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.

Our house will officially be on the market in four days and I still can’t believe this whole moving thing is really happening.

If you had asked me five years ago (or even last year) where I thought our family would end up living, my answer probably would have changed week by week. I learned to smile and nod each time my husband came up with the next Perfect Place. We have entertained many, MANY ideas, but only about half a dozen were given serious consideration:

1. Denver, CO
2. Chicago, IL
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Charlotte, NC
5. Boston, MA
6. Philadelphia, PA (not really our idea, until he got a great job offer from a company there)

You might notice a certain place is not on that list–as in, the place to which we ARE relocating. George mentioned it once, a couple years ago, due to its proximity to my parents. My confused response was, “Pittsburgh?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Pittsburgh. It’s a beautiful city; my dad actually grew up about half an hour north of there. I have fond memories of driving with my family almost every summer to go to Pirates baseball games and the Carnegie Science Center. We would all gasp at the view every time we came out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. But… moving there? Staying so close to Ohio? I didn’t see the point in moving two hours east to Pittsburgh JUST to move Somewhere Else.

The Almighty knew better, of course, for reasons that were not apparent to me until last year. Now we’re grateful all our other plans never worked out.

George gets his Bigger City without paying the scary housing prices or higher costs of living we looked at elsewhere. For the kids, it’s very safe and the schools are excellent. We already have some family (on my dad’s side) and friends (hello, Burgh ladies! plus a high school friend of mine) who live nearby. Most importantly, we’ll still be close to my parents: depending on exactly where we end up, 60-70 miles, so a little over an hour’s drive. And hey, it’s also two hours closer to the ocean than we are now! That’s two fewer hours we’ll be in the car with the kids! DEFINITE BONUS.

I’ll miss certain things about Ohio, though. Things that I can’t really put my finger on. It’s about more than a state or city. More than just the sidewalks I walked as a child, as a wife, as a mother. More than the exact place on my driveway where I stand to see the constellation Orion. Pittsburgh isn’t that far away, but it’s still under a different place in the sky. A new view; a new life.

It wasn’t our original plan, and it may take a while before I can sincerely call it home, but I think we’ll end up loving Pittsburgh. Maybe we couldn’t find the right place until now because we had to wait for the right place to find us.