedding cake, blissfully ignorant that one day she would wash his work clothes and, by statistically unbelievable bad luck, a toxic fiber inhaled during that everyday act would later cut her life short with a rare and horrible disease. But on their wedding day, she was perfectly healthy. It was still possible at THAT moment for her to be alive in THIS moment… and yet it wasn’t. We watched quietly, greedy for every detail of that beloved face.

“She’s always smiling and laughing,” my sister observed gently. “All the time. Smiling and laughing.”

Her dark curly hair painstakingly straightened according to the style of the mid- to late 1960′s, my mother’s eyes crinkled shut with laughter and then she turned shyly away from the camera, still smiling, and at that moment I suddenly saw MY resemblance to her for the first time. My appearance and my personality are almost entirely like my father’s; but that most sparkling and sincere emotion, happiness, looks on me just like it did on her. If that is the only trait I inherited from her, it was the best. And now it’s Oliver’s as well.

Watching those films didn’t make us miss her any less. Everyone wiped away tears. Mom should still be here, we were all thinking. It’s not fair. I want her back.

But seeing her was also a reminder to be happy. That’s how we remember her, and that’s how we keep her with us.

And through it we continue to go.

My previous post was last Thursday; by Saturday morning, my mother was semi-comatose. Her cancer-ravaged, under-60-lb body began to shut down and she was non-responsive, only moaning weakly as we watched in helpless anguish and prayed. But there was one moment that afternoon when I spoke to my sister and my mom’s eyes opened–and then they opened WIDE, locked on me, as she lifted up her hand. I smiled as we held hands over her heart, and she closed her eyes again. That was the last time my mother’s eyes met mine, and the expression stays with me. It was not fear or sadness; it was worry. But not for herself. For us. As always.

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My brother called me Sunday night, just a few hours after my sisters, my aunts, and I all left for the day. “It’s… over,” he choked, and we cried. I firmly believe she waited for my brother (knowing he came every night without fail) so my dad wouldn’t be alone, because after they entered the room together, her breathing slowed down more and more until it stopped. They called hospice first, then everyone else. The rest of my family made it to the house before her body was removed, but being an hour’s drive away, I couldn’t get there in time–and I’m certain my mom planned that, too. Stay with my grandsons, was her message. That’s where I want you to be. So I let myself sob my heart out for a while and then I went upstairs to kiss the boys for her.

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I felt like I was in the wrong room at the funeral home on Tuesday. That’s not my mom, I thought in surprised confusion. I had seen her less than 48 hours before and yet it wasn’t the same face I had kissed goodbye; it was a different face, too still, too unconcerned. The gentle, folded hands were hers, though. Next to her arm I placed a photo of her with the boys and an ultrasound photo of baby #3. Was it really just a few weeks ago that I called from the doctor’s office? Thank you for my three beautiful boys, she said that day. I turned away and looked at the portrait they made from a picture I took of her in 2010. There, I could find her again. Smiling. Radiating love. That is my mom.

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The calling hours were listed as 4-8pm on Wednesday. But the long line began at 3:30, stretching the entire length of the church (at one point doubling when my dad’s football team arrived) without shortening until after 6:30, and even after that we greeted small groups of others until the last minute. She was such a beautiful person, I heard over and over, and Your mom and dad are two of the best people I’ve ever known. And of course, She loves those grandkids. She was so proud of them. Hundreds of handshakes and hugs and comforting voices… an incredible testimony to what she taught us by example: Kindness begets kindness. It was her heart that filled the church. It was her heart that gave us so many others to make sure we will be okay.

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My voice trembled and shook through the reading from Proverbs 31:10-31 at Thursday’s funeral service and I had to stop three or four times in frustration. Speaking in public doesn’t bother me, but I struggled to do her justice and could not steady myself in front of my weeping father. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, too, praises her: ‘Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all.’” Back at my parents’ house afterward, my dad wanted nothing but to be near his grandchildren. I can understand why: You can feel my mom’s love for them in the room. She has always been, and is still, the glue that holds us all together.

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Oliver asked to go upstairs and say hi to Grandma. He knows that she died and we can’t see her anymore, but the first thing he always did was say hi to her, so we went up as usual. I closed the bedroom door behind us and watched his five-year-old eyes take in the emptiness of the room.

“Can I say hi now? Is she here?” he whispered.

“Oh, I’m sure if you’re in here, she’s here,” I nodded. “Go ahead and say hi.”

“Hi Grandma… I love you,” he whispered. Then he looked around the room and waited expectantly. “Will she say it back?”

“Well, she doesn’t have her body anymore to talk like we do,” I reminded him softly. “But she hears you, and she loves you very, very much.”

He sighed. “It’s going to take a really long time until we can see her, right?”

“Yeah,” I sighed back. “Do you want to look at some pictures again?”

“Yes!” he said excitedly, and headed for the stairs.

I stood in the middle of the room by myself for a minute. “Hi Mom,” I whispered. “I love you.”

But it’s not the same. It’s just not the same this way.

The hospital bed takes up most of the space in my younger brother’s tiny old room, still bordered with a baseball print. There is a black and white classic movie on the tv and my boys’ old baby monitor base on the table. Flowers and cards and pictures have replaced pill bottles and dishes since she can’t keep anything down anymore. Outside in the hallway, the oxygen machine hums and puffs. I smooth my mother’s nightgown over her legs and clench my jaw because her thigh is only as big around as my arm. The pain medication makes her sleep most of the time now, so I just sit and hold her hand. The new grandson she will never meet moves in my belly.

