Preparing For The Call

It's been a little while since I posted.  I've been so busy helping my son with homeschooling, working on my shop, and now I'm doing P90X and counting calories for the first time.  It's all very time consuming.  I've been thinking about what I should write here.  I could write about my son's first major school project (writing about and creating a scale model of his imaginary country), my incredible shopping excursions at WalMart and Jo-Anns and the awesome deals I found (like McCall's patterns for $.99, or saving $126 on sale items, or planning on adding new items to my line-up), or I could write about my journey with the 90 day workout.

But, no.  This one is as personal as a blog could get.  So, let me set the scene a bit.  I am the product of a teen-age romance.  My mother, after raising me for one year, decided it was too much for her to handle, and planned on giving me up for adoption.  However at this point I was already a member of the family, and so my grandmother, who had raised five of her own children, chose to take on the responsibility of one more.  Of course, I never knew any of this until I was older.  To me she'll always be my mother.

As a child growing up I feel confident in saying that I had a great mom.  She stayed home with me until I was old enough to go to school.  Almost every meal was home-cooked, with meat, potato, vegetable and desert.  She was always sewing some kind os smocked dress for me or driving me to dancing lessons or teaching Sunday School or being a Girl Scout leader.  When I went to nursery school she became a part-time assistant for the teacher.  She ended up working with small children well into her retirement, becoming a Foster Grandmother and only stopped working last year, at the age of 90.  And throughout her entire life, she has rescued and cared for countless cat, dogs, and small critters.  I wouldn't go so far as to say she's a saint, but to say that she is selfless is absolutely accurate.

She's the one I go to first for advice, whether it's cooking or sewing, and the one I call first with news, both good and bad.  She's the glue that holds our family together.

But with each passing day,  I know there will come the call from my oldest sister either telling me my mom is in the hospital or she's gone.  I thank God for each day and pray I'll get to see her just one more holiday.  Last night I had a dream, which woke me up,  that I was on facebook and I got a message to call one of my other sisters, ASAP.  In the dream my mother was in the hospital and I needed to get there tomorrow.  We left in such a hurry that we didn't even pack extra clothes.  I remember whispering in her ear about Heaven and that God loves her....It took at least a half hour to get back to sleep and all my will-power not to go check my phone to see if I really did get that call.  This was the second time I've had a dream about the call.  The first was one was slightly different, but the effect was the same.

 

She's 91 and it's a blessing she's still here with us, though sometimes she doesn't think so.  Imagine living in a time when the ice man chisled off hunks of ice for children in the summer; or living in a three-story house with your parents, grandparents, and your two old-maid aunts; or remembering what it was like when no one had a car and the family gathered around the only radio in the house for entertainment.  She's seen a lot,  and I'm sure, at times she believes she's seen too much.  When that day comes, will she be ready?  Will I?