she had a long, long battle with her health that culminated with her putting up more fight than anyone thought possible against vicious and emotionless leukemia.
she was a woman of amazing heart and peace. physically she had a weak heart but spiritually and emotionally i've never seen a bigger one. she gave birth to her only son Jabe in her 30's and he was to be followed by a baby sister a few years later, but unfortunately she lost the baby at 8 months. but baby Kendall was always remembered as a part of her family, not something that "almost was." it was a devastating blow and almost killed her spirit but it was the massive heart attack a few short years later that killed her body. a couple of time actually. the doctors reports said that they actually lost her on the table 3 separate times on the table before they were able to save her life. she lived around 17 years after that heart attack, many of those years in pain and discomfort, her ribs were never reset perfectly after the open heart surgery, so they would shift from time to time, and as she seemed to be more and more tired and without energy, that was when they discovered the hole in her heart that they refused to operate on because of the delicateness of her heart.
so she did what she could, she lived. she loved her family, she loved her life, this world and never took it for granted. her husband Jeff is a zoo keeper, which has moved them from florida, to indiana, to finally wisconsin. there were always random animals temporarily living with them and they loved to have family visit to get the inside tour. they just loved their family, no matter how many miles away they lived.
every christmas they would send big boxes to my grandma & grandpas filled with christmas presents for all of us, which i regret that we seldom sent anything in return, or even called them to thank them (regret will have its own post words later in this entry). but they were always wonderful off the wall different kinds of gifts but i loved them! every birthday i looked forward to the phone ringing, it always had a different sound when they called and so everyone in the house knew to let the birthday person answer the phone. you would answer and then DeeDee, Jeff and Jabe would sing happy birthday to you. it was wonderful, and i miss it.
my aunts battle took a turn this last year when she was diagnosed with leukemia. of course it broke everyones hearts, but we all secretly assumed that it would be a struggle, but she would persevere and we all would be there to cheer her on and welcome her back. well, right off the bat, she had issues with the kemo. she was allergic to something in it and it sent her heart into an insanely rapid beat pattern that almost killed her, once that started to happen another side effect was that it started to pour fluid into her lungs. it was not an optimistic time. they fought and fought to save her, at one point putting her basically into a coma and telling family that they were going to try and shock her heart back into rhythm but that if the risky procedure didn't work, that she would be gone. well, she wasn't ready to go and she fought back, and continued to fight through a tremendous up and down battle with highs coming out of low percentage chances of reducing the cancer count, to lows of finding out that her cells weren't reproducing any cells, healthy or sick.
we all knew she was going to leave us and it sucked. my mom told me of two conversations she had with her sister DeeDee, the oldest daughter, the 3rd of 7 kids, the "lucky 7" as they referred to themselves as my grandparents had lost 2 different children during pregnancy. the first conversation was how she told my mom that when she was having her heart attack she kept thinking "this isn't right, i'm not ready. God please just let me grow up to know that my son will be alright." that's all that she wanted. the second conversation was also right before they put her into a medically induced coma, which she would never return from. she told my mom that when she went, she wanted to be flying high on morphine and to be surrounded by her family laughing and telling stories.
fast forward a week to when her time had come. the family was surrounding her bed, watching her sleep, occasionally fidgiting from the pain. the docs continued to increase her morphine to her more comfortable, which ended up being a very strong amount. the family was holding each other and watching Deed, but she seemed restless, and her numbers fought to stay consistent. that's when my mom remembered my aunt's full request and turned to Jeff and asked him how he met DeeDee. he smiled and told the story which then he asked my grandma and grandpa how they met, which sparked stories of Jeff and Deed's dating and many stories of how my aunt loved to get naked and skinny dip.
just as my aunt had wanted, once she was "flyin' high" and the stories had been chased with laughter, her levels steadily decreased and she took her last breath.
a couple of days later as my mom and i talked we came to the realization together that DeeDee was given the gift that she asked for. when my mom fought her cancer she prayed that she would be able to see her kids get married and have grand babies. she reminded me that when DeeDee had her heart attack, all she asked God for was that she would be able to know that her son was alright. my cousin Jabe is engaged now to a wonderful girl named Brie & my mom remembered that DeeDee had said in conversation how when she saw Jabe and Brie together that she knew he would be ok. my mom never realized the truth of that statement, it was said so casually that my mom never realized that that was the fulfilling of her request. that was all she wanted to live to see.
when they returned to my aunt and uncles house, Jeff mentioned how Deed was always buying stuff for everyone that she would store away for the right occasion. they started going through some of the boxes (which there were many !!) and there were gifts for every brother, sister, niece and nephew, everyone! there were countless gifts for her daugher-in-law-to-be for the bridal showers that she would have, there were baby gifts in blue and pink for whichever child they might have. my aunt had already celebrated these occasions before she passed. it was so beautiful to realize that she had already taken part in the baby showers for her future grand baby before they have even been conceived, that she had already laughed and cried and shared with her future daughter in law at her bridal shower with touching gifts, with naughty gifts, well before the showers have even been planned. my aunt knew her future and she celebrated it with the time that she knew she had, not the time that she hoped to receive.
i think that is a gift she wants us all to have.
thinking back about visits i wished i had made to see her, phone calls i wished i had taken the time to make, basically as live tends to make empty promises through our lips sometimes, i made many more promises to come and visit them than i ever followed through on......aaahhh that's regret for you people. but what can you do? do i let it eat away at me for not seeing her more often? or do i learn from this feeling, and honor her life, by following through on my promises by going now, or soon? what's to stop me from celebrating her life by sharing it with her husband and son in the town they loved, in the places she lived? that's the funny thing when it comes to death and regrets, there are things we will of course we will have to live with that we regret saying or doing OR regret not saying or not doing, but many of those can be erased by finding another way to celebrate the spirit of the intention.
so you regret not spending more time with your grandparents as they aged, i can speak from hundreds of personal experiences that if you were to visit any senior community or "home" , the people that live there light up like a christmas tree when people come to visit and spend time with them, they don't need it to be a son or daughter or old friend, for them it's just knowing that someone thinks they are still valuable enough to sit down and say hello.
or if you regret the angry last words you shared with someone before they passed, there's no way to retract those words, but what about each and every one that comes out of your mouth from then on? honor that person by treating everyone with that love.
these thoughts might not look like the exact idea of redemption you were thinking for how to atone or retract words or actions, but that's how life is, that's how God is. to borrow from a common phrase, "the door might close, but he will open a window"
so last year when my aunts future was looking very bleak i wrote her a letter and in it i apologized for all the christmas gifts that i took for granted with no gift in return, no thank you call. and i told her how i looked forward to the birthday call every year, how we all did, but how i never thought to return the favor. so i made her a promise to return the favor in a unique way by combining those two things, but that she would have to hang on until christmas. she kept her end of the bargain and and survived and i kept my end and on christmas day as our enormous family gathered at my grandparents in kalamazoo, and Jeff and Jabe took care of DeeDee as she slept peacefully after a particularly brutal round of kemo, the phone rang in their home in Madison, Wisconsin and when they answered, 30 voices greeted them with song
"we wish you a merry christmas,
we wish you a merry chrismas,
we wish you a merry chrismas
and a happy new year"
a sweeter song, a more wonderful moment was never shared in our family.
so ironically, even in her dying, my aunt has given me one more gift. the gift of understanding that with regret is given the gift of atonement. many times we don't see it, more often we don't use it, but it's always there, it just might not look like what you think it should. but it's always there.
1 comment:
That's such a beautiful story, Chris. Blessