Bfth's Boring Blog

Note:  On July 30th, both of my parents were recognized for their many years of hard work in maintaining an annual sailing event.  The event was not created by them, but they were instrumental in overseeing and running it for decades.  I was offered an opportunity to speak to the group. (When have I ever turned down that kind of opportunity?)  Below is what I said: Thank you for being here today.  I promise not to speak for too long because today is not about speeches, it's about sailing.  You are here at the Normandy Beach YACHT club, originally founded as the Normandy Beach Sailing Club to sail in the 46th Annual Sanderling Regatta and it's a perfect day to do so. I don't know all of you, but you knew my mom.  You knew my mom because she was always here; year after year.  She sat at that table.  She greeted you.  She made sure you were taken care of.  She wanted you to have a good race.  No matter how you placed, she wan...

It's been 18 days since I last spoke with my mom. It's been 17 days since I last held my mom's hand. It's been 10 days since the graveside service. It's been one week since the church service. There are still things I need to do.   I don't know how to feel. This whole this surreal, yet real.  I can't seem to wrap my head around everything. I am trying to move forward.  To keep my family moving forward.  There is work for me.  There is work for my son.  There is a driver's test looming around the corner.  (What if he doesn't pass?  How will we deal with that?  What if he passes?  How will we deal with that?) School will start sooner than anyone expects.  We need to look at colleges.  We need to figure out how to pay for college.  There will be applications and forms; all confusing I am sure.  Everything is...overwhelming I am unfocused.  I move from task to task with no sense of purpose.  I feel like I s...

  Love 'em or hate 'em, summer assignments are a fact of life for many high school students.  Back in the last century (how it hurts to write that), I can recall having one going into my junior year for AP English.  I had to read “The  Oresteia” by  Aeschylus .  In the pre-internet world, finding a copy of this Greek trilogy was not easy; nor was writing the required essay.  (Which I believe I actually got an F for.  I had NO CLUE what I was doing.  It was a tough class, but I LEARNED and I read a lot of great literature.  Plus I ended up doing okay in the class and will be forever grateful to the teacher [who I now consider a friend] for the experience.)  I was aware of the assignment at the end of my sophomore year and I know that I found and purchased a copy of the play in July (while my family was on vacation at the Jersey Shore).   My son has two summer assignments.  He has an assignment from his AP Human Ge...

  If you've been reading my blog regular/recently (and I hope you have), you know that these past few weeks have been difficult for me, as well as for my family.  In all honesty, it's been challenging since last fall, but...  We are all still working through our grief and the situation; a process that is going to take some time.  (Who knows how long?) Still it hasn't been all doom and gloom.  There were a couple of incidents that were funny/amusing or at least made us smile.  So I wanted to share those; because you can't have a funeral without fun. The last day my mom was conscious and not yet on hospice, she wanted to make phone calls to friends.  (I covered that story  here )  I didn't have all the numbers of friends, so I asked my dad and another friend to share my cell number with people my mom might want to speak with.  Obviously this was a difficult task, especially for my dad.  He was (understandably) upset as he told people ...

  Thank you all for being here today to remember my mom.  As I wrote in her obituary, She grew up in the United Methodist Church before becoming a member of the First Presbyterian Church as a teen where all the cool kids hung out and were she eventually served as a deacon. During her summers at the shore, she was active at the Episcopal Church of St. Simon by-the-Sea   She didn’t have to be a particular denomination to find a church family.  As far as services go, this was probably the last church she was physically in and she loved this building and its congregation because it felt right and fit into the landscape of this island that she loved so much.   My mother had three passions in life:  family, friends and the Jersey Shore.   As family and friends, you knew my mother.  She cared for each of you; which is why last Friday I helped her call as many of you as she could; sadly not all.  Even though it was difficult, she wanted to say goodb...

  Thank you everyone for coming out on this hot Saturday morning to remember my mom. I know that she would not have liked standing out here in heat for any length of time, so I promise to keep this service relatively brief.   As I wrote in her obituary she grew up in the United Methodist Church before becoming a member of the First Presbyterian Church as a teen where she served as a deacon. During her summers at the shore, she was active at the St. Simon by-the-Sea in Mantoloking.  Although she was officially a Presbyterian, I specifically asked for the Katherine R, an Episcopalian priest, to oversee the service.  Katherine is good enough to oversee a prayer shawl knitting ministry and one of their prayer blankets was given to my father, but ended up being used quite frequently by my mother.  It brought her warmth and comfort.  For that I will always be grateful.   Everyone here knew my mother in a different way; saw her in a unique perspective, so I ...

