Posted on by lgandre

Remembering Mom

As my plane descended into Manchester, a sick feeling settled into my stomach.  So many times I had arrived at this airport to be greeted by my smiling Mom and Dad.  Not today.

In fact, I felt a heaviness knowing that she would never be there to greet me again.  

Mom was diagnosed with congestive heart failure several years before this.  She did everything she could to take care of herself—eating, drinking, and exercising just like they told her.  But most of all, she just kept going.  She kept doing.  

While there were some medications, procedures, and just overall bumps along the road; for the most part, she did much better than expected.  And even though her heart function has been hovering at 12-15% for some time, she lived a surprisingly normal life.  Loving, serving, and giving of herself.  What her heart lacked in health and strength in made up for in grit and bravery.  Less than a year before this arrival in Manchester, she had kayaked 17 miles down the Delaware River.  She was nearly 72. 

As painful as those final days with Mom were, I choose to write about them now because I want to remember. Even in the hardness, there was a sweetness that popped up along the way like the heads of bright wildflowers beside a lonely dirt road that leads to a place you don’t want to go. 

It’s hard to say exactly when the “final days” began.  She was hospitalized Thanksgiving of the prior year (2022) and again shortly after Christmas.  But for me, it was a little harder to know for sure what was really going on since I usually get cheery, upbeat telephone reports insisting she was fine.

I purchased a plane ticket for her to come and visit us in South Carolina for Mother’s Day (2023).  Unfortunately, she would not be able to make that trip.  She was in the hospital—one of a series of long hospital stays.  A quick google search of her symptoms and reports told me what I hoped was not true—she was in stage four heart failure.

When I came up with the girls to visit Mom and Dad at the end of May, she was back in the hospital. There were still a scattering of Christmas decorations around the house. It was plain she hadn’t been feeling well for some time.  

The girls and I got to see her a few times in the hospital during that week.  Dad was holding on to hope that she would bounce back and be able to enjoy plans that they had made for the summer.  In fact, they were so determined,  that after she was released in early June, Mom and Dad drove down to South Carolina for a wedding.

Shortly upon arrival, she was having trouble with nausea and ended up getting admitted to the hospital June 13 for her final hospital stay.  Since she was in Greenville, South Carolina, I was able to see her for eight of the ten days that she was there.  My siblings made long trips to see her and, of course, Dad stayed with her for the long, long days. Paul stayed all night with her.  Erin’s daughter played harp for her in the hospital.  Allyson brought her “Gladly” the cross-eyed bear.  Still, we were never able to all get together as a family—something that grieved Dad and I deeply.  

After the initial admission, the hospital doctors seemed to be giving good news.  Her organs were stable.  They expected her to get better.  One of the nurses even told me that she thought Mom’s main problem was anxiety and perhaps that why she wasn’t able to eat without vomiting.

I appreciated the good news, but I knew Mom’s problem was not anxiety.  Mom knew her problem was not anxiety.  She had fought all she could fight and her body was shutting down.  Understandably, Dad wasn’t ready to give up and when they moved her from ICU to the cardio wing, it seemed like perhaps there was progress.  Mom and Dad were anxious to get back to New Hampshire and we talked about ways she could make the trip.

Still, Mom was not able to eat without nausea.  The numerous meds they tried seemed to make no difference.  Her system just would not process food of any kind; sometimes she could not keep a drink down; no matter how small the sip.  They gave her an IV—messing with the delicate balance between her fluids and her heart.  Finally, the labs began to tell the story that my mom had been telling through her weakness: her system was shutting down.  She was not going to get better.

I’m thankful my brother was there when they delivered the news.  Erin and I weren’t far away.  Mom was weak and by this time; unable to stand.  They were ready to discharge her from the hospital and home was a thousand miles away.

There are moments from that day that were horrible.  A few that were strangely sweet. Lots of “I love yous.”  Lots of tears. A few goodbyes that Mom wanted to say over FaceTime and phone.

Mom seemed somehow relieved that someone had given her permission to stop fighting—even if it was an arrogant doctor with the heart of a grinch and the soul of a Scrooge.  She was ready to pull all the plugs, cords, and wires, and go home.  Home to New Hampshire.  Home to heaven.

The five of us tried to work on a plan of what to do next.  There were so many details —big and small—to work out over the next 24 hours.  Curtis helped us find an airplane, a pilot, and a plan.  We spoke with palliative care, hospice South Carolina, case management, and hospice New Hampshire.  We worked to find rides for Mom to and from the airport.  She was now not able to even sit in a wheelchair or do any functions herself.  

As I watched the team arrive with a gurney and wheel her out, all I could think of to say was, “we’re blowing this joint!”  Looking back, it seems I was so heartless, but I was just numb.  

Mom lived one more week at home, if you could call the last week “living.”  She slowly slipped away from us and to Jesus.  

