My mom passed away on January 25th in the early hours when we were all asleep. I received a call from Scott around 7-8am that morning who broke the news to Jill and I. It has been a very rough few weeks, especially since we just lost Kurt 6 months ago. The grief is very real and very overwhelming right now. I want to share a little back story leading up to her passing.
I saw my mom last July at Kurt's funeral and it was such a wonderful experience being with her. I sat and watched game shows with her, helped her walk around, helped feed her, and more. More than once while helping her she would say, "I like her". That just melted my heart. There were other times I would see her cry while I was helping her and my dad said that with her rare form of dementia, that happens sometimes because she'll realize for a brief moment who you are or that she's so forgetful. Although those were two very painful weekends dealing with Kurt's death, I was grateful to have been able to spend so much quality time with my mom even if she didn't know who I was. My last memory of her is of her standing in the doorway of their home in her gray sweatshirt and sweatpants telling us goodbye as we drove off.
Fast forward to October of last year and my dad had a medical emergency. After this incident, he realized (with the help of all of his kids) that he couldn't take care of mom anymore and her dementia was pretty advanced and therefore needed care from experts. It took a lot of convincing, but we finally got my mom into a memory care facility about 45 minutes away from their home. To help pay for the facility ($7,000 per month!), my dad had to sell their home and use the equity to pay for my mom and to get him an apartment. He decided to find an apartment for himself in Broomfield so he could stay in his ward and then drove down to the facility twice a week to take my mom for drives and out to eat.
We had been told by many people that patients with dementia often decline quickly once they leave their home and enter a facility. My mom was no exception. She was moved to the facility mid-October and by January 18th, the nurses were telling us that she was having difficulty swallowing (the end stages of dementia) and therefore needed to put her on hospice. They began morphine on January 21st to get her comfortable and then she passed on the 25th.
We were all trying to figure out if or when we'd go see her because the doctor's had told us that she had about 2-5 months left to live when they put her on hospice. We had no idea she would pass so quickly. Scott made it out there and saw her the last few days of her life. He said she never opened her eyes the entire time he was there. Jill was planning on flying out on the 26th to see her and I was planning to go a bit later. Scott was grateful he went when he did, but Jill was very upset that she didn't make it in time. I, on the other hand, was actually grateful I didn't make it out there. I really didn't want my last image of her to be on hospice in a facility. The last image I have of her is a happy one from last July so I am at peace with how it worked out for me.
My dad was in complete denial the first few days and didn't want any formal funeral for her. He had her cremated just like Kurt and said he only wanted an open house where people just come and pay their respects. I helped Scott with the plans by posting about her passing on social media and gathering pictures for him to create a slideshow. The ward helped set up the room and food for us which was just simple finger foods and chairs in the RS room of my dad's ward building.
Since our kids haven't had much interaction with my mom because of her dementia, we chose to leave them home and just Christopher and I flew out to Colorado. My dad offered to pay for our trip which helped a lot. A friend in our ward (Chris Bowman), came over to spend the night with the kids and help out while we were gone.
We landed Friday afternoon. After checking into our hotel, we ate at a really good Indian food restaurant and then went to check out my dad's new apartment. We spent about an hour with him talking and I had the kids FaceTime me to pick out which rubber ducks of my moms they wanted (she had a huge rubber duck collection). Saturday morning (February 7th) we took it easy and then went out to lunch at Costa Vida which is similar to Cafe Rio. Then, we headed over to the church house for the open house. I saw most of the same people who came to Kurt's funeral last July, but a few new people showed up. One of them was my good guy friend Cory Clark whom I hadn't seen in 30 years! He took me to homecoming and he was part of my huge friend group in the Louisville ward in high school. He gave me a big hug and then chatted with Christopher and I for almost an hour. It was so great to catch up with him and hear about his wife and kids. Man...I was spoiled with such great people and wards growing up in Colorado. He literally only came to see me and then left which meant so much. I wish we had friends like that here in Missouri. We then left to head to the airport to catch our flight home. At that point, Christopher and I weren't feeling great and were eager to get home to our kids. Thankfully, the flight was pretty uneventful and we made it home right when Jayce was going to bed. The following day we both woke up feeling very sick with colds. I'm SO glad we weren't sick while in Colorado.
I didn't take any pictures while I was there, but here is a picture of my mom.
When we visited my dad, he shared an experience shortly after my mom passed. He said that after he found out she passed, he hung up the phone and immediately knelt down. He prayed to Heavenly Father to thank him for his life with my mom and how blessed he was. He said he got an overwhelming feeling that Kurt was the first person she saw when she passed. How special and neat is that. I know they aren't in pain anymore and are probably pretty busy in the spirit world, but man do I miss them! The pain of grief is palpable and real.
