The Dance

Holding you, I held everything
-Garth Brooks

I took today off of work and spent it with my Baby Girl. A lazy mother-daughter day after her return from studying abroad. We drove to a town about half an hour away--a nice drive down back country roads. Then we wandered through shops on Main Street in this small town, mostly antique shops and gift shops. We found a nice little restaurant for lunch. Then we headed closer to home, to a shopping area where we had appointments at a local spa for massages. We do that every once in a while...go for massages. When I went into the massage room, the masseuse asked me if I wanted any aromatic oils with my massage. I told her that was fine as long as it wasn't lavender. I associate lavender with my mother dying. The hospice nurses told her it was calming and she had her bedroom scented with it. So we stayed away from the lavender and just as I began to relax under the hands of the masseuse, a piano version of "The Dance" started to play through their piped-in music. And that song, more than anything, reminds me of my mother dying.

Sometimes, if I'm tired and missing her, it makes me cry when I hear it.

My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the fall of 2001. My dad noticed she was looking jaundiced and so she went to the doctor. They referred her for further tests. I was with her at the appointment when they gave her the news. It was one of the few times in my life I ever saw my mother cry.

Pancreatic cancer is a quick cancer--and it's untreatable. Doctors don't even bother. The only thing they can do involves re-routing your whole insides and they don't usually do that unless (they said) you have something extreme you're shooting for like the wedding of your only child. So instead they set my mother up with folks from hospice who would work with her to manage her pain and make her as comfortable as possible. My mother was adamant about wanting to die at home. Mostly, I think, so she could be with her family.

My sisters deserve most of the credit for taking care of her. I was dealing with my own difficulties at the time and couldn't be there physically or emotionally for her--or them--like I wanted to. When I was at my parents, I let my girls be there as much or little as they needed to be. My older girls weren't very comfortable with all that was going on. My youngest seemed to need to be there a lot. I don't know if she needed to be where I was, or needed to be near her Grandma, but she was there a lot. Somewhere in the middle of all that was going on, I had one of the premonitions I have from time to time...this one was that my mother was going to die in my arms. There's no good or bad or emotion attached to these premonitions. They just are. They're an overwhelming sense of already being in the situation and I recognize them for what they are.

Things degenerated for my mom over the coming weeks and months and Christmas was especially hard for everyone. She insisted on going to the Christmas Eve party at my aunt's that we always went to and we staggered everyone's time with her so she wouldn't get tired. Most of the cousins and relatives knew it was their last time with her. One night in January I had been over there and things were particularly bad for her and as I drove home, a part of me worried that she might go in the night when I wasn't there, and at the same time, feeling this wasn't the end if I wasn't there to hold her.

I went back the next day, and my Baby Girl was with me. All of my immediate family was at the house and so was one of my aunts. My sister said Mom had had a really bad night and the hospice folks said Mom was really close to the end. My sister and I took turns sitting with Mom. My sister was laying with her and then I just knew it was time. I asked her to let me lay with Mom. She got up and I lay down next to Mom. I slid one arm under her and then cradled her in my arms telling her over and over it was okay. Mom had been heavily sedated with morphine for days but suddenly she started to try to speak. Something very deep within her was trying to get words out and my sister, who is closest to Mom of all of us, intuitively knew what she wanted. "She wants us all in here."

She went out of the bedroom long enough to get our dad and the rest of our siblings. I continued to cradle Mom and they all lay their hands on her. She could not hear us--she had been deaf her whole life--and even so she was heavily sedated. But I know she could feel us all holding her. Mom's breath became very slow and very ragged. It is a very powerful thing to hold someone as they breathe their last breath, as the life goes out of them. Especially when that person is someone you love. It's a feeling I still carry with me. But just as firmly as I believe babies should not be left alone, I believe our elderly should not die alone. As traumatic as it was (and still is) for all of us to lose Mom like that, there could not be a more loving way for her to end her life--being held by the people she loved the most. When I had to tell my aunt and Baby Girl that Mom was gone, the three of us just stood in a hug for the longest time. It was almost 3 months to the day of her diagnosis.

She was a fantastic mother. She loved us all unconditionally. She was fun and funny. She spent time with us and we loved spending time with her. She was tiny--we called her "Little Mom" and her head stone says "Our Beloved Little Mom" -- but there was nothing tiny about her spirit. She overcame her disability beautifully. She was strong, determined, and a phenomenal role model for us. To this day, all four of us siblings miss her terribly and struggle with our loss. I really do feel that "holding her, I held everything." I have a photograph of her on my desk at work, of her in the house she grew up in, with that line inscribed below her picture. I treasure that photograph....

For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss The Dance

Love you, Mama

I've Got A Name

And I carry it with me like my daddy did
-Jim Croce

I chose this song is because I was thinking about the importance of names. The Native Americans place great emphasis on names and their meanings. Each of my daughters is named after family members and I believe that has meaning too. Our ancestors are part of us in more ways than we realize....

My oldest daughter is named after an aunt I love dearly. They share the same first and middle name. Some of my fondest memories as a child are the hot summer nights I spent on my grandmother's cool back porch, cool because of the thick cement floor, where my aunt and uncle and cousins would gather to eat and laugh, and tell stories. The love and laughter that was shared on those summer nights is something every child should grow up with. And a way to extend the memories of that love and laughter is to pass those names on. But my aunt was so named because of two favorite grandmothers. One was a wealthy step-mother who married into the family and stepped into the role of adoring grandmother and, on the other side of the family, a matriarch who was fondly remembered by everyone. I also like the fact that, by chance, my oldest daughter shares the name of many oldest daughters on her father's side of the family as well. At the time I named her, I didn't know this. It was only later while doing my genealogy that I realized this coincidence.

My middle daughter shares my confirmation name. Catholics have to research saints and choose one at confirmation. I picked someone I thought sounded somewhat interesting, took that as my confirmation name, and passed that name on to my daughter years later. She and her paternal grandmother share the same middle name. I like that. And of all three girls, I think her name sounds the most musical when you say it.

My youngest daughter is named after my favorite author. First name, middle name. I adore this author. There is some part of me, some make-believe part of me, that would love to think they share some personality traits along with their name. That this author I love so much is somehow a little bit there in my daughter. My youngest daughter also shares a middle name with my sister.

We are all connected. And it is all good.

My LIttle Girl

Gotta hold on easy as I let you go
Gonna tell you how much I love you
Though you think you already know
I remember I thought you looked like an angel
Wrapped in pink so soft and warm
You've had me wrapped around your finger
Since the day you were born

You're beautiful baby from the outside in
Chase your dreams but always know
The road that'll lead you home again
Go on, take on this whole world
-Tim McGraw

I was searching for the perfect song for this blog entry and this is it. Today is the day my little girl turns 20. And she celebrated her birthday 4,000 miles from home, from all the people who love her and she loves in return. I have struggled the whole time she's been in Morocco. I worry about her safety in general when she's gone like all mothers do. I worry about her being a female in a Muslim country even though none of her posts seem to convey anything of concern--other than the fact that men propose to her as she's walking down the street and she ignores them. I miss not being with her. Probably because she and I do so much together. We scrapbook, we talk, we get silly together, we cuddle, we finish each others' sentences. Or sometimes we don't talk at all and we can carry on whole conversations just by looking at each other.

Being that she was my youngest, I was a lot more comfortable in my mothering with her. I knew what mattered to me, how I wanted to raise my babies, and didn't really worry too much what other people's opinions were. I carried her in a sling almost non-stop...or carried her. I had come to believe in the importance of human touch--how it could make babies thrive and how healing it could be when people are tired or sick or upset. I nursed her until she was almost 4 years old. Four year olds are eating table food and plenty of it. Nursing at that age isn't for sustenance. It's for drifting off to sleep in your mother's arms, for getting calm when you're crying and upset, or for that extra boost of immunities when you're sick. She slept with us. Adults prefer to have someone to sleep with, so do children. How much more peaceful can it be than to lay down with someone you love, wrapped in their arms, and drift off to sleep? I never believed in letting my babies cry it out.

People expressed opinions and concern. How do you nurse a child who has teeth? You're going to have trouble getting them out of your bed. How will they ever separate from you? It takes a lot of backbone and self-assurance to follow parenting decisions like that. You nurse a child that age just fine because you talk to other people who have done it and you teach your child there is a time and place for it. You don't worry about getting them out of your bed because you believe it's okay for them to be there in the first place and although you offer them their own bed, you don't force it. Eventually they would rather be in their own room with their own toys. Separation is another thing...

We believed in doing things with our kids. All the years they were growing up, we went for a "picnic" lunch or dinner for at least one meal almost every single weekend (nice weather permitting) to a local park or state park. We hiked, we swam, we played with them on the playground equipment, we taught them to climb trees. We took them camping, to museums, to family gatherings. We read to them--a lot. We had them involved in activities like scouts and art lessons and riding lessons and karate lessons. Sometimes we even participated along side them. We gave them a ton of love, tried to instill our values, and joked about activities gone wrong as "adventures". And when life didn't go as planned, it was a "learning experience". Adventures and learning experiences still get a lot of discussion.

And when they were ready to stake off on their own, it wasn't because they were being rebellious, it was because it was the natural order of things and they wanted to. My oldest daughter moved to a college two hours away and after graduating, has made that town her home. My middle daughter moved to the west coast and after two years came back, mostly because the degree program she wanted to pursue was here in the Midwest. My youngest daughter moved to the east coast, came back for a year, and then started making plans to study abroad. I have had to deal with separation from her the most. Partly because she's my youngest and there's something different about your baby being all grown up. Partly because she's pursuing a career that will continue to take her to new places. I am trying to tell myself I need to get used to this. It's only the beginning for her.

There are small little things a mother notices that other people don't. Small shifts that are big things. She's been studying abroad for the last many weeks and will be coming home soon. I cannot wait to see her, and was asking about her return flight. She told me her boyfriend would be picking her up at the airport and then they would come straight here. That set me back. With all the guys she's ever dated, none of them have ever superseded my relationship with her. None of them would have been asked to pick her up at the airport. And so I have to look at this young man differently. If he is the first person she wants to see after being gone so long, that's significant. It's part of the natural order of things, but it's a shift in my relationship with her and I want to take her boyfriend aside and ask him, "Do you understand how important you are to her? Do you understand what you have here?"

She plans her life. Every few weeks she sends me her new "life plan" and I love reading them. They are so full of energy and excitement and life. The world is her opportunity and she's ready for it. I am so proud of her. Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Chase your dreams but always know
The road that'll lead you home again
Go on, take on this whole world
-Tim McGraw