To my mom, the last six days were too long. The last six weeks, longer still.  The last six months, an eternity.  She didn’t like being waited on.  She didn’t enjoy feeling her body giving up—function by function.  She didn’t want to feel like she was unable to be useful to anyone—that all should could do was require energy from other people.

But God knew we needed every day He gave her.  He knew we needed some time to show her we love her; to listen to her last words of wisdom; and to process the inevitable. 

She told me she loved me. She told me she felt no pain. She believed I would get married and my girls would have a wonderful dad.  I’ll treasure those words forever. 

But, even as I reflect on the sweet memories of that last stay with Mom, the weak woman in the bed is not the one I remember. There was so much more. 

So, even as I want to remember those days, there is a long list of things she taught me that I want to remember more:

  • Read the Bible
  • Work hard
  • Give till it hurts
  • You have two good legs
  • How not to make money
  • Life’s not fair
  • Invest in your kids
  • The bacon is done when the smoke alarm goes off
  • Speak to authority with respect
  • Finish your food and carry your plate
  • You don’t need a TV

So much I could say about these things and the love and the spankings that made them stick.   But alas, life hasn’t given me time to do them justice.  Yet. 

Dad is engaged now to be married to my aunt Penny in a few months.   I’m very happy for him.  He needs a wife and Penny will be amazing.  I’m sure there’s plenty I can learn from her as well. Loving my mom doesn’t mean he can’t love someone else.  

But it also doesn’t mean we can’t look back with full hearts on Mother’s Day and be thankful for the beautiful woman I got to call “Mom.”  And for the wildflowers peeking their vibrant heads along the edges of a road that led somewhere I didn’t want to go. 

Posted on by lgandre · 1 Comment

It’s Been a Wonderful Life

She never seemed scared. Never seemed angry at death. If anything, she got impatient for it at times; she did not enjoy being a burden. But the overwhelming emotion she communicated was peace. Years of dealing with congestive heart failure had worn her out. She knew her time had come and she was ready to go home. 

Some time, I would like to talk about the many virtues of my mom; but today, I can’t. (You can check out this post…and perhaps more to come). Today, I just want to put down a marker as a reminder of sweet moments that came near the end of Mom’s journey home. I’m realizing that many moments that I thought I’d never forget I’ve already forgotten.  (But then, my brain is foggy from the events and sleep deprivation of the last few weeks…so there’s that.)

There were sweet moments with my Dad, my brother, and my sisters as we talked together, cried together, and worked together to figure out each next step as hospital stays unfolded into a terminal diagnosis.  None of us knew what we were doing.  Each of us gave what we had. I guess God knew we’d make a pretty good team. 

There were sweet moments with my mom. Even with all of the days we had—there was not enough time to talk about everything I would have liked to have said. But she knew I loved her and I knew she loved me. The things she said in those final days meant so much. 

There were sweet moments with grandkids as they said they’re hellos and goodbyes. They sang to her, read to her, played harp, piano, violin, and even trumpet for her. She had all the music she could stand. The last night, she was unresponsive but we still gathered by her bed and sang “Trust and Obey;” our family song.  She was such a good grandma. She loved her grandkids…near and far.

There were sweet moments as I felt the body of Christ surrounding us. So many kind folks texted their words of sympathy, affirmation, and support. It meant a lot to mean as I was out of church several weeks traveling to and from Greenville and then New Hampshire. 

There were sweet moments as we felt God’s presence through all the things—little and big. Being able to see family.  Being able to bring her home. Having kind friends volunteer their resources to fly her home from Greenville, SC. Being able to meet little needs along the way. 

There were sweet moments as Mom’s her body and mind were slipping that she would burst into song—sometimes mid sentence or completely out of the blue. She seemed so happy. 

There was a sweet moment as I lay in bed listening to my mom’s weak voice and my dad’s broken one singing, “God is so good. God is so good…”

There were a few funny moments as she began to ask for things…my not-at-all fussy mom became quite the water connoisseur—wanting only certain cold water from glass bottles. How we worked to try to find good water! I’ll never forget the smile on her face when she said, “now that’s the water I’ve been waiting for!”  “This is wonderful!”

Mom appreciated every picture that was drawn, every gift she was given, and flowers that came. She usually responded with a slurred but happy, “Wow!”  But her most common word was “Wonderful!”  I wish I counted the number of times I heard her say that over the past week or two. 

Dad started writing down some of the things she said toward the end. One of the very last things was, “it’s been a wonderful life!”  

I’m so thankful for the three years she was Grandma to my girls—what a good grandma she was.  Wonderful, in fact. 

We had many lasts over the past few weeks…and today, she had one grand first. Many goodbyes…and this morning, one huge, celebratory hello. Many tears…and now she’s in a place of rejoicing. And we are thankful.

I would bet the first thing she said upon entering heaven—“this is wonderful!”

Thank you, Aunt Penny…for letting us treat your house like a boarding house for a week. Thank you, Aunt Kay, for making shrimp scampi that you knew she’d never eat. Thank you, Allyson, for bringing Gladly to hang out with us. Thank you, Paul, for making the trip to SC with a pregnant wife, sick kids, and power out at your house. Thank you, Curtis, for helping us get my mom home. Thank you, Kevin, for driving home Dad’s car. Thank you, Sharon, for getting the piano tuned. Wow. You are wonderful.
Posted on by lgandre · 3 Comments

Last Day of School

I remember my high school graduation. The song my senior class sang. The note I tried to hit and didn’t quite make. The hat I threw that almost knocked me unconscious on the way back down. The speech I gave…last because I’m a “W.” Which also meant I was at the front of my recessional. Unfortunately, no one followed me off the stage and I ended up marching down a very long aisle by myself. I tried to smile enough to make it look like I did the right thing and it was the rest of the class marching down the wrong aisle on the other side of the auditorium.

I knew that night that school wasn’t really over for me. I was already studying so I could earn another paper certificate that said I knew something. Four more years to go. But I was ready for the next challenge because if I had learned nothing else over the prior twelve years, it was what hard work looked like.

Because I was born lazy. Really lazy.

I didn’t like chores. I didn’t like school. I didn’t like to work. Or anything that looked, smelled, or sounded like work.

I didn’t like to exercise. I didn’t like to do math. I didn’t like to clean my room or even make my bed.

So God gave me two very critical character building influences in my life that really boil down into one: Homeschool. And my mother.

And that’s what this story is really about.

My mother was a stay at home mom as long as we were home. But she worked. Yes, goodness knows, she worked.All 1982

My mom raised kids, taught us school, ran an Awana club, ran a homeschool group, cooked, cleaned, paid bills, and taught us and a lot of other girls so many other things…sewing, painting, decorating, driving, and so much more.

I must have made her a little bit crazy because I was not a fan of work. I didn’t like to sweat. I didn’t see any point in doing the same type of math problems day after day, page after page. I didn’t really think I needed to know what happened on this planet 5,000 years ago or even 500 years ago. I didn’t see any point in running around an empty track. And I hated, hated, hated practicing piano.

If I got a lecture about racing through assignments, cutting corners, and being sloppy, I got 1,000. How I hated that lecture.

And I was only one of five kids.

So…here’s the thing: Day after day, my mom trained me and my siblings. She taught us to study, to do chores, to practice music, to memorize Scripture. She taught us to work. Yes, goodness knows, she taught us to work.

After years of persistence by my mother, I made it to graduation. But she had two more kids to go. Five more years of homeschool.

Two more kids who didn’t like doing the same math problems day after day, page after page. Who didn’t really think they needed to know what happened on this planet 5,000 years ago and who hated, hated, hated practicing piano.

When my brother—the youngest—graduated, Mom had been a mother for 26 years and had been homeschooling about 23. She deserved a break.

So here’s the other thing: After all that, my mom went to work.

She started teaching kindergarten, but she didn’t stay with the half day of letters and sounds long. She was turned into a high school science teacher. Physical Science. Biology. Physics. Microbiology. Life Science. Chemistry. Biochemistry. It varied from year to year, curriculum to curriculum. Just when she got something down, it would change.

Over the next twelve years, my mom worked as hard as the US President. She studied. She taught. She wrote tests. She designed PowerPoints. She helped kids prepare science projects and hosted science fairs. She drove back and forth to school on her days off to turn eggs in incubators. She took pictures of birds and flowers that she could use for future presentations. She built robots. She cleaned up roadkill so she could use animal skeletons for future classes. Yep, true story.

Now things were different. She wasn’t the principal. She wasn’t the parent. But some things were the same: she was generally dealing with lazy students who didn’t give a rip about the pictures of flowers and birds.

So, it was a good thing that she is a hard worker. It was years of long days, short nights, and super short summers. Years of commitment. Years of pouring her energy into lazy kids who didn’t want to learn science…and a few who did.

She got paid. But let’s just say, she didn’t do it for the paycheck. That would have been insanity. Okay, it was insanity.

But that’s my mom. Did I mention she is a hard worker? Insanely hard.

And after years of teaching and training, she has made an impact. If on no one else, on me. I no longer think it’s futile to do pages of math problems or study history of the world or practice music. I no longer race through projects and cut corners. Some of that comes from time and maturity, but most of that maturity came from godly influences. Like my mom.

This week marks my mom’s last “last day” of school. She is retiring from her job as a full time teacher. I couldn’t be more excited for her. Or more proud. She has invested so much more than science in so many lives. They may not all appreciate it now, but they have all learned something.

And I know this: if they passed one of her classes, they worked hard. It was far more than robots, hatching eggs, and handling animal skeletons. It was hard work.

Pages of problem solving.

No racing through projects; no cutting corners.

And today, I’m as proud of my mom on her last day as she possibly could have been of me on mine.

Thanks, Mom. Job well done. Now, enjoy a long, long summer!