Adjusting

Funny thing, this.

Ever since a few days before the anniversary, I feel like I've adjusted.  I've become an adult with only one living parent.  It's just been me and Dad and my siblings for a year.  I'm no longer counting the months; now it's "over a year ago" or "last year."  Next you it will be "two years ago."  In time it'll be, "when I was thirty" perhaps because I can't smoothly calculate how long it has been.  I'm now free to make "big changes" per the recommendations of Hospice's bereavement team suggestions.  All of the "firsts" have been hit, as far as annual events.  The world has moved on and though I'll always miss her, I'm ready to, as well.  I feel that I've adjusted.

Grief isn't really linear and there will undoubtedly still be times of soul-crushing sorrow and angst, especially if/when I get married and have babies.  But--for the moment--I feel that I'm "used to it" now.  I feel that I've adjusted.  I feel free to carry on and my motivation is returning.

I lost my cats.  I lost my Mom.  I may soon lose my Grandparents.  Dad still has a statistically higher probability of dying in the next year, but please God forbid.  My business is doing better than it ever has.  I just paid off a major debt, and that gives me hope for the rest of them, and my ability to climb out of personal poverty in the next year or two, maybe!  All of this, without my Mom.  It makes me sad... but I'm okay.  That's how it goes.  She is not gone, she just isn't here.

Moving on.

She went into her glory

Dear readers,

This post is not going to be for everyone.  This is an account of my memories of my Mother's passing.  It is mostly for my own benefit, my own record, so that I can remember and have it available, but you are welcome to read.  It's somewhat graphic at the end (not gory, just detailed) and may be upsetting or triggering.  Don't feel like you -need- to read it, but you are welcome to do so.  Thank you for your love and support in the past year.  Peace be unto you and unto us all.

======================

One year ago was a busy day.  We'd held Mother's Day a little on the fly just the Sunday before because we weren't sure she would make it the remaining three weeks.  My sister and our second-oldest brother and his husband were able to join us, with our oldest brother calling in from back East.  Mom was still fairly lucid so she could see and hear from all her kids, though she wasn't able to come upstairs and join us.  I had bought a book just the day before, and read a little bit that night, hoping that I would have time to delve further into its insights and make this time easier for everyone.

My sister and her family had come again on Wednesday afternoon because we knew that time was shrinking rapidly.  Mom's frailty seemed to advance at an increasing rate, with her able to move around the house with help one day to barely able to move to her own bathroom the next: from mostly lucid to barely communicating in just a few days.  It was as though she saw the end in sight and was willing herself toward it.   None of us could deny it of her; she had earned it.

Mom's Hospice nurse came in the mid-morning.  I helped her to move Mom in the bed that was the only place she remained, helped her be in as comfortable a position as possible.  She showed no signs of leaving us immediately and her nurse said it would probably be a few days.  There were discussions of how often the bathing lady would need to come, who was coming for the very first time that day because it was the first time she would be needed since Mom could no longer get to the shower.  My nephews and baby niece came to say good-bye about half past noon, since my brother-in-law had to take them home for one of the boys' practices that night.  They planned to come back on Saturday.  My sister stayed behind with us.

When the bath lady came about an hour later my sister and I helped her.  We worked together, washing her body and her hair. Mom seemed mostly insensible to it, not really reacting much at all.  We were nearly done, we just needed to turn her to wash her back.  I lifted the towel we had placed under her to roll her toward me and her head and shoulders fell off the foam wedge where she lied.  Her eyes popped wide open and she gasped!  The sudden shift in her position and orientation had jarred her body into a panic of gasping, even when we rolled her back into place.  We waited and watched for her breathing to calm, a process that took about forty minutes.

When her breathing relaxed, Dad took a minute to go return a call he'd gotten shortly before.  My sister and the lady remained in the room with Mom as her breathing continued to slow.  Her nurse had spoken before of a rattling sort of breath; sometimes it signified the end, sometimes it could last for days.  When we heard it, I spun around and yelled "DAD!  COME!"  He hung up the phone and got back into the room just in time to sit beside her and hold her hand as her breathing slowed to its final.  He checked her pulse and told us she was gone.

The peace that entered the room at that time was profound and unexpected in its depth.  We gathered by her bedside to say good-bye, and I felt the presence of her spirit beside me, and I felt her take my hand, which closed on its own.  The feel of her in the room lingered for a minute or two before fading away, leaving solace and sorrow in her wake.

YAAAAAY!

A beautiful, loving prayer by Sister Jean A. Stevens, the first woman to pray in General Conference in recorded history!  Following wonderful, Jesus-full talks by George A Cardon and Henry B. Eyring, it was a wonderful cap to this morning's session, and balm upon my irritation over intolerance, "stolen" virtue and chastity, gender roles, and vacuuming.

<3

*ponders*

*contemplates the nitty gritty, down-to-earth realities of the events of the resurrection*

... *starts typing*

Jena's in a midrash mood!  Stay tuned!

Mother Fast is still going, I promise

I often describe an event earlier in my life as having "taken the wind out of my sails".  It was a heart-breaking incident that caused me to lose all forward momentum in my life and toward a goal.  I redirected my course and found what I needed, more than I had imagined, and for that I'm grateful virtually every day.  Still, I lost propulsion, lost power.

Looking at the past year of my life and the deceleration I've experienced again in areas I'm passionate about, I wonder if things haven't so much "taken the wind out of my sails" as "blown holes" in them.  The storms of life have ripped holes in my sails and made it difficult to make headway and steer where I want to go.   The Mother Fast has been one of the things that has suffered, I'm afraid.  Mothers have been a difficult subject for me for obvious reasons.

I have this stubborn pride thing where I don't like my motives to be... apparent... or guessable.  I don't like to be predictable.  I might fail at it, but I don't like it.  And I really hate it when I think someone might look down on me for it.  So, when I entered a time of Mothering crisis and grief in my personal life, I didn't want anyone to stumble on this venture and go "Stupid girl, she just misses her Mom and she's trying to replace her with Heavenly Mother.  Her personal struggle isn't a good enough reason to try and change the way the Church works!"

Mothers are a big thing for me, you see.  My first one gave me up for reasons unknown to me, except that a divorce was involved.  I was cared for by a foster mother for a short time before I came to my real mother.  And I grew up knowing of a Heavenly Mother, but knowing very little about her... kind of like my birth mother.  I ached for years to become a mother of many myself, and I surrounded myself with fertility and pregnancy and birth in order to be around and serve mothers.  I have mothered countless friends.  Even now, when I look at children and sometimes wonder if I really want to take that challenge on, I mainly question whether I'd really make a good mother, or if I'm too exhausted from caring for adults to have much left to dedicate to children.  Mothering matters to me, tremendously.  I don't want some monstrous, heartless, "well-meaning", self-righteous internet troll to come stamping up to the walls of my Mother shrine and graffitiing it with judgment and a conservative attitude toward upholding the traditions of patriarchy.

So I've hidden in my silence and floundered in the hurricane of my grief and confusion, the chaos that has enveloped my life for the past twelve months.  I've failed to fast so many times out of forgetfulness or neglect or just not feeling up to withholding whatever form of nourishment sustained me.  I've felt like a failure, like I wasn't doing my part in the struggle for equality and balance and hope for a better future.  I've had to be very compassionate with myself.

I'm not saying I'm ready to go roaring in, banners high, sails mended and billowing in the wind.  But I'm here, as battered by the storms as I am.  I still love my Mothers.  I need Mothers in my house, above and below, and I miss them in their absence.  Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be strong enough to fast, again.

Rumor has it women will be praying in General Conference.  That, too, gives me hope. :)

The firsts are almost over

Life has been and continues to be difficult of late.  January and February were very hard, financially.  (Note to self: Don't take an "extravagant" trip to Vegas right before your worst two months of the year.)  I made it through only by the grace of God, angels, and a bare handful of clients.  Now that March is looking up, financially, I am entering the hardest nine weeks of this first year.

By this time a year ago, we knew that Mom was going to go home.  The nine weeks that followed until after her memorial were fraught with mixed emotions, both difficult and precious.  This is the final round of Firsts.  We survived the first holiday season, the first birthdays, the first summer...  It has to get better from there, right?  We'll get used to feeling a little lost without her, used to regretting the conversations we never had, used to overcoming the impulse to cry, and used to wishing she was around.

Often time it feel like I'm chest deep in manure.  I can still breathe and speak and move my arms about; and there's flowers growing all around me, beautiful and brightly colored, with heady perfumes that make me happy and mask the stench of shit.  It makes it easier to endure, gives me reasons to be grateful, even if it doesn't change to the fundamental nature of the situation.  I find myself grieving more than just my mother's death these days.  I grieve many things.  There's a lot to hold space for, and sometimes it doesn't feel like there's enough space to hand space in.

Tongue-tied

Mother's milk... A sweet substance, readily available, but rarely leaking out unless the Mother hears the cry of a child.  Even then, for the child to receive it, the child must suckle at Mother's breast, held close and safe and warm in her arms.  Is there anything more innately human, more divine than to be nourished and nurtured?

But nursing does not always go smoothly.  One condition that comes to mind is called tongue tie.  As adults, we think of being tongue-tied as being unable to articulate or communicate.  To an infant, it means the frenulum of their tongue is too short and can sometimes (not always) make latching on to the breast difficult or impossible.  Depending on the severity of the tie, babies may have difficulty thriving.  Interestingly, both the adult and infant conditions find their application in the world of prayer.  Being spiritually tongue-tied prevents us from both communicating with our Mother and taking in the nourishment that only she can provide.

I would cry, too!

 "And it came to pass that [Jesus] did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude of whom hath been spoken, and he did loose their tongues, and they did speak unto their fathers [and mothers] great and marvelous things, even greater than he had revealed unto the people; and he loosed their tongues that they could utter." 3 Nephi 26: 14

Can you imagine the greater wonders that would come forth in the world if Her childrens' tongues were loosed to suckle from the breast of God the Mother and speak the words She gives?

The best Visiting Teacher I've ever had...

is a Jehovah's Witness.

She comes with some regulatory, says hi, asks how I am, has a short blurb and a Watchtower to hand me, then leaves.  It's over in about five minutes. Dad thinks I should tell her to stop coming and maybe I should so I'm not wasting her time or mine, but in a way I kind of like it.  I'm not a very high needs person most of the time, but it's nice to have someone drop by and let me know I'm thought of, even if just in a proselyting way.

I could learn a few lessons from her about being a better Visiting Teacher, myself.