Tending to Mom

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Email:  Sue@PrintsPublishing.com

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All seven of us kids were home together in Marshall to see Mom and Dad for some days at the beginning of March.  It was Dad’s 93rd birthday on Monday, March 5th, and Mom had taken a turn for the worse so we congregated with all kinds of thoughts.  I always try to get a picture of Mom and us three girls — Barb, Nancy, Susan.  Thank you, Allan.

Mom was moved across the street from their apartment at Boulder Estates in Marshall to an apartment for more care at Boulder Creek.  It’s a large room and it accommodated all of us as we dropped in and out for some days.

My youngest brothers Paul and Matt and their wives Sharon and Suzanne are very good to Mom.  Paul and Sharon live in Marshall.  Matt and Suzanne flew in from Dallas, Texas, for several days.

My brother Louie lives very close to Marshall and everyone took turns to help feed Mom.  Dad sat in Mom’s wheelchair.

Mom was so tired and most likely recuperating from pneumonia.  The antibiotic would come to help her get stronger.  It’s particularly difficult since Mom had open heart surgery about 10 years ago and she’s now 91 years old.

Suzanne gently rubbed lotion on Mom’s dry skin, that suffered discoloration due to the IV’s from a recent emergency visit to the hospital in Marshall.  Mom made that rabbit quilt in the background.  It also hung on a wall at their Texas home.

Suzanne is like one of Mom’s daughters.  She and Sharon graduated from Minneota High School, like all the rest of us.

My little sister Nancy works in Marshall and has always visited Mom and Dad a lot.

Paulie, the youngest of us seven kids, does the best with Mom.  Mom will eat for Paul and take her pills for Paul better than anybody else.  The baby of the family is certainly very special.

Barb is also very good with Mom and for Mom.  Having worked in the field of medicine as a Registered X-Ray Technologist in metropolitan hospitals and clinics for nearly 50 years, Barb knows the lingo and the language of doctors and nurses and others in the medical field.

Suzanne tended to Mom’s dry lips with chapstick or Vaseline type lotion.

My brother Bernie, who has a large family of his own, and his wife Margene also come to visit often.  They live on a farm less than ten miles from Marshall. 

We were all seven of us worried about Mom.  I also helped to feed Mom one meal and I combed her hair the way she likes it, after the nurses helped with her shower.  Mom said to me, “I’m so tired.”  When she struggled to swallow her pills, she said, “I’m trying.”  I’ve told Nancy and my daughter Jenny that the inside of Mom is as weak as the outside.

Mom has been sleeping in a recliner chair for some time, since her open heart surgery at Mayo in Rochester, MN in 2012.

Dad asked that Father Paul Wolf, priest at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Marshall, give Mom the Last Rites and he came special.  Mom received the Final Sacrament of the Last Rites with Dad and all of us seven kids in the room.  

After the anointing sacrament, there was a moment of levity — a gratefulness for every moment we get to have together.

That same day, Monday, March 5th, was Dad’s 93rd birthday and we had a birthday cake for him.  It says “Happy Birthday, Joe” instead of “Happy Birthday, Dad” because Allan took care of that purchase and that’s what he calls my dad, “Joe.”

We all love our Mama and Papa.

Matt and Paul and Dad encouraged Mom to eat.

As he does every evening, Dad pulled up a chair next to Mom and said the Rosary.  All seven of us kids were in the room to hear Dad lead the Rosary while we were there.  Dad knows all the mysteries of the Rosary by heart — the Joyful, the Luminous, the Sorrowful, the Glorious.  Dad told me that when he and Mom were first married, Mom always knelt by their bed to say her prayers.  Our whole family often said the Rosary together when we were little.

Before we left Mom’s room that evening, after the Rosary, Dad leaned down to kiss Moms and he said, “I love you.”  They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last year on May 20th, 2017 .

Mom closed her eyes and seemed to be intuitively aware that something important was going on.  My good dear mother is strong headed and strong willed and, at the same time, humble and meek.  Blessed are the meek.