Mom's Style (Part Five)
It's Wednesday morning, around 11:30am. After going to Wal-Mart and to Family Christian Stores (it's a chain of bookstores, by the way), I made it to the hospital. I parked, grabbed the bag and went in and up to the third floor... the Oncology Floor at Floirida Hospital - Altamonte... room 3714. It's almost our zip code (32714)... I don't think I'll ever forget that number. In twelve years, I will be 37 and Tate will be 14. I think that's gonna be a hard year. I don't think anything bad will happen that year or anything like that. I just think I'm going to remember the significance of 37 and 14 a whole lot.
I can't believe I almost forgot this part: Monday night, as I was sitting with mom, while she was crying and scared, the necklace I had on was brushing over our clasped hands. She took hold of it. She nearly clung to it. I took it off and put the charm in her hand, wrapping the necklace around her hand. It was a hand-made cross necklace. Aaron made it for me. A leather thong with a beaded cross. At first she didn't want me to take it off. She was concerned that if she was holding it as she was dying that I wouldn't want it back or take it back. I assured her it was the farthest thing from the truth, and encouraged her to hold it if that's what she wanted. After I placed it in her hand, she looked at me and said softly "I don't really need it though---I've already got one in here," as she brought her hand in and pointed to her heart. "But He's not on it anymore."
I'm sorry that I keep interrupting with things... I just forget to put them in or don't think of them 'til later. I'm really sorry, I know it's probably frustrating. Ok, so it's wednesday, nearing noon, I've purchased a few things we might need and gone to the hospital.
So I go up to mom's room. She's sleeping, sortof... mostly she was just really drugged up. I came in and set the bag down and sat beside her. I took her hand. I began to talk to her, to tell her I was there, to tell her how much I love her. She opened her eyes and made a few noises. The nurse told me that was good--she was trying to respond to me. I told her I brought the video, the one she wanted to see, and Heather and I began to set it up. Dad began to object and that's where I became "unreasonable" so to speak, for the first time. I set my jaw and turned on him, telling him "I am showing her this video. It's Hillsong's Hope, she told me she wanted to see it again, she told me Monday night, and I'm going to show it to her." My eyes began to burn as I spoke, my throat closed on me, and dad came tearing around the side of her bed to hold me as I completely lost it. He apologized again and again, and told me he didn't know what he was thinking. Of course I should show it to her. It's a great idea, I should show her.
And so I did. Once I sat down beside her again and began to play the video, she opened her eyes again, but she wasn't really seeing anything. We kept the screen in her line of "sight", just hoping that somewhere deep down, wherever she was, she'd recognize it... I knew it wasn't going to bring her out of it, or anything like that. I mostly just hoped it would comfort and soothe her, and maybe sustain her until she came out of this. She kept her eyes open through much of the video, but she only blinked a couple of times, so I urged her to close them, brushing my fingers down over her lids. I got a nurse to call over and have her doctor order some eyedrops for her, in case she opened them again. I'd put drops in for her if she was unable to blink.
Everyone came and went that day... I don't remember who came when and when they went, really. It was strange... Mom got more visitors than ever before that day. Mrs. Puik and her son Jonathan, Ben's friend. Sam and Debbie. Jeanine and Eric. Maureen. Mrs. Felsing. Chuck and Nancy. Christina. Dave and Michelle. Some other people too, I just don't remember. Mom's two favorite nurses were both working that day too. Michelle and... what was her name? I don't remember, but I'll find out. I'm half convinced she was not of earth. She had a strong love of the Lord, and she was so incredibly gentle... so sweet... her voice was so soothing, and she never changed. She never got aggravated or frustrated, she was always perfect loving kindness...
Anyway, I stayed all day. As the afternoon crept on, she responded less and less. One thing I'm grateful for, though, is that she didn't need any extra morphine for the most part. She got one extra push of it shortly after I arrived, at about 12:15pm. God has been very gracious through all of this, and that's just another way He has shown His love and concern... But I'll get more into that later.
My older brother (along with his wife) was not able to be there. The Daytona 500 was that weekend and pretty much every seat on every plane for the entire week was occupied. He would have had to go from Columbus, OH to Vegas to Texas to New York to Orlando, and he STILL wouldn't have gotten there that day. It was really hard on him...
As the day wore on, mom's breathing became much more labored. She began to take very long (and scary) pauses between breaths. Several times I had to shake her, even shout loudly to get her attention so that she would breathe again. This began while Dad was downstairs taking his turn to have a cigarette (we all just sort of rotated all day--my older sister started smoking again, even.). At that time, the inhabitants of the room consisted of Heather, Rachael, and myself.
