And the home that you find isn't the home you had in mind

A few days ago my mom got to come home from the hospital.  With lots of help from Bryant and my friends I was able to go home as well and arrived a few hours after she got there.

The view of my parent’s room, which had always been pretty constant except for a few decor changes since I was 13, had drastically changed.  The week before when my family, my sister, and my brother’s family, and some friends had changed the house to accommodate my mother’s return to her house after staying so long in the hospital.  She need space for a hospital bed and a wheel chair and other things to help her.  We took the storage room and turned it into a bed room with my parents king sized bed being moved down there while a twin bed for my dad and space for the hospital bed took over their room. Even getting in the house was no small task, since a wheel chair ramp would be needed, a way to get in the shower, and several people to help get it upstairs since the house was a split level with the master on the upper most floor.  Wonderful people from my parents’ ward helped make a ramp in the garage and did a quick remodel to the master bath and shower to make them more accessible for her.  All this was done in the space of 3 days and perfectly ready and cleaned by yet more friends for her arrival. 

The travel from the hospital and transition to her bedroom was exhausting for her.  My dad and my brother had been there to help her the whole time and had gotten her settled for the time being.  When I walked in the room, she was there in the hospital bed among a nest of pillows.  The bed looked surprisingly comfortable and her eyes were closed.  I went to greet her and she opened her eyes and we talked for a bit and my 2 dogs wanted to lay with her too.  They had to take turns, of course, since our older small dog hates our new young puppy.  My mom was concerned about them not getting along, but I told her it would just take time. Between the 2 of them she almost always had some doggy to snuggle, which she loves to do. 

She and my dad were both happy and grateful for the renovations and how they made it possible for her to come home.  

We spent the afternoon of that first day quietly visiting.  My Aunt Jeanne, my dad’s sister, had brought dinner.  During that first afternoon home my mom asked my brother to give her and my dad each blessing.  The four of us gathered in my parent’s room.   My brother, Stephen, was happy to do it and gave them both beautiful blessings, promising the help of angels and that they were being watched over and were never being left alone, even at that moment.  As he was speaking, I felt the spirit flood over me.  Then I felt a light slim hand on my shoulder.  Tears crested my eyes and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were being watched over and that the veil that separates us from Heaven was and is very thin in my mother’s presence.

My brother left around dinner time and I brought my parents food up for them. They ate together, my mom with a breakfast tray across her lap and my dad either holding his plate or using a TV tray that was nearby.  This is how they ate mostly every meal.  I’d bring it up and they’d eat and I’d take the plates back down to the kitchen to clean up.  My mom commented that eating is really the only normal thing she gets to do, so I wanted to make them food they liked and then I’d freeze it so they could re-heat it when they needed it.

I made a list and went to the store and tried to stock them back up.  In between cooking, freezing meals, and doing the dishes, I tried to get their laundry going as well.  Family and friends had heard she had come home and were starting to trickle by throughout the weekend.  We visited all visited and I tried to visit with my parents too.  I mostly wanted to talk about their needs and what I could do to fulfill those.  Like I said before, I hate to cry, and so I focused on moving around, getting things done, and talking about light things with my parents.  My mom didn’t really want to get out of bed.  She was just so very tired.  Being at home and not in the constant bustle of the hospital gave her that peace to just sleep. 

In the afternoon I took my pup out for a walk.  The house we lived in from when I was 5-13 was only a few blocks away so we walked that way.  It was cold, but not too cold compared to WY, and the air was still.  The sky was grey and everything was muffled by the snow that had fallen the night before.  Even though it was mid-day the streets were quiet as well.  Memories came from around every corner as we walked undisturbed through the snow.  The first church building I really remember is the one where my parents still attend, half a block from their house.  Looking at it as I walked by I remembered so many times as a child walking there with my parents and siblings on warm sunny days for church or other activities.

