Heart Attack Central

Yes, it is quite possibly the most unhealthy dinner we could come up with, but it was tasty! Foie de canard with truffles, three cheeses, salami, fresh baked Italian bread, with sesame seeds, real butter, and for good measure, a nice big Caesar salad. We also had a new variety of wine that we'd never tried before. Visiting hours in the cardiac ward are from 3 to 5.

Fang and Errol were quite interested in something up there. They love the smells of butter and cheese, and I'm just guessing that the foie was enticing them tonight as well.

On the road again...

We spent another weekend up in Hays, this time to continue the process of going through my mom's house to clean it out and get it ready to sell. I can't believe what a pack-rat she was! It's amazing how much stuff she fit into the place. We've made it through two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a cupboard so far, and we've found some pretty funny stuff, like small pouches with snaps on them that were made out of some old flannel sheets with a penguin pattern. It's been fun going through all the memories. We're gathering most of her books and her teddy bears in the living room for all of her friends to go through. We've lined all the walls with bookshelves, which are now completely full of teddy bears and books. It's an interesting room to see, and we haven't even brought out the hundreds of Christmas and other holiday themed bears she has yet.

We're making good use of all the driving hours between here and there by trying to learn to speak French on the road. We've got a set of cd's to use, as well as a college textbook that Jeff picked up for me for Christmas. So far, we've learned the most important part of the language - how to order breakfast, lunch and dinner. Haha. Seriously, though, we're planning to take a vacation over there sometime in the future, and we'd like to experience some of the more back-country locations and really get a feel for the people, so we're making an effort to learn the language. Jeff speaks German rather well, and it's been quite useful on both of our trips to Germany. He's my inspiration to try and make my best effort at learning French. For me, the most confusing thing is trying to remember which words are French, and which words are from the bits of other languages I've picked up over the years: Russian, German, Spanish, etc. It's terrible when you only know a few words in each language, and they're all the same ones - Yes, No, Please, Thank You and so on. I have moments where I go through all of them trying to find the correct version for the language I'm trying to speak. It's maddening! And don't even get me started on the stupid genders of the nouns - yikes! Wish me (us) luck!

New Bath Decor!

We're slowly moving our way through decorating the rooms of our house as the decorating bug bites, and we did our bathroom and closet a few weekends ago. We added a rug, some wall decorations, a new curtain for the closet window (finally one that covers the ENTIRE window, not just the bottom half) and a new flower arrangement for the top of our linen cabinet. Here are some pictures...

The new rug sits between our vanities.

We each have a set of these block shelves with candles above the sides of our vanities.

The new curtain in the closet.



Oooh, aaah, the almost total effect (I couldn't get the candles in the shot).

The Memorial Service

I thought I'd write a little bit about my mom's memorial service for those of you who weren't able to be there. She had met with her pastor, Ken, before she died to let him know what she wanted to have done at her service. She wanted a lot of music and she wanted to glorify God, so that's what we did. Here's the order of the service:

Prelude: Piano and Organ music from Loren with a Men's Quartet singing hymns and praise songs

Invocation: Pastor Ken

Solo: "Here I Am to Worship" sung by Shelby, a little girl who was one of Carol's friends

Congregational Song: "Psalm 145"

Celebrating Carol's Life: Words from Mike and Debbie J.

Congregational Songs: "Psalm 98" and "Ancient Words"

Scripture Reading: Psalm 146

Mixed Quartet: "Psalm 73"

Proclamation of the Word: "Lifelong Praise (Psalm 146)" by Pastor Ken

Men's Duet: "I Can Only Imagine"

Affirmation of Faith by the Congregation

Congregational Song: "How Great Thou Art"

Benediction

Postlude: Piano and Organ

I was amazed at how beautiful all the music was during the service. We could tell that God was certainly there with us, because everything was just perfect. I mean, really perfect. Out of a family of musicians, you've got to believe that we're all pretty critical of other musicians, but it was just all so beautiful to listen to. It was even pretty fun. I never thought we'd have fun singing at our mom's funeral, but we did. Nathan had made a request to the organist that he "turn the volume up real loud" on at least one song, and he did for the last one, "How Great Thou Art". It was so loud that everyone was singing at the top of their lungs, and Nathan and I were laughing out loud in the front row from joy. It was cool.

Mike and Debbie shared some college memories of mom, and Debbie talked about their water gun incident that they shared at one of mom's chemo treatments. They read a letter from mom's close friend, Jan, which was really touching, and then they each took turns reading the scriptures that mom had been praying for each one of us kids every day since we were born (Psalm 119 M, N, J and D, for those of you with psalters). Pastor Ken gave a nice sermon.