I think Mrs. Robinson came up that day too...
Anyway, mom was really starting to slip away, so we called Dad on his cellphone, and I called Kathy and Rob back at the house to wake them up and put them on alert. I told her I'd call as soon as we talked to Dad. Dad came up and saw mom... he told me to call Kathy. And then I called Aaron... or maybe he called me, I don't know... No, I think I called him, because I remember getting his business card out of my black book... We got Ben up there pretty fast too--his friend Ashley brought him up. Dad called Buddy and told him. It was really neat, what happened next. Dad called Bud from mom's bedside. As soon as Dad said his name over the phone, Mom opened her eyes and began groaning... At first we thought she might be in a tremendous amount of pain, but I listened quietly and realized she was saying the words "I love"... she must have said it four times before she exhausted herself. It was very long and drawn out, and if you hadn't been there through all of this and known what condition she was in, it probably would have scared you, because you wouldn't have understood. But I understood... it was a phenomenal effort on her part, and that's just how mom was. All she cared about was making sure everyone else was ok.
Dad prayed over mom after that, because she had taken to breathing only about once every 20 - 40 seconds, and we knew for sure that we were losing her. I think commending his wife to the Lord was probably the hardest thing that my father has ever done. But on a lighter note, whenever he would say "Ginny, it's ok... you don't have to fight anymore, we'll be ok...", that woman would take the biggest breath imaginable, just as deliberate as she could be.
That makes everyone else in the family smile or laugh.... but it upsets me... it makes me think we forced her before it was time. But that's for another day.
Kathy and Rob showed up then, and Ben came in a few minutes after that. He was very upset, but he took it well. When mom heard his voice, she did the same thing she had done for Buddy. She told him 3 or 4 times. It scared him at first, but I told him to listen... she was saying "I love..." she wants you to know she loves you. He crawled up close to her face... mom's baby... and told her how much he loved her.
Ben noticed that the cross wasn't in mom's hand anymore. It had fallen out of her hand sometime during the night and someone had put it on the table, so I had just picked it back up and put it around my neck. Ben begged me to give it to him, so that he could give it to mom. Of course I complied. One of the last things mom ever did was clutch her hand around that cross... she clung to Jesus, and what He had done for her, and for all of us...
I sat up by mom's head through most of this, brushing her hair... she LOVED it when we brushed her hair, and of course I never did it enough. It's funny, and I guess cliched, how that works... there are always little things we wish we had done more. So I brushed her hair, and cooled her off with a damp rag, and ran my fingers through her hair as I set my head on her pillow, singing to her again... All I could think of was "Sing With The Angels"... So I sang softly, so only she could hear, as everyone gathered around her and loved her... Chuck and Nancy came in (our Pastor and his wife)... So in this tiny little hospital room, it was Mom, Dad, Heather, me, Rachael, Ben, Rob, Kathy, Chuck, and Nancy...
Somehow, whenever we gather, for whatever reason, we always reminisce over the funny things that have happened in our lives... Funny stories... we're always telling funny stories... And this time was no exception... Somehow we got to reminiscing, and it was in that moment that mom began to slip away... I could feel it, the way I feel hot or cold, the way I feel fur against my skin, the way I feel love in my heart... all of those ways, I felt it--I knew... I also knew it was precisely the window she was looking for... Every one else noticed after a time that she was breathing less and less, and they stopped, trailed off... turned their attention back to her... But mom wasn't going anywhere in the spotlight. She'd always hated to be the center of attention. So she began to struggle and fight again, and I knew she was tired... So I looked up... And I said "No... please don't stop. She wants you to keep going, to keep remembering... Please don't stop."
So Heather, in a rare moment of strength, started The Houseboat Story, about a family vacation we took once that was nothing short of a ridiculously funny nightmare... and I began to sing softly again, running my fingers through her hair...
And so it was that she left... slipping quietly out the back... just like that... quiet as a whisper... she just wasn't there anymore...
Being the closest to her face, I knew it first, but didn't say anything... I just kept my head on the pillow beside her, crying softly into her hair, still running my fingers through it... I knew the second she was gone... the struggle was gone... it's just one of those intuitive things... As the others in the room began to notice as well, things got very quiet, even our crying was quiet... I couldn't stop running my fingers through her hair... Chuck prayed for us, asking for strength and understanding... he thanked God for mom, and the impact she had had... I just couldn't stop my hand from pulling through the short brown curls... they were so soft...
I kissed my mother goodbye for the last time... She wasn't there anymore. I stepped out of the low light of her room, into the harsh light of the hallway, and there... standing there quietly, almost pensively... crowded into the hallway... Mrs. Felsing... Mrs. Robinson... Dave and Michelle... Jeanine and Eric... Mark and Dianne... Sam and Debbie (well, they had come into mom's room just before she died, and kissed mom and said they were going, but I begged them not to leave, so they waited outside)... Nurisa and Leslie... and more faces that were just a blur. It was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen... No one called these people... I mean NO ONE. Chuck may have called Mark (associate pastor), but Mark didn't call anyone... When I asked some of them later, they just said that mom was on their hearts... or they just felt like they needed to come visit, right then... Jeanine was planning to come up earlier, but she just felt this pressing need to wait for Eric to get home so that they could come together. It was amazing, to walk out into a sea of faces, people who loved us, and loved mom... and none of them were summoned by human means.
I stumbled through them, my mind still reeling, half in sorrow for mom and half in joy to see all those people... I went down to smoke a cigarette... we all did... I smoked 2 though... At the end of my second, Rachael called my cellphone and told me Dad needed me, right away, he needs my help. I hurried back upstairs to find Dad almost manically cleaning out mom's room... Room 3714... He looked at me and said "Help me get this stuff out of here, we need to go, she's not here anymore... it's time to go, she's not here anymore..." and he spun back around to get back to work. Rachael and Heather couldn't handle it, and were waiting out in the hall with Ben and everyone else. I helped dad... his little pillar... his little protege... Mrs. Felsing--bless that woman, she was so wonderful--came in too, to help. We got out all our belongings, all of mom's things... there was quite a lot, since she'd been there for about a month...
But we gathered it all up, everyone out in the hall grabbed a handful or two, and we left... I felt like I was in a fog... I had someone on the phone... I don't remember who... and everyone was trying to take my keys away. I needed to drive though, I needed to do something real like drive my car. So Nancy got in my car with me and we went to pick Tate up from daycare. Then we went home, to dad's house. It was a regular reunion of sorts... somehow there was all this food, and there was laughter and love... lots of that. And I can say with relative certainty that God could not have taken better care of us in those moments than He did that night, by surrounding us with people we love, who love us... they distracted us from the worst of the grief and heartache for a while, and I couldn't have asked for more.
And so it ends... Mom is gone. It's been 2 and a half weeks now. I'm sure I'll probably record some impressions from the memorial services and things like that... but this was most important. I needed to do this. Thank you so much for bearing with me, for walking with me...
-jack-
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Mom's Style (Part Four)
It's Tuesday night... I went home... I went to bed... I'm just assuming here, because pretty much anything outside of the hospital is a blur. I'm assuming I went to my house to sleep.
Oh, ok. I just scrolled and read my post from the 10th. Tuesday was the day with all that social worker/hospice/TPN you-know-what that even now makes me want to curse.
So anyway... I went home (and blogged obviously) and went to bed.
So now it's wednesday... the day... well, I didn't know it was the day, but you get it. whatever. anyway. I got up and got Tate ready and went in to work... We figured with as nicely as mom seemed to be bouncing back we at least had a few days. So I went to work. I could beat myself bloody for going in. I was there for about 2 hours... I called Dad on my morning break, just to check in and see how she was... He said not so good. She's getting more and more morphine, she's on a constant drip now and can have an extra shot every 30 minutes, etc... she's not responding again... I don't remember exactly what he told me, or exactly how she was at the time we talked... I just knew I wanted to be there... I asked dad what he thought I should do, and he told me she's resting, and that he thought it was probably ok to try and work, that I need to for Tate, but he told me to do whatever my heart told me to do. That's pretty much all it took. I went back to my desk, gathered my things, and told my supervisor I had to go.
I went home, grabbed more cigarettes, I think I stopped in to Tate's daycare and told them I may be late picking him up... I know dad called and asked me to buy some kleenex's and something else... I don't remember what. I bought Kleenex, and some cookies, and a couple of other things... I don't remember. I wish I remembered, I want to remember, why can't I remember?? I bought 2 travel etch-a-sketch's, in case the kids had to be up at the hospital for any length of time... i don't remember what else i bought up there... it was Wal-Mart...
After that, I stopped by Family Christian Stores and bought 2 more Hillsong CDs and the Hope video (VHS). I made sure Heather had her car tv/vcr combo up there, so that I could show mom the video... I thought it might help... it did... but not the way I had hoped...
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Ok, time to stop. I'm sorry this is taking so long. Every time I sit down and try to write this out, I just can't. I avoid it, or I start and just have to stop. I'll get it out. I'm sorry.
-jack-
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Mom's Style (Part Three)
As Monday night turned into Tuesday morning, mom was still awake, still alert, almost her old self... she drank some water, ate some ice... she drank diet coke, even ate some lime sherbet (the first time she'd eaten a bite in over a week, I believe). Our spirits were beginning to soar, to be quite honest.
I came home around 2am, promising her that I would return first thing after I woke up. Dad and Ben went home when I did, Rachael stayed a little bit longer, and Rob and Kathy stayed through the night. I had a restless night on dad's couch, and Tate didn't fully fall back asleep until after 4am. He woke me with fussing at 6am--he had somehow found a pincushion and was poking his hands with pins and then crying about it. Ugh... At any rate, after a few intermittent hours of sleep, I got up, showered, got him dressed, and took him to daycare. I then took myself up to the hospital.
I stayed with mom all day. Dad had already been there a while when I got there, and Kathy and Rob went back to dad's house to get some sleep. Ben was at school, Rachael would stop in for a while between this and that, running to meetings and whatnot. Dad had a number of errands to run as well, going to the bank, meeting with insurance people, hospice people, all that.
Something else I forgot to include as I was writing previously: while listening to the Hope CD, mom remembered that we had watched the DVD on Christmas morning. She really liked it, and mentioned that she "would have liked to have seen it one last time." Anyway...
So I was with mom all day, largely alone. She asked me to stay with her when they changed her wound dressings, which was unusual. She took it better than ever before, though, when I was there. I don't know if that was because she was comforted by my presence, or because she was being strong for my sake. Regardless, it's extremely painful. Twice during the day, she stood up. She sat up probably a dozen times. At one point, after having her wound dressed, and while the nurse was retrieving clean bedsheets and a new gown, mom sat up, naked, and had me sit beside her, so that she could rest against me. She had had a pain shot before the process, as usual, and was sluggish... she dozed, sitting up like that, slumped onto my shoulder... It was a strange moment for me. Touching, humbling (in a good way), sad... but I am also honored to have been able to serve her in that moment. I can't explain it, really... I just needed to say it.
Heather arrived, with Ginny Beth, in the late afternoon, early evening. Heather was shaken up by mom's present condition. She just had to catch up to the rest of us, emotionally. That was probably the first time Heather had seen her with an oxygen mask. I barely noticed, because it had become a permanent fixture since Monday morning. But still, things looked to be improving. Mom had refused a breathing treatment in the early afternoon, but about an hour and a half to two hours later, I demanded that she be given one, regardless. She didn't like them, for reasons unbeknownst to me. But her breathing became so noisy and labored as she slept that I didn't care if she sat up and socked me, she was getting a treatment. She slept right through it and never noticed, heh... And it was like a miracle. I mean, it really truly was. Like a completely different person lying in that bed...
Once Tuesday night hits, my brain gets a little fuzzy on details. I had gone home to pick up Tate from daycare and get him fed and whatnot. I'm pretty sure I took him up there for a while. Let him kiss Gammy and all... Then I guess I must've gone to Dad's house and put Tate to bed. I think I had Heather listen for him as she was winding down (she'd had a long road trip and needed to sleep). So I went back up to the hospital... no, wait. I had Rachael listening for him. Because Heather and I were at the hospital together that night. She got tired and left before I did. I sat with Rob and Kathy for a while. They said that she had gotten a very large dose of morphine just a little while before we arrived. Mom was resting very peacefully, but I was uncomfortable with the amount of morphine she had been given. I felt extremely uneasy about all of that from the very beginning.
But anyway, Rob and Kathy and I sat around laughing and talking for a while (Mom, Rob, and Kathy, when all together in the same room, are the FUNNIEST people you've ever heard, and I'm not exaggerating.), and then Rachael called up and told me, basically, that dad wanted me to come home and get Tate and go to bed. I was going to be going to work the next day. So I went home...
Well, at least this time it's not emotions forcing me to stop. It's just really late, and my body is worn out. This will undoubtedly have another few "parts" to it before I'm through... Thank you for all of your encouraging words and prayers. Thanks for sticking it out with me.
I don't need you to take it away... I don't need you to walk away... I just need you to walk with me for a while.
-jack-
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Mom's Style (Part Two)
One thing I neglected to interject into my thoughts from the last post... As mom came awake after hearing my talk with Mrs. Felsing, as she calmed down after that, she was asking me questions like "Why are Kathy and Rob coming? Why is Heather coming? Y'all think I'm dying, don't you? Am I dying?" At one point, after a nurse walked out of the room, mom asked me "She knows I'm dying, doesn't she?" It was part hurt, part resentment, part fear... it was awful... it was as though we had tricked her or something. I can't explain it entirely, but it left me extremely uneasy, and hurting for her...