The snowy parking lots reminded me of when my mom took me there to teach me how to get out of a fish tail or stop sliding when driving on snowy roads before the lots were plowed and I was learning to drive.  We screamed and squealed and had a great time.  Then the thoughts of what the future in that building would hold, my mother’s funeral.  We don’t know when, but the inventible doesn’t give us a timetable and in reality none of us know when our time will come.

There’s a junior high across the street from the church now, but it used to be a field.  I thought about all the times my sister and friends and I would walk home from school through the field.  I thought about the neighbors that used to live across the street and wondered if any of them still lived there.  As I neared out old neighborhood I noticed that the houses that were still there looked exactly the same, but time had taken its toll.  It seemed that they hadn’t been kept up at all and were getting pretty run down. As I walked past my best friend’s family house, I couldn't even count the memories that jumbled in my mind walking past.  I got to where we used to live, the trees were half dead, the fence was breaking, the shutters sagged, and a car was parked on the front lawn.  I saw past it in my mind’s eye and saw my whole family young and healthy and caring for that house and what is used to be like full of life and happiness. 

At this point my, not so little, pup started to whine because her feet were getting cold so we headed back.

That evening Stephen and Judy came over for dinner and we ate on a card table in my parents’ room with them we chatted together until my mom fell asleep.  We all left the room quietly and cleaned up.  Stephen and Judy visited with me a bit longer then headed home themselves. 

It was a quiet and peaceful few days that I am so grateful I got to be a part of.  I got a lot of cooking and laundry done and helped my parents, it felt good.

My family came Saturday after my son Bryson had finished playing basketball in Lyman.  He’d had a fun day there and his team had won their division.  They brought energy and excitement into the house.  My mom loved every minute we got to spend together.  We got take out from the various favorite places in town and Bryant and my dad brought my mom into the kitchen to eat with us.  It was so great to all be at the table again, but being out of bed for so long tired out my mom.  We helped her back upstairs and Caringtyn spent the rest of the evening making herself at home in the hospital bed with grandma.  They cuddled and talked and Caringytn was her bubbly silly self.  The kids spent every second they could with her riding on the wheel chair in the room and being loud and having fun until bed time.

Sunday we decided to have sacrament meeting with my parents in their room since her ward was bringing the sacrament to her.  Stephen and Judy came again and we all dressed in Sunday best.  My dad had asked Bryant to conduct.  We had opening prayer and song and Caringtyn give a cute little talk.  We then took turns bearing our testimonies and the spirit was so very strong again.  Tears came to our eyes and voices again and it was a special experience.  My mom wasn’t able to bear her testimony at the time because she was overcome with emotion, but I hope to get that on tape later.  The rest of the day Bryson and Caringtyn took turns lying beside her in bed and Ashelynn visited with her too.  We left that evening around 5 because we had to get home to school and work, but promised to be back in 2 weeks.

I can’t remember which day, but I was talking with my mom.  She pointed to the heavens and said, “I’m really going to have some questions.”  I said, “I bet you do. Take Kona with you when you go to ask and have her sit by you.”  It was light of course, because that is how I deal with complex emotions most of the time, unless I’m alone.  This was just a small verbalization on her part of the internal struggle she was going through, and rightly so.  She also mentioned to my kids that she felt like Rip Van Winkle; she’d fallen asleep and woke up an elderly person.  They didn’t quite get the reference, but I did.  She had been one of the most active and physically strong women I’d ever known, loving the hard earthy work of gardening and willing to help anyone move anything.  Now, suddenly, she wasn’t able to even stand without significant assistance.  I’ve seen my mom cry on occasion, but even now it wasn't that often; she was still a pillar of spiritual strength, but her wrestle with the spirit versus the flesh was taking its toll.

I may not know why this trial, why my mom, but I do know that my faith and conviction about the love the Lord has for each of us has been strengthened.  I know even more so, that Heaven is real and closer than we know.  I know that the trails we face in life have purpose beyond my own limited understanding.  I trust even more in the love our God has for us, I have felt it so strongly.  I have seen it in my mother and father’s eyes.  Their legacy of faith is my responsibility to pass on.