My Mom - Part 1

Mom and Baby Girl in December '08

My mom passed away 3 years ago from lung cancer. She was diagnosed in December '08 and passed away 2 1/2 months later on March 1, 2009. She was 56. It was a shock, it happened so fast, but I'm thankful for the little time we did have to prepare and say goodbye. I want to share here about her last week and my grief process. I will need to write this in a few posts because I want to share a lot. So this is Part 1.

I have purposely waited until May to share this story. Not because Mother's Day is in May. But because my birthday is in May. My birthday is when I miss my mom the most. My mom always made me feel so special on my birthday. Even as an adult I always received HUGE beautiful flower bouquets. I miss so many things but before I get into that I want to first share about her last week in this world.

A lot of people prayed for my mom throughout her illness. We prayed for healing and we prayed for peace. This was a huge comfort to mom because it helped to guard her mind from dwelling on fear. Fear of pain and fear of leaving her family too soon. Especially at night. Mom told me that she wasn't able to sleep very well at night and would wake up often and feel her most vulnerable. My Grandma had just passed away from the same cancer a few months earlier and had done all of her palliative care at my parent's house. My mom, and others, were with her to the end and knew what it was like to go through and pass away from lung cancer. My sister-in-law, Jimmie-Lou, suggested we start a prayer chain and ask people to commit to praying at specific times of the day. Mom had a copy of the list and was incredibly blessed, knowing that at any given time of day, she was not alone. Thankfully, we have friends and family across the country so we even had people praying through the night from 12am-6am our time. Lots of people prayed at unspecific times too and we were thankful for everybody's prayers.

I kept people updated on her condition and prayer requests through notes on Facebook. The last note I wrote was a month before she passed away. She had just gone through a really bad rough patch but was starting to feel better. I don't know much about cancer. Mom's cancer was so aggressive and fast that she never even did chemo. I think ups and downs might be really common with cancer. I don't know. What I do know is that it was very deceiving to me. Every time she was doing well, I thought she was going to get better. She was doing alternative treatments and I thought maybe they were working. There was even a time when she was suppose to get radiation for the cancer that had spread to her foot bone but ended up not needing it when they went to mark the spots and discovered the cancer there was gone! We all celebrated.

A week before she passed away she went to the hospital because she was having great pain again. She ended up admitted to the hospital while the doctors worked on changing her medication. She was very discouraged at first and wasn't even able to walk. One night Jimmie-Lou prayed with her over the phone and mom called me, so excited, saying she was able to walk again. We thought she was going to go home soon. Well, she did end up going home but not to the home we expected. A few days later, I got a phone call in the middle of the night. It was dad telling me to come to the hospital. To bring Jay and Baby Girl. You don't go to the hospital at 4am with a 2 year old unless its bad news.

…I think I should stop there for Part 1 as its already a lot to read and I have SO much more to share. I'll write about mom's final days in the next post. Thanks for reading and I hope those of you who prayed for my mom know how important you were to us and how much we appreciated your prayers. Thank you!