Ok, Monday night still... she's got me singing to her until Mrs. Felsing arrives. Mom seemed really glad to see her. That's something too: Mom seemed genuinely glad to have visitors those last couple of days. She seemed to perk up, etc. Anyway. Shortly after Mrs. Felsing arrived, Kathy and Ben showed up. They talked for a few minutes, mom started to wear out, so Ben and I prepared to leave. She begged me to return, and she made Kathy and Mrs. Felsing promise not to leave as well. She said "I don't want to close my eyes, and then open them and you not be here..." She was really scared of being alone... So I promised, and they promised, and I took Ben home.
I got home, and dad ordered me to take Tate home and go to bed... But I just couldn't. I lied to him. I lied to my dad and told him I was going home and going to bed... as I was leaving, Ben whispered to me "you aren't going home, are you?" I told him that I made a promise to mom, and I'm not going to let her down, but that he wasn't to tell dad. So I loaded a sleeping Tate into the car and headed back up to the hospital. After I pulled in, I drove to an area near the entrance where you can parallel park. I was just pulling into a space when my cellphone started vibrating in my back pocket. I about had a heart attack, and then I almost wrecked the car. I answered it, it was Ben... "I don't know what's going on, but Dad just got a call and he's coming up to the hospital, I think something's wrong with mom, he's leaving right now, and I'm coming with him. I wanted you to know, 'cause if you're up there, he's going to see you--he's running out the door right now." I don't think I said anything more than "k" and I ripped out of the car, snatched tate up and ran up to her room. When I got there, Kathy and Mrs. Felsing were still there, and they said she had stopped breathing probably 6 or 7 times since I left... they had to shake her and startle her to get her to start again. But once I came back in she went back to normal, breathing just fine... Dad arrived a few minutes later, and a little after that, Rob and Rachael got there. She woke back up and was once again talking, answering questions, initiating conversation, etc... She and dad did have a private talk at one point, though, shortly after he arrived...
I overheard bits of it as I paced in the hall... She told him how much she loved him, and how wonderful he'd been to her... He told her how much he loved her, and that if she needed to go, and was too tired, that it was ok to stop fighting...
I have to stop...
Oh, God, please ... please help me... help me get through this, help me accept this... I feel so lost, so weak, so defenseless... I don't know how to not have a mom, Father... I need your help, I need you so much... It hurts, God, and I'm scared... Please help me.
-jack-
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Mom's Style
It was just like her, the way she went... Get everyone distracted, laughing with one another, loving each other... and then quietly slip out the back.
Monday, Feb. 9th, 2004. I went in to work as usual, and sometime during the morning, my father left a message on my cellular. I didn't notice it until I left for lunch around 2. So I check, and he's telling me that the doc called him and told him mom's not doing well at all, and if she doesn't pull out of this, she's not going to last more than a couple of days. We had heard this once before when she was in ICU. She was basically comatose, not responding to anything, really... Last time, they believe it was caused by overmedication and medication interactions. They thought maybe that's what this was. At any rate, I turned around and headed straight for the hospital and sat with her for about an hour and a half. We worked out a plan for the remainder of the day. Kathy and Rob were both flying in that night (mom's brother and sister), and Heather (my sister, mom's oldest) would be arriving the next day. Our brother Buddy (2nd child) was on call. Dad figured he still had some time, and Buddy had a lot of important meetings over the next couple of days.
I felt compelled to play mom some worship music that evening, so before returning to work, I went home, burned a copy of Hope, and grabbed my cd player. I finished out the afternoon at work, picked Tate up, stopped at McDonald's and got him a double-cheeseburger, only ketchup and mustard, a value-size fry, and an apple juice and we headed off for the hospital. Dad took over from there, taking Tate with him to go pick up Kathy from the airport. Rachael (4th child---I'm the third if you haven't caught on by now) went off to an AA meeting, after which she was to pick up Rob from the airport.
As I sat with mom, I started playing her some music. She began to respond somewhat to the music and my talking. After a while she became mildly coherent and asked a couple of questions, almost as one does after a dream, expecting the other person to know what they are talking about. At any rate... she was halfway coherent for a few minutes, then went back to sleep. Dad called my cellphone somewhere in there and told me he'd be sending Kathy up with Ben (the 5th and youngest) when he got back. He was not going to come with them, but rather try to get some sleep. I was to let Ben stay for just a couple of minutes (he's pretty sensitive and this would shake him up considerably), and then bring him home and come pick up Tate and get myself to bed, because the next few days could be very long. Kathy and Rob were taking the late shift and staying with mom through the night.
