A Challenge To You

For all of you starting the year and thinking Whew!  I'm so glad that 2023 is OVER!!  I challenge you to take an hour and look back through your pictures.  I did this yesterday trying to gain some perspective on a year that had left me feeling numb.  I am so glad that I did!  

Entering last year after the passing of my Mother In-Law in November 2022, I wanted to try to focus on home, family and seeing friends (which still was stunted post Covid).  What I found was the year was full of wonderful things.  I started cooking again...A LOT.  We focused on rehabing and planting the kitchen garden, We had dinners with friends and a girls weekend.  B and I spent a weekend away for our 25th wedding anniversary. I surprised my mom and flew back to California for Mother's Day (in retrospect, the best decision that I made last year).  We visited Rhi in Asheville. We drove to New York to go to my cousins wedding.  And I dusted off my rusty blog and began to write again. Whew!  Not such a bad year!!  

Then August came and we went back to California for our regular summer vacation, however this time my mom was having a major, yet relatively routine surgery.  That spiralled over ten weeks into pneumonia, unforseen infections, an additional surgery, recovery, then a sudden code overnight, ventilator, my dad going into the hospital as well, successful extubation, mom starting to chat again full of humor, then a month after that sudden respiratory failure, and her passing 2 hours later. The breathtaking grief associated with this long road that was truly unexpected overshadowed the year.  I am forever thankful that I was able to be present for the time my mom was hospitalized to help her and my dad navigate the rediculousness of our medical system at work (that would be a whole other post to even scratch the surface)!

My dad came and spent the month of December split between us, in Wisconsin, and my brother's family in New Jersey, and we were able to take time together to process, remember and love one another.  I mentioned in my last post some of my mom's last words to me You Can't Be Afraid of Life.  I've realized what an important exercise it is to look back at things in their entirety. It allows you to remember all of the good in the shadow of the difficult. It teaches gratitude and not to take anything for granted.  Reflecting on this I am walking, with intention into 2024.  

You Can't Be Afraid of Life

 You can't be afraid of life.  Mom said this to me in one of the last conversations we had.   She passed away yesterday.  My mom and I have always been very close, but over the last eight weeks of medical trials and turbulations, we became closer yet, and left nothing unsaid.

 My mom was a fighter.  She fought MS for over four decades, and did so with incredible positivity, strength and endurance.  She was always looking for ways to laugh and find joy.  She surrounded herself with groups of friends whom she shared a wide variety of interests with and who she loved dearly. She was married to the love of her life, my father, for almost 56 years.  She was a role model for taking life by the horns and doing all you can regardless of its challenges.  She was not done yet, but sadly her body gave out long before her spirit.  It is that spirit that will live on in her family and those who knew and loved her.