Happy Birthday Momma!

Today is my moms 62nd birthday. I would give anything to be able to celebrate and spend the day with her today but I am guessing birthdays in Heaven are pretty amazing, so I am sure she is having a great day.

 June 12, 2010

I didn't think I would be able to focus at work today anyway, so I took the day off and headed down to Brownsville to spend my long weekend with family.

 June 11,2010

While I was home my moms super amazing friends threw Lily and I our first shower (pics to come), I got to cuddle to my Charlie dog, and I got to spend time time in Kingsville with my mom's family. The only downside of the weekend is that my dad was out of town for work so I didn't get to see him.

April 9,2011 (last wedding my parents went to together, one year ago)


August 2, 1980 (first wedding my parents went to as a married couple, almost 32 years ago)

I hope you had an amazing day today momma! We love and miss you so so much. Can't wait until the day when we can all celebrate birthdays together again!

A Trip Back Home

This weekend I made an impromptu trip back home. I had actually been looking forward to the trip all week, but the minute I sat in my seat on the plane my eyes filled with tears and I had to fight them back for the rest of the hour and twenty minute flight.

I was actually surprised by the tears. Not that tears are any stranger to me these days since they are pretty much a daily occurrence. I was surprised by the tears because this isn’t the first time I have been home since my mom passed away three months ago. This is actually the third time. I didn’t cry those first two times when Danny and I set off on the drive to Brownsville even though I knew I wouldn’t be seeing my mom at the other end. I didn’t even cry when we pulled up to the house and I knew she wouldn’t be waiting inside. So why were the tears coming now just sitting on a plane?

I realized this was the first trip I had made home by myself. Danny had been with me the first two times which I guess helped me keep my mind off things. I also tend to not cry in front of people because it makes me feel awkward. So silly I know. This was also the first time I had flown home since my mom passed away. I knew that when I landed at our tiny airport in Brownsville I would not see both of my parents goofily smiling and waving at me as I made my way towards them. That is probably the best part of flying into a small airport. People stand there and wait for you to come off the plane instead of just picking you up outside of baggage claim.

I guess somehow my dad knew that I would need my spirits brightened. He was there waiting for me even though my flight got in twenty minutes early. He was standing there goofily smiling as usual and holding up a sign that had my name on it. He said someone else had been there holding up a sign for a doctor and he wanted to make sure I felt important too! Mission accomplished. I know I am the most important thing to my dad who would do anything just to get a smile out of me.

All that emotion before I even got to the real reason for my trip home! I went home to see my grandparents. Both of my mom’s parents have been going through some pretty rough stuff recently. My grandpa has been in the hospital for about a month with stomach and kidney problems. About a week ago they told us it was stomach cancer. The very next day my grandma was walking out of the house to go to church and she fell down and broke her wrist and her pelvis.

My grandma is doing better than I expected. We were all worried at first that she would be bed ridden for the next few months while she waited for her pelvis to heal but fortunately the break isn’t too horrible and she is able to sit up and move her legs. She can’t get out of the bed on her own or walk on her own yet but at least she won’t have to be immobilized for months and just laying flat in a bed. When my dad and I got to the rehab facility to see her on Saturday she was sitting in a wheel chair and had just gotten back from therapy where she said they make her try to walk and do leg exercises. She is a strong willed lady who hates not being able to do things on her own so I think she will be ok.

My grandpa on the other hand hasn’t gotten the greatest news. He is too weak to do anything about the cancer. Both chemo and the surgery to remove part of the stomach would be too much on his already weak body. The decision has been made to send him home so he can enjoy whatever time he has left. He looked really good when we saw him on Saturday. He ate well, sounded good and said he wasn’t having any stomach pain. My hope is that whatever happens, he is pain free. Who knows, he might surprise us all and have another year of life left in him. If not, at least I know my mom will be there waiting for him with open arms when he gets to Heaven.

I bet that is why she went before all the rest of us. She just had to make sure that Heaven really was perfect for all of her loved ones and so we would know that a familiar face would be waiting for us when we got there.

A New Normal

To say that the past couple of months have been rough would be an understatement. One month ago today my beautiful mother passed away. She went in to the hospital for something minor, ended up in a coma 5 days later and stayed in that coma for over two weeks until her body shut down and she left this world.

Sitting in a hospital day in and day out, sleeping on hospital floors and chairs, putting on a happy face for visitors, putting on a strong face for family members, seeing your loved one laying helpless in a hospital bed day after day, holding that loved ones hand while they leave this life, planning a funeral, attending a funeral, smiling through the pain, and dealing with the aftermath of a life lost too soon can take a huge toll on you.

This has been my world.

The whole time my mom was in the hospital I just knew we were going to get a miracle and she was going to recover. When the doctors would come in and tell us the odds of her pulling through and would list off all the things that were going wrong with her I would listen intently but their words never devastated me like you would think they would. Something inside me kept saying, “This isn’t going to happen, she is going to make it, she isn’t ready to die.”

Every time we would walk into her room we would look at her monitors and hope to see a positive change in the numbers. We would check those monitors hundreds of times a day. We had gotten so used to looking to those monitors to tell us how she was doing and letting those flashing numbers determine our emotions for that day. Sometime towards the end of her last week in the hospital I stopped looking at those numbers. I didn’t even realize that I was not looking at them anymore until someone would come into the room to visit and ask me how she was doing and I really didn’t have any idea what to say. Normally I would be able to tell someone her blood pressure trend for the day, her heart rate trend, how her breathing was, how high they had her ventilator, and everything in between.

Some people may say I was in denial and just didn’t want to see the numbers anymore because I didn’t want to believe them but I call it faith. Something inside me changed. I realized that those flashing numbers meant nothing to me. It didn’t matter what they said, all that mattered is what He said. I couldn’t let those numbers determine my mood and my outlook and my emotions for that day or hour or minute because in the end the ultimate decision on the fate of my mom didn’t lie with me or the doctors; it was up to God. And while it may seem scary to realize that no matter what we do here on earth we may not get the outcome we want, it was actually comforting.

I knew that my mom was resting in the arms of Jesus while she was lying in that hospital bed. I knew that He was there with us as we prayed for a miracle. And I knew that He knew what was best. That is what got me through the day she passed away and every day since.

I have had to wake up every day for the past month to the reality that I have a new normal. Some days are tough and some are surprisingly easy. There are days when out the blue, the reality of my life will sneak up on me when I least expect it and literally take my breath away. But, at the end of the day, no matter how great a tragedy this has been or how heartbroken I am over this, I have to thank God for all the thousands of ways he has blessed my life. I know I am lucky. I got to spend 27 years having a mother who loved me more than life itself. A mom who made me feel special, and beautiful and important every day of my life. A mom who thought I was the most amazing girl she had ever met. A mom who sacrificed things she wanted so I could have what I wanted. A mom who loved me when I didn’t deserve it and worked hard to mold me into the person I am today. And even though I don’t have my mother on earth anymore, I now have an angel in Heaven.

Yup, I am blessed.