After a while, a nurse came in and gave my mom her blood thinner shot, and then the respiratory therapist came in and gave her a breathing treatment. Around 8:45pm (I think) Mrs. Felsing called. She's a good friend of mom's, really great woman, a major help over the last 2 weeks. She called mom's room phone, right next to her bed, so I couldn't walk over to the window like I had been with other calls that came in to my cell. She's asking all sorts of questions, and I didn't really think about mom hearing, but I told Mrs. Felsing that dad wouldn't be coming back up tonight, blah blah... Mom heard me, and got really upset, woke up, started crying, saying she wants dad to come... I mean, she was REALLY upset. All of the sudden, she is violently coherent and she's begging me to get dad to come up and see her, saying things like "I want him here, I want to say goodbye, this could be my last chance, etc." I promised to call him and get him up there if she would promise to stop talking like that. So I called dad. He didn't think he should come, he sent Kathy and Ben, and then she had me call dad again, and she wanted to talk to him. She took my cellphone in her hand and talked on the phone to him. Later, Dad told me it literally knocked him into his chair... That she spoke so animatedly and everything, and that she was that awake. He hadn't seen her like that in days, she hadn't said a full sentence, and here she was on the phone with him, initiating conversation. Anyway... They said goodnight, and he promised to come up first thing in the morning. Mom stayed animated and coherent and all that for a good two hours or more before she wore out and went back to sleep. She talked a little with Ben and with Kathy, she did a lot of talking with me before they got there. Telling me to take care of Ben, asking me if I'd be able to sing at her service if she died... picking out the song she wanted me to do... making me promise that the kids (ginny beth and tate) wouldn't be there... telling me to live for God, always, no matter what... that I may be the only Jesus some people ever see. It wasn't all about what to do when she's gone... but that's what sticks out the most in my mind. We laughed and joked some... but she cried a lot... she was scared. Probably mostly for us, but I know she was scared... She told one of the nurses how great dad had been to her... through all this, and all the work he put in, dressing her wound and having to help her go to the bathroom and everything, he never got mad at her, he was always so wonderful to her, so gentle with her... it was very touching... and then she started asking me to sing to her... she was crying and begging me to sing anything... so i put on "sing with the angels" and i sang it over and over, and she kept telling everyone how wonderfully i sing for Jesus... but i didn't sound so good because i was crying...
i need to stop. i really need to stop for now. but i'm going to finish this. i'm sorry, you'll just have to bear with me, or quit reading, or whatever, i don't care. i'm going to do this, i need to. i'm sorry if it upsets or disturbs or aggravates anyone, but i have to do it. i'm stopping for the night, but i'll continue to record this and only this until it's done. for those of you that will bear with me through this, thank you...
-jack-
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She's Gone.
February 11th, 2004; 5:45pm EST.
I want to write how it happened, how she went. I just don't think I have the strength left right now... nor do I have the fortitude to make my hands type properly. Ask me how many times I've hit backspace so far in this short a time.
I want to record it, though. I want it all recorded here. Don't let me forget to do that soon.
-Jack-
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More Updates
Ok, now it's anywhere from the next moment up until about 4 weeks max. One minute she's good, the next she's not... I just don't have any idea. I'm going to go into work tomorrow. I just pray I can last all day, heh. She's resting peacefully right now, with the help of a frighteningly large dose of morphine.
I'm angry. I'm very, very angry. At the hospice people, that is. We were getting her set up to go into a nursing home with hospice care, to transfer her this evening. Then the hospice coordinator realizes that mom is "TPN" or being fed intravenously... she flips out, yells at the hospital social worker, and basically says noway, nohow. Apparently, hospice will under no circumstances care for anyone who is being fed intravenously. And would you like to know why? I'll quote her answer: "Well, our job is to usher her comfortably into death, and we feel that TPN is counterproductive to that." Oh... oh... oh really??? Yes, well, breathing is counterproductive then, isn't it?? So let's just smother her with a pillow and be done with it, what do you say?? Holy COW I'm cheesed off. To the point where I almost cussed her out. And I haven't cussed in a long time.
argh, gotta go, sorry, will write more later
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This Looks To Be It...
Thank you for your prayers... I can't tell you how much they mean. Please don't stop praying.