  Tomorrow morning I will go to the cemetery with my husband and my son and we will bury my mother's ashes.  There will be others there too: my in-laws an aunt, a cousin, some friends...a friend who is ordained will preside over a brief service.  I have a remembrance (and yes, it will pop up here eventually) and maybe my son and/or husband will say something too.  I'm sure it will be hot (it is after all mid-July).  We will place the ashes in the ground and go home.  We will have some friends over.  We will have some refreshments.  We will remember my mother. But I keep forgetting. I think I should tell her something.  But she's not there to tell.  I think of picking up the phone, but there is no number to call. I know my mother is dead.  I was there that last day.  I saw her stop breathing.  And then start again.  Then stop.  Then start.  I thought about getting someone, a nurse, but what was the poin...

  ...though you may not know it.  Or maybe you do. I sit here.  I read.  I write.  I text.  I just am. But I want you to know that I am here.  So every once in a while, I speak to you.  Loudly, but with love. I've stroked your head, your cheek, your back and your arm.  You don't respond, but that is okay. You sleep seemingly peacefully and that's something I wanted.  I think it's what you wanted to. What are you dreaming?  What are you thinking?  I wish I knew.  I wish I knew if you know that I am here.  I am here. I brought in a photo of your grandson.  The one that you really liked.  (And I liked too).  The nurse taped it to the side of your bed.  If you do awake, you should be able to see it.  Even if you don't, it is there and that is okay too. I listen to you breathe.  You sound like you always did...or at least as I can recall when you would go to sleep at night and I co...

I have tried to write this post for a day or so now.  Getting what I want to get out onto the page (or the screen as the case may be) hasn't come easy.  Writing is usually very natural for me, and the words generally flow but trying to say what I want...well maybe there is no right way or wrong way for that matter. I started writing just after midnight on Friday (which I could consider Thursday night).  My mother had called me around then (totally shocking) saying that they had taken her (nasal gastric) feeding tube out because it had become clogged, and they couldn't put it back.  Having a tube directly into her stomach (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) was not an option due to her other health issues.  So it was time to make some decisions. I arrived at the hospital on Friday morning and my mother agreed to hospice care.  This was a long time coming.  She had fought the fight, but it had gotten to be too much.  I wanted her to receive me...

  One month ago today (June 5, 2022), my mother left her home (with her caregiver) and headed to the hospital with a bleeding hematoma on her leg.  It had been (approximately because I've lost track) 17 days since she'd been released from the same hospital with a diagnosis of dementia.  She hasn't been home since. Over this past month, she's been in at least 5 different hospital rooms (inclusive of the one she is currently in and not including the ER area).  She's been released to a rehab facility (which seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but now I wonder; and that's not a knock on the facility).  She's been returned to the hospital.  She's had the leg issue, a urinary tract infection, dangerously low blood pressure (from a woman who has had high blood pressure all her life), malnutrition (she doesn't seem to be able to taste much of anything and I'd say that's a side effect of the Covid that she had back in February, but it see...

  Back in mid-June, during my mother's first hospitalization, she was not very cohert/aware.  She was not eating and it seemed to me like her dementia was really going full force.  At that time, a social worker from the palliative care unit of the hospital called me and we spoke about my mom's care.  It had been determined that I (not my father) would be the one who would be making decisions if my mother could not. To that end, I filled out a POLST (Practitioner Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment) form.  I did so with guidance from the medical professionals in the palliative care unit and based on what I thought my mother would want.  To that end my goals of care were "to improve health status while prioritizing physical and emotional comfort."  Basically what I wanted was my mother to get healthier but more importantly to be as comfortable as possible.  (How comfortable you can be in a hospital setting, I don't know...) I thought I knew my moth...

As I have written about a lot over the past month or so my mother has been rather ill. (In all honesty, her health has been declining since October.)  Her most recent hospitalization began on June 5th and ended on Jun 22nd when she (reluctantly) went to a rehab facility where we hoped she would get stronger. Like many people she hated it.  She started to have difficulty breathing (even with oxygen) and was sent back to the hospital on June 28th. She had been in rehab for less than a week when she went back to the hospital where was diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis. This past month has been an exhausting roller coaster ride of her being near death and then popping back up and being relatively healthy.  It sounds crazy but it's true!  (I don't think I'd believe it if I hadn't been living it) I have received several calls from the hospital where I was told that she was near death. This past Wednesday afternoon was one of those times. So on Thursday I drove down to ...