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I've missed November completely, and December has disappeared without anything to say.  Not that there hasn't been anything going on; the goings-on have just been really, really sad.


I lost my mom on November 29, 2011.  It was entirely unexpected.  It was not supposed to be this way.  I simply wasn't ready.  But, who is?  Even if I'd had her for another decade, I wouldn't have been ready.  The hole in my heart is very deep and very wide.  Yesterday marked the first month of my life without her in it.  A month.  Thirty days.  Yet, the sadness I feel is as fresh as it has ever been.  So far, time is not doing much in the way of healing.


For those of you who knew my mom, you know she was active and involved and engaged in living a bountiful life until the very end.  She was here in Arizona until November 8, and there were absolutely no signs she was sick.  As I pieced facts together later, the first indications something might be wrong didn't manifest themselves until somewhere around November 20, when she began having episodic nosebleeds that were slow to stop.  In a short span of time, she later told me she had had some bleeding from her gums, and on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving she was diagnosed with a small retinal hemorrhage in her left eye.


None of these things, individually, were a huge concern to anyone.  Collectively, though, they were symptoms of a very acute and aggressive form of leukemia.  She was diagnosed during an ER visit on November 27.  By that evening, she had suffered an inter-cranial hemorrhage and was on life support in the Critical Care Unit.


I flew to Detroit on November 28, and though she never regained consciousness, the medical team encouraged me to talk to her, which I did.  I told her things she had already heard a thousand times before: I love you, Mom! I love you, I love you, I love you.....


At 4:10 a.m., I made the hardest decision I've ever made.  The thought of a life without her was, and is, unthinkable. But I knew it was a decision for her, not for me.  I knew her wishes, even if they weren't my own selfish wishes.  I knew God's plan, even if it didn't exactly comport with mine.


I was able to be with her when she died.  As devastating as the realization was, it was truly a very peaceful, quiet death.  God took her gently from this world and for that I will be eternally grateful.  Lingering through a slow and painful death would have been devastating to my mom; a woman whose connection to her church, her friends, and the Grosse Pointe community was deep and fulfilling.


There are no regrets.  My mom and I were very, very close.  She knew I loved her very much, and I knew her feelings for me where the same.  We talked often, saw each other regularly given the distance between us, and shared a friendship only adult daughters can share with their moms.  I will always miss her.

With love from The Valley of the Sun.