Just wanted to give an update. I came home around 2am to try and get a little sleep. I'm headed back up to the hospital now. She's listening to Hillsong's Hope. She keeps asking me to sing to her. She's telling her nurses how beautifully I sing to the Lord... but it's hard to sound good when you're crying. I think she knows she's dying... but right now she's still scared... she's worried about Ben (the youngest of us). He's only 15. She's responding best to me and my father. I left for a while to take Ben home last night, and she stopped breathing 5 or 6 times while I was gone. But when I got back, she perked up and actually ate some lime sherbet... heh. So I don't know. Once she stopped breathing a couple of times, the nurses told Cathy and Rob (mom's sister and brother, who stayed with her through the night) to call my dad, because she's going to go. They say it could take another day... but she could also be gone in 2 minutes. But one way or the other, she's going.
How do you grasp something like that? I'm just so scared... And I'm scared for her, because she's scared. I don't want her to go scared... I don't know what I'm "supposed" to pray for, so I'm just going to keep praying for a miracle.
-Jack-
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Very Bad News...
They say mom's probably not going to last more than a day or two...
-jack-
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Ooooooh Man....
So I commented here about being afraid of really loving this church and wanting to abandon my current church family for it....
Yeah...
So my fears were confirmed...
This church is AWESOME. It's just so real, so relevant, so open, so vulnerable... they're truly searching, yearning for more of God, wanting Him to fill their lives and be in everything. Ultimately, they're just like me... and I didn't even realize how much I wanted or needed that (which one, I'm not yet sure) until I stepped in and felt it. They hunger like I hunger... they thirst as I do... they're looking for real community, deep and personal relationships with one another...
I'm so incredibly conflicted... I don't know what to do... It's obvious that there are divisions in the relationships at my current church (as you can tell from some of my previous posts). It's like there's a rip down the center of the worship team relationship... ugh. Ok, I'm not going to get into it right now, my head needs to clear some first. Otherwise, in the afterglow of church this morning, I'll just convince myself that it's best for Common Ground if I leave. I need some perspective and some time with God so that He can tell me what He wants me to do, rather than me just deciding on my own.
But lemme tell ya: if you are anywhere near Central Florida, you seriously need to visit this church... I can't wait to go back. I just need to figure out when that will be, heh.
I love you guys.
-Jack-
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I Refuse...
... to recognize gay marriage.
It's an oxymoron. It's deplorable. It's dispicable. It shreds the fabric of global society. I fully support the proposed FMA (Family Marriage Act):
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
As much as we'd all like to ignore the issue of gay marriage and hope it goes away, this issue has truly become a real and total crisis. Nov. 18th, 2003: the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have the right to wed. By a 4-3 decision, the Court gave the state legislature six months to rewrite the state's marriage laws to include homosexual couples.
THIS HAPPENED, PEOPLE. Are you getting this?? UNELECTED judges just told us what we have to do. The people of America did not decide this. The people of Massachusetts didn't even decide this! The people who decided are judges, whom we did not choose to put in power. That right there is incredibly dangerous.
Let me give you a taste of what Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, has to say about what consequences are in store for us: "Marriage will be transformed into a variety of relationship contracts, linking two, three, or more individuals (however weakly or temporarily) in every conceivable combination of male and female... the bottom of this slope is visible from where we now stand."
Can you see it? I can. Jeff Jacoby writes: " The adoption of same-sex marriage would topple a longstanding system of shared values. It would change assumptions and expectations by which society has long operated -- that men and women are not interchangeable, for example, and that the central reason for marriage is to provide children with mothers and fathers in a safe and loving environment ...... My foreboding is that a generation after same-sex marriage is legalized, families will be even less stable than they are today, the divorce rate will be even higher, and children will be even less safe. To express such a dire warning is to be labeled an alarmist, a reactionary, a bigot, and worse ..... But it is not bigotry to try to learn from history, or to point out that some institutions have stood the test of time because they are the only ones that can stand the test of time."
Dr. Dobson's words of warning:
"If the God-ordained basis for the family does fail on a large scale, children will pay a terrible price. Social sciene confims that two parents of the same sex, however loving or nurturing they may be, cannot meet the unique needs of children in the same way that a mother and father can.
"The destruction of the traditional family will condemn millions of kids to temporary relationships, involving multiple "moms" or "dads", six or eight "grandparents," and perhaps a dozen or more half-siblings who will come and go as those who care for them meander from one sexual relationship to another.
"These children will be shuffled from pillar to post in an ever-changing pattern of living conditions. Parenthood itself will come to be defined as only an act performed by two or more androgynous being. "Mother" and "Father" will become meaningless words that will not define anything substantive about women and men. Any apparent differences between the sexes will be seen as merely superficial and of no practical consequence."
