Mom has many blessings to be thankful for, which is probably why she wants the hymn “Count your blessings” to be sung at her service when she passes. Mom got another one yesterday in the form of good news from the radiology oncologist. The single lesion she had on her brain responded well to treatment and has decreased in size significantly. This is added to the good new last week that her liver tumors have shrunk as well. Yes mom has many things to be thankful for!
Jodi and Andrew left early this morning. May their drives home be easy and safe. The house is going to get awfully quiet now. I hope mom will continue to do well now that some of the dust is settling and she will have more time to be all up in her head. We wont be able to make it to the gym this morning because she has an appointment, but next week is looking pretty open so you can be sure I will get her to the gym.
We still have not reached out to everyone that we need to regarding what has happened to dad. Mom has a list of people that she wants to give the news herself. Just not sure when she is going to be up to that task. In time we will get to everyone though. Many people have been asking about services for dad. While dad did not want any formal service, he thought it would be okay if we had a ‘party’ at the house. So we are going to do a casual celebration of life gathering at the house. It will be an open house type deal. Come and go as you please. Have some food, chat, laugh, cry, or whatever. We do not have a date set for this yet. Dad is being cremated and we are waiting for his ashes so that dad can be at the party as well. I will send out information about the open house when we set a date, but I can assure you it will be after Easter and probably in early May. It will be on a weekend.
I continue to learn things each day through this process. I continue to make mistakes as well. Fortunately no one expects me to be perfect so that eases the burden a bit 🙂 One of the things I have learned during this trial is that while the immediate family of a loved one who just passed would like to have alone time, they (we) must also recognize that there are a great many people who have been touched by our loved one. They are also grieving the loss and we need to be open enough to share that with them. It might be difficult at times to do, but it is the right thing to do. So we are trying our best not to shut people out. I had asked for people to hold off on phone calls to mom, but I think she will be needed to hear from people in the coming days. So go ahead and call her if you feel that you can or would like to do so.
Last night I took time out for me and went out to dinner with a couple close friends. I had such a good time. We ate good food, had some tasty drinks and talked for a couple of hours about all sort of stuff. Thank you Shawne, Shelly and Ron for that awesome night out and thank you for the 25+ years of friendship!
Well I think that sums up the day. We shall see what fun stuff tomorrow brings!