The place was packed out, and I heard from several people that they were surprised by how many people had been touched by our mother because they all knew her to be a quiet and reserved person. I wasn't surprised, but it was really a neat testimony to her time here on Earth.

We had a reception at the church afterwards where we showed a slide show of pictures of mom throughout her life, and we got to spend a couple of hours chatting with old friends who we hadn't seen for some time. It was a great memorial service, and I think everyone went away feeling refreshed and full of life. I wish everyone's services could be like this, and I'm glad we are a family of believers who can find joy and hope and celebration in a time like this.

Mom passed away

My mom passed away last Saturday, the 9th. I was able to spend the week before that with her, and my sister and brothers were also there that whole week. Jeff saw her on both the weekend before she died and this last weekend. She was in an increasing amount of pain all week, and we struggled to keep it under control and yet maintain some sense of order in her daily schedule, which was important to her. On Friday night, she went to a wedding of a friend's son, then after she got home, she collapsed while putting on her pajamas and then she had a seizure. From that point on for about 3 or 4 hours, she was in incredible pain. We got all the kids assembled, as well as two hospice nurses, her best friend, her parents, her pastor and his wife, and another close friend, and we all worked to get the pain under control and to try and calm her with singing and laughing. She actually sang along to some of the praise songs. She eventually fell asleep and stayed asleep through the night while my brother Nathan kept watch. Two of her friends and my grandparents also stayed in the room with her all night. The next day, she was still in pain, and was noticeably weaker. It was obvious that her body was starting to shut down. We got her moved to a hospital bed around lunch time, and she really started to deteriorate after that. We tried to keep her calm and keep her pain under control, and eventually she calmed down and started to sleep lightly. Her breathing slowed and eventually stopped at about 6:15. She was surrounded by friends and family when she passed. It was a sad moment for all of us, but also joyous because we knew she didn't have to suffer any longer. We prayed over her body and called hospice and the funeral home.

Things happened pretty quickly after that. I helped the hospice nurse get rid of all the narcotics left in the house. I can't believe how much we had to throw away - thousands of dollars worth of medication went down the drain. It's really too bad they can't send that stuff to someone else, but I guess they have to keep control of those types of drugs. We did save all the non-narcotic drugs and are planning to donate them to a place that sends them to a clinic in Bolivia. Mom's body was taken away by the funeral home. She has donated it to KU Medical Center for research.

We have scheduled the memorial service for Thursday. Mom had pretty much outlined her wishes for the service with the pastor already, so there wasn't much planning to do. I made a slide show of pictures of her for the reception, but otherwise it was all taken care of for us.

So, that's what been going on. Jeff and I have the entire week off work, which is nice. We've been home for a couple of days, and we'll go back to Hays tomorrow to start cleaning out the house and to go to the memorial service.

It hasn't been as sad to have Mom gone as I thought. I'm sad, but also happy that she's in a better place now. She suffered so much in her life here. I still miss her, but I know we'll be together again someday, so it's more of a "see you later, Mom" than a goodbye.

Some good, some bad

So, it’s about time for an update on the whole “will we ever have a weekend to ourselves again?” post. Yes, in fact, we did. Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we actually spent the ENTIRE weekend at home by ourselves! Yay! Actually, we didn’t spend it all at home – we went out and about on Saturday and Sunday on a mission to decorate our master bathroom. We put some cube shelves on the walls with candles, did a fake flower arrangement for the top of the linen cabinet, and put up some puppy pictures on the wall. We also ordered a rug for the floor and got some new curtains for our closet, which is visible from the bathroom. I’ll post pictures someday after the rug arrives. We also rearranged the living room a bit, and got some mats for some of our vacation photos that we had blown up to hang on the walls in place of my old college Ansel Adams prints. They look awesome. It’s so nice having our own photos on the wall now. We also made it over to one of our favorite lunch places, Imbiss Grille, which does German food. We’ve been to Germany a couple of times, and we really like the food over there. So whenever we go to this little restaurant, it’s like a little vacation. Schnitzel, yum yum!

This weekend we’re heading up to see my mom. She’s not doing so well. Her health has been steadily declining every day for the last two weeks, and it’s gotten to the point where she needs to have someone there with her 24/7. She in a lot of pain, which is mostly kept under control by her meds, but she’s also having a lot of nausea, which is causing problems with her desire and ability to eat. My sister is staying with her now, and I’ll be staying after this weekend. Joella’s got her med school board exam coming up the week after that, so she’ll have to come back to Wichita to study and take it. Nathan and Daniel are also helping out with her care, but there’s only so much that they can do. The doctor and hospice people say that her death is probably imminent. This may sound horrible, but I really hope it comes soon. I know where she’ll be after she’s gone, so it doesn’t hurt quite so much to think things like that.