People tell me I’m strong, but I am not. I’m struggling to just be okay. My heart is filled with grief and guilt that I can’t be with my mother all the time in her final days. My almost-22-weeks-pregnant body is exhausted from the constant cleaning for house showings while George is exhausted from his long daily commute to Pittsburgh; the house has only been on the market two weeks and there may be months to go. The kids miss our “normal” life–and so do we. When there are breaks in the busyness, I wonder, Will it ever stop being so hard? I can’t keep this up. But I have to. And in between, I’m okay. My husband, my kids, my unborn baby and I are all healthy; I’m grateful because my blessings far outweigh the challenges. How can I not be okay when my part in all of this is nowhere near the hardest? My mother has wasted away to nothing and she is in terrible pain, but she does not complain or cry, she just worries about the rest of us. That’s probably what’s kept her hanging on.

The priest came to their house last week. My brother still goes over every night but was forced to give up his six-month-long nightly duty of carrying her from his old room to my parents’ bed because she is too fragile to be moved anymore. But when her grandsons come in the room for a kiss, she lifts her head a bit and reaches out to touch them. And she still smiles, always. It’s she who is the strong one.

I don’t think I will ever need to try bungee jumping or sky diving, because I’m pretty sure the past week was as close to that “Holy crap I am falling and there is nothing under my feet” feeling as I ever want to get.

We listed our house for sale last Thursday, after which George and I developed matching miserable colds right on cue. I could not breathe and I ached all over from cleaning every nook and cranny of the house, but hey, you could eat off my spotless floors! I almost cried when someone finally had to use the bathroom. Blame it on my congested head and pregnancy hormones but I JUST CLEANED THAT TOILET AND NOW NO ONE CAN LIVE HERE UNTIL WE SELL. Which was not the most practical strategy, as it turns out.

Less than 24 hours after the house went on the market, I received a call to set up two house showings for the weekend. I was really surprised–I credit the immediate interest to our well-kept, family-friendly neighborhood and very good (for Ohio) school district. The feedback we received from these first two showings was positive: they really liked the house and neighborhood, but #1 wanted a “true” (not shared) master bathroom, and #2 had just started looking at houses that very weekend and weren’t ready to commit. So it’s just a matter of waiting for the right people to come along. Hopefully soon.

Meanwhile, we went to visit my parents on Saturday. I gave my mom an ultrasound picture of the baby’s profile to keep with her; she held it silently for a long time and then placed it next to her on the bed. I cannot imagine what she feels but I hope it gives her some sense of connection to this grandson she will never get to hold. Then she expressed her continued concern over us moving while I’m pregnant, so I took her hand and said gently, “We’re ok, the baby is ok, and the house stuff will work itself out. Please don’t worry.” It is hard to say these things; it is hard because it is time for letting go, and she needs to hear it’s ok from me. But how does a mother ever let go of worrying about her children? I don’t know.

My mood was not improved by the fact that Oliver was behaving monstrously all day. I cried in the car, I cried at home, I was at my wits’ end until he started throwing up that night and hmm, that might explain things. He had never been sick like that before so he was really upset, and for once my non-snuggly boy let me baby him a little bit (which I did enjoy, aside from getting puked on at one point). It repeated every 45 minutes almost to the dot and I was up with him past 3am. I was already exhausted from getting the house ready all week, plus I now had a ton of new laundry to do before Sunday’s house showing, since I didn’t think the smell of pukey sheets/towels would have been very welcoming to prospective buyers. No rest for the weary!

I must have looked pretty pathetic after all this, because on Sunday night, George said he wanted to help me buy the new camera I wanted as an Anniversary Slash Thanks For Moving While Pregnant gift. (Yes, he IS awesome.) We had always planned a Big Fabulous Trip for our 10th wedding anniversary (coming up this May!) to somewhere like Hawaii or Paris, but obviously no traveling will be happening now since I’ll be 7½-8 months pregnant by then. So this is partly about the missed trip, and partly his way of saying thanks for agreeing to move so he could take the Pittsburgh job, because he is much happier now–which is all I wanted, honestly, but he insisted on doing this. After a lot of thought and research, I combined his gift with my own savings to purchase the camera I REALLY wanted as well as an external flash. (Plus I will eventually receive a small “severance” check from my old job, so I have my eye on a new lens, too. Yay!) Not the same as laying on a beach or standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, but hopefully I’ll take my new gear TO those places in the future, with my husband at my side.

And yet–buying things for myself seems almost out of place in my life these days. It seems too easy that I can want something I don’t need and just… order it. That I can let my husband reward me for simply carrying another child and going with him to another city. I should really be thanking him.

It has taken some getting used to, this free falling, especially for a planner and Both Feet On The Ground-er like me. I’m reading a really lovely book right now called The Beauty of Different by Karen Walrond, and today I read and re-read a particular quote by her friend Patrick. Speaking about his mother, he said, “…even though she faces challenges in her life, she faces towards them, and not away from them.” I want my sons to see that example in me, too. That is how I keep going, how I know I will get back on my feet someday.

But for now, I have more laundry to do. And keeping the toilet clean in a house full of boys is a challenge by itself.