Happy Birthday?

After an emotionally exhausting day Tuesday, I thought I would for sure be able to let go and sleep that night....and I did, till about 12:30 am. ahhhhhhhhhhhh

I rolled over and without thinking turned on mom's monitor. Her room was empty. The people from the medical supply place had come and picked up her bed and wheel chair Tuesday afternoon.

This is what was left in her room..

Missing her....
I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so I got up and started looking for a nice picture of mum for the obituary. Spent the rest of the night looking through pictures and reading through old blogs about the past four months. Having her here has been a blessing I wouldn't trade for anything.

All my sisters were planning to meet at moms house yesterday morning to finish the funeral plans. I picked up Teina and Brenda on my way and Leslie was waiting for us when we got there.

Moms yard was looking bad. The deer have made their selves at home there and have eaten all shrubs and spring flowers in the rock garden. Trees have broken off from the snow and there were branches everywhere. Tried to not look at it and think about the overwhelming task that is ahead of us.

We found a bunch more pictures upstairs in her drawer. I also found the letter I had sent her three years ago for mothers day. I had been asked to talk in Camille's church about Camille being a mother, and just mothers in general. I had ended up writing about all the things I had learned from my own mother. Anyway, I had changed it a little and had sent it to mum for mothers day...she had told me she liked it, so I think I will use that for my talk for her funeral.

I still can't believe I said I would talk when we were planning the speakers. I dislike with my whole being speaking in front of others. But when we started throwing around ideas, the words just came out of my mouth..."I have this talk I gave a few years ago..." and it was done. I thought, well I won't be able to find it at mom's house so I won't have to do it...lots of other people we could use! But when we opened the drawer upstairs, there it was, right on top.

So I am going to try...trial run didn't go so well as my sisters wanted to hear it...tender thoughts of mom brought all the memories and tears flowing again.

We met with the people from Allen-Hall Mortuary at 1:00. Vaguely remember this guy from high school years... man we're old! He is a gray haired mortician! But then I am a wrinkly old lady too! HA! He was very nice though and helped us through all the things we needed to do. Mum and daddy had already picked a pre-paid plan, so that simplified things a lot. We just had to choose a casket, a program, and a dress. We had a hard time with the dress, they were all beautiful, but only one seemed like mum. We are hoping the neck will be high enough on it. She was always so worried about her moles showing.... I don't know what she was even worrying about...even at the age of 91, she was truly a beautiful woman. Sometimes, when I would watch her sleeping, I would think..., 'I hope I can look half as lovely at her age'.

We really struggled with the flowers. He had several books to look through, but nothing seemed right. After looking and looking, we decided to take the book home, and make a decision later. We are four of the worst deciders in the world...and by this time (going on day 4 with very minimal sleep) I know my brain was about fried. I would keep going into a daze or just completely miss things that were going on around me.

When we were driving down the street, we saw The Flower Shoppe right there on the corner. It is a cute little ( when I say little, I mean really small! Barely room to turn around.)

A sweet girl helped us right away. She showed us bunches of flowers she had in the back room and put together so we could get some ideas. Brought back great memories of helping people with funeral and wedding flowers when I worked at City Side Floral. ( That was pretty much the best job ever!)

Well within a few minutes, we had picked out the casket spray, a standing easel, and a pretty arrangement for the grand kids to give her. We had seen some flowers at the funeral home that the flower shoppe had done and they were amazing, so we felt really good about having them do them. We were telling the girl helping us about mom and how much she loved beautiful flowers and the girl assured us they would make them extra special.

By this time, the day was about over....I had asked Keelee if she could fit me in somewhere before next Monday to get my hair done, and she had said I could come at 5:00 Wednesday. Well, it was already4:00, so I canceled.

We still wanted to go by Jolene's house to let her and Shawn know about mom. She is still in the same house that her and Bruce lived in 40 years ago. Seeing that house stirred some memories of babysitting Shawn when he was a baby over there. I was only 12 when Bruce was killed, and I don't think I have seen Shawn (except in pictures) since then.

No one answered the door, so I hope she will see mom's obituary in the paper.

We finished up things at mom's house and got on our way home.

When I walked in the house I was really touched by the sweet remembrances that had been delivered to our home from neighbors and friends. We are so lucky to be surrounded by such loving, caring people.

Kelley was sitting downstairs looking kind of green. He had had a bad headache in the night and even after taking a hand full of aspirin and one of his dad's super pills, he woke up with it too. I felt so bad for him...Sick on your birthday!

Well it was obvious that he didn't feel any better, but insisted that we go ahead with our plans. Candice was meeting us over at the mall where we were going to shop for dresses for Candice and I and then go out to dinner. We looked around a while, then Candice found a cute dress. I really didn't want to shop with him in this condition.

We went over to the California Pizza Kitchen and were eating when Kelley got a call. He went out to answer and looked like he was going to puke when he came back in. Come to find out , the people he had asked to speak in church this Sunday had bailed. Oh man.

Kelley puts a lot of thought into the speakers he calls and lets them know way ahead of time. He would rather do it himself ( almost) than call someone at the last minute. So now he had to think about that too.

Bishop came over and we visited awhile. He is such a good, kind man.

Megan came over and brought some cute cactus plants for us. She is such a doll.

Kelley opened his presents, but I could tell he was really feeling crappy. I felt bad that his birthday had been so dumb. He had told me that morning before I left to not worry about hurrying home to be with him for his birthday...he said he will have lots of birthdays...this is the last time I can take care of my mom. He is a pretty wonderful husband...I'm sure lucky to have him. Hopefully we will have a better celebration when the kids get here.

Happy Birthday Kelley! I Love you!