Scared yet? You should be. Don't let this happen. Pray without ceasing. If nothing else, this must be stopped for the sake of the children whose hearts and minds and souls are at stake. They NEED a family... A mom and a dad... Don't let this happen.
-Jack-
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the coolest website EVER
ever, Ever, EVER... in the HISTORY of all websites... holy COW, words cannot do it justice, it is the most mind-blowing website... and best of all, it's for a CHURCH. duuuuude... you have to see this. whoah.
I was probably going to be visiting this church this coming Sunday, because my church is going to be meeting at the Sanford Alliance next week... I don't really remember why. I'm scatterbrained like that. At any rate. So we weren't going to be leading worship. It was all very cool, because I was just thinking about how I need to take a week off sometime soon and go out and network with another church, get a new perspective, see what's going on, get some ideas, whatever... i just don't want to get tunnel vision, you know? So all of the sudden, Chuck (my pastor) tells me he seriously doubts we'll be leading worship next week (this place is waaaaaaaay traditional-sit-on-your-hands kinda place, and we'd just probably raise eyebrows)... how cool is that?? I thought it was very cool.
Yeah, then I come home on my lunch break to grab a fresh nicotine patch (yes, I'm still trying), and I noticed my machine was flashing. So I checked and it's Dave... and he's pushing to get us to lead worship over there next week and he'll call me back with more details as they become available. Ugh.
Ok, is that a bad attitude for me to have? I just really felt like God was opening things up and doing His thing, and providing a way to nourish me for one Sunday. Then Dave comes along in his usual, Out-of-tune-with-God way and starts bulldozing things. Sandford Alliance doesn't want us to lead worship, our pastor doesn't want us to lead worship, the team was actually excited about this break... and here comes Dave, pushing again.
I don't mean to sound overly harsh... I guess I'm just... well, not frustrated, but rather more like "oooooh great, here we go again... will he ever wake up to anything else around him?"
I dunno... I'm rambling. Again.
Sam and I were trying to find a way to tactfully wake him up to a few things... especially his "performance behavior despite the words of piety coming out of his mouth"... So we decided to gift him with a copy of Darlene Zschech's Extravagant Worship (I so HIGHLY recommend this book to EVERYONE--worship leader, team member, tech crew member, Joe Shmoe on the back row--it's not just for the worship team!). So I bring one to practice and offer it to him. His reply? "Oh, yeah, I've already got a copy. Bill gave me one when I first came. I've already read it. Good book, though. I can totally see you in that book, though, y'know? It really helped me to understand the kind of person you are, when she talked about creative people and stuff."
Oh... ok, great. Yeah... ugh. Ok, I'm through venting for now... (you hope.)
Remember Who you are dancing for. We all forget sometimes... I'm just as guilty as Dave, so please don't think I'm sitting here judging him from my little Pedestal of Perfection. Y'all know better than anyone that I'm a Screw-up. But sometimes it really eats at me when I have some kind of spiritual epiphany and the rest of the world doesn't share my enthusiasm. It really eats me the way Dave talks about God, and how He's moving and working and changing our hearts and blessing us... and then to see him, and the way he talks and reacts and ooooooooh the way he WHINES... He's oblivious to the needs of the congregation (that's a big peeve for me). It's all about how he sounds best and what cute little tricks he can do on the guitar. There's just no fruit. He's constantly telling all of us that we can come to him anytime with our problems or frustrations or whatever... he wants us to lean on him and seek his counsel. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go to him. I don't want what he has. I see him and think "I hope I don't ever sound like that." It's harsh, but it's the truth. I want to go to someone who I know has overcome, someone I can look up to. Dave's not even aware that he CAN overcome, let alone trying to do so. There's just no fruit...
Sam's wife Debbie put it best, when she said to me one night: "Y'know, Jack, when *he* leads, and when *he* prays, we feel nothing. There's nothing coming out of him, it's just words. Aren't we supposed to feel what he says? I don't mean he's supposed to stir us up in a frenzy all the time or anything... but you finish a song, and there's all this energy, and we're so in love with God, and so full of that love and you can just feel it... and then Dave closes with a prayer and it's like as soon as he opens his mouth, the switch is flipped, and it's gone, and you just feel empty..."
Ok, so I guess I wasn't done... let's hope I am this time.
Just remember...
-Jack-
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Feed on Jack
My site feed is officially operational. Have fun nibbling on all my chicken nuggets o' wisdom.
-Jack-
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