by the way...

i didn't fail my jpr for january! i did, however, dig my self a deep hole for february right at the damned start. i forgot to "go out the door" when i went to nonphone to clean. if you don't go out the door your nonphone keeps going up and up and up. i was in nonphone for 1 freaking hour! they cannot (or will not because you are supposed to know better) fix it. so now my not ready time is over 8%. that means no cleaning (to get off the phone) and no undertime (to go home early without a penalty) until i get it down. that means not being in compliance. all of these things count on the jpr. at least my first QA was a 4, the highest you can get! i'll see what happens. it's not the end of the world. yet.

update 1

i had planned to report on mom's health earlier but other things, stuff, kept me from finding the time to do so. with that in mind i want to say that my mom did not seem to suffer at the end. she had been getting stronger, not better mind you, but stronger. she went from not being able to walk at all to walking with help, then on her own. she looked progressively better each day.

the last couple of weeks i was working everyday, we needed the money. i called her this past saturday and she sounded good and said she felt good and asked us to come see her. i called sunday. elaine, a friend of mom's, answered the phone. mom was resting and wasn't able to speak well anyway. she had gone to the emergency room saturday night. she felt like she was choking. the doctors checked her out and said everything looked great with the exception of her lungs: she had a bit of bronchitis. mom's friend, dona (which i now know is spelled with one 'n') was with her. dona told me the male nurse looked at mom's chart and said she had pneumonia, just a small spot on the lower lung. he told dona to keep mom up and walking as much as possible. so they went home.

mom's ability to talk was hindered because of the choking episode so that's why i couldn't talk to her sunday. that and she was groggy. i went to work, got off at midnight, went home and to bed.

there was a noise in the night. i was somewhere far away. the noise continued. why would it not stop? amy's voice suddenly cut through my sleep. "Stuart, your mother has just died". i was awake at once and called dona.

momma had been asleep in her recliner, her favorite place to sleep these days, breathing, not labouriously but with a rasp. dona fell asleep on the sofa. when dona woke up everything was quiet. she knew something was wrong. she got up, went to mom. "miss izzy, miss izzy!". momma was gone. just like that, asleep.

my mom was the sweetest person. she loved everyone, tolerated most. even when the tolerance was wearing off she neither raised her voice nor her hand. ok, her hand, to correct my behavior at times. but only on my rear end. and although i don't spank my children i am grateful to her for that. it taught me something: lessons i will never forget nor my sweet, patient mother.

my mom

my mother, Isabel Camp Lee, after steadfastly refusing to die when the doctors said to, passed away this morning at app. 4 am. I am now on my way to her house. i am sure she will be reborn in the realm of the gods. updates later as soon as i can.

update on things...

mom is resting fine. when not on lethargy-causing meds she is cognizant, alert and sharp as ever. her prognosis is 2-3 weeks left for this earth. haven't been able to probe her mind for memories because my brother joe won't shut up for longer than 5 seconds. some things will never change.

my lovely daughters, meira and eowyn (shown here wearing her own creative makeup), and i were out at the grocery store the other day. we were listening to some music and i was-and let me make this perfectly clear-intentionally singing badly. i asked eowyn if i was singing well. "no", she said, "but i still love ya"!. what a goofball. later that day the large, smelly, wet beast of a dog came inside. i told eowyn not to let him touch her as he bulldozed by, as she had just put on her pajamas. "ewww, he's filthy wet", opined ewoyn, "but he's still cute". jeez, where does she come up with this stuff?

















meira (shown here in typical meira pose after a long ride in the car), bless her, is learning so much from eowyn...like painting on herself. and i now sometimes have to explain myself to a 19 month old. i don't know if this is from eowyn or her own little intelligent brain, but here lately she asks "why?". i say, "meira, let's change your diaper". "why?", she asks. "because you need to". "noooooo!", she wails and runs off. "mint?", she asks. "no mints right now sweetie", i say. "why?". why indeed.

such is life around here right now. bittersweet. one light dimming, two lights burning bright.

thank you all...

...and i mean it. the outpouring of support is tremendous from all sides. especially you guys. thanks again.

i saw mom today, spent a good deal of the day with her. donna was there, in and out, cleaning the house, responding to my mother when she needed something. joe is coming either saturday or sunday...it depends on which day he can get on a flight...nonrev travel has its perks but also its headaches.

as for my mom...she is her old self albeit tired and weak right now. she's getting, no, she is suspicious. she keeps asking why everyone is there: i show up on a day i usually work, emily comes down from atlanta, joe is coming up from st. simon's...its hard knowing something this big, this important, this personal and not know if you should tell the person. especially when the person is your mom. when joe arrives i'm gonna talk with him and i suppose we'll make a decision. well, we will make a decision. good grief, this is difficult. i should be able to just say "hey, the doctor told you a year but he told us 2-8 weeks". i think she should know, but i ain't the only son here. we'll see.

she told me she feels like she's on her "last leg". i simply told her "maybe you are, maybe you're not, noone knows for certain. but i'll tell you one thing: no matter what happens, you are the best mother anyone could ever have". and it's true. she got me through childhood, a good part of it by herself, and imparted more of herself to me than i ever thought i had. like stubbornness. i come by it naturally. and perseverance. and a lot of other stuff. the belief in god, jesus and church didn't stick and neither did her almost complete lack of technological savvy, thank goodness!

back in the first days of vcr's i once phoned her from a gig and asked her to put a tape in the machine, to record a show i shall not mention, and i talked her through the whole process. she did everything correctly except for one very important thing. i got home and there was the cassette sticking out. she put it in just not all the way in. oh well. i suppose i probably have done some things that would stick out in her mind, too. over the next few days, weeks, hopefully months, maybe years, i'll probe her mind for such. maybe i'll post them here. on second thought, maybe not.

new year, new complications

my mom went in the hospital on monday and was discharged on wednesday. her heart doctor, dr. olubi, said she can't live by herself anymore and needed to go into a nursing home. hell's bell's, a nursing home ain't for the likes of my mom! she's still able to get around and stays as active as she can. i know that nursing homes can and do help some people but my brother joe and i agreed that it would probably be the beginning of the end.

my mom's friend, donna, said she would be glad to check on her everyday but dr. olubi said no, donna wasn't qualified. i don't know what donna said to dr. olubi or what transpired but by the end of the conversation between the two but dr. olubi said that maybe donna could be trained in some rudimentary nursing skills and report to a qualified professional. wow.

i don't know where donna came from, really. she just showed up in my mom's life and they have become best friends. donna takes mom to appointments and checks in on her everyday. donna is a rare individual.

amy and i went over to the hospital on wednesday and talked to my mom, the case worker from social services, stephanie, and a home hospice care rep that stephanie recommended. donna was there, she spent the night with my mom at the hospital...every night! stephanie, it turns out, recognized me from somewhere. we figured out it was from when i worked at newnan music. stephanie's husband, robi, had had a brain tumor-the same kind that steve sewell, our piano instructor at the store, also had. she came and talked to some of us there at the store about getting steve hooked up for a benefit with the robi run, a foundation started in her husband's name. she wasn't supposed to tell us what hospice agency to go with but we asked her opinion and she gave it. so crystal, um fuller, i think, came by to see us.

mom has copd, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. subsequently, the right side of her heart is having to push hard against the fluid in her lungs which makes the right side weak. the left side, however, is fine and dandy. for this reason, the fine and dandy, home hospice wouldn't be an option. since she has the copd and is on oxygen and a nebulizer, etc., she was a candidate.

well, things seemed to be going ok. then the bad news: one of her lung doctors, dr. candiswami (the other is dr. patel) came to see mom in the hospital after amy and i left. mom asked him how long she has to live. he said about a year. when he left, donna went out in the hallway and asked him how long he really thought she has...the bomb dropped here: about 2, maybe 4 weeks. jesus. i don't even believe in jesus, but, jesus.

donna called joe, then she called amy, then joe called amy then amy told me when i got home from work. what the plan is now i don't know. i told them at work what is happening. i'm going to try to get fmla leave and spend time with mom. joe is coming up from st. simon's as soon as he can. i don't even know if the doctor really knows the real prognosis. everything is so goddamned up in the air. i new this day would come but it knowing doesn't cause any of this to be easy. i just want mom to be pain free, worry free....just free. and if death is freedom...let it come, but with mercy and compassion. who knows, she may live longer. she may not. there is a lesson here. i intend to learn it.

ahh...the holidaze

well, christmas is upon us once again. i've finished what shopping i can do and hope there's nothing i forgot. this holiday season finds us, um, in a weird place. first meira was sick with the berry thing, then i got sick for a couple of days. i got home saturday night and felt fine. i ate some crackers and cheese and went to bed. an hour later i was up, hurting. i continued to hurt for the rest of the night and through the next day. i hurt at work.

i fortunately have quite a bit of flex time so i took 4 hours of flex and went home early (you cannot miss a day without an occurance...7 occurances and you are shown the door...you can't use more than 4 hrs of flextime without being issued an occurance....i have 5 occurances this year because of sickness....i can't get another for i'm up for promotion and if i have a 6th occurance i'll have to wait until another opening comes up in that department again...stupid rules).

i went to bed early. got up at 6am to take my mother-in-law to the airport. she is flying out to wichita to meet up with her brother, john. they are going to be with their sister, jane, whose husband, stan, just died of cancer.

i decided to start taking my medicine again. all this year i have had intermittent bouts of indigestion...bad indigestion. the kind that at first made me think i was having a heart attack. this went on for 6 months before i went to the doctor. he gave me reglan and prilosec. i took them a couple of times but i hate taking medicine. i just don't want that crap running around in my system. so i altered what i eat and when i eat. things were going great. until saturday night. so monday morning i took the medicine. after dropping june off (yes...june, john, jane are the siblings...there was another brother gene-hey! no 'j'!-but he died a couple of years ago) at the airport, the family and i went to the flying buiscuit in little five points to eat breakfast. i ate with reluctance and waited for the inevitable. it didn't come. so maybe the medicine does help.

today i called my mom while i was out shopping. she had been to the doctor, she said, about her lungs. we talked a while and then we hung up. i then got a call that wasn't a number i recognized so i ignored it. when i got home amy said that "gloria" had called and said my mother may have congestive heart failure. great. i had to hear it from someone else. my own mother won't burden me with her problems. serious ones. what has the world come to.

she'll probably have to be hospitalized. we had planned on getting together with her, my brother and his wife, my niece and her husband, and who knows who else, the day after christmas. looks like we'll be spending christmas at the hospital. who scripts this stuff for this time of year anyhow?

i'll not let it get me down though. all things being impermanent means that we're not stuck this way. but mom is old. she's tough, but old...86. hope she can pull through this one. time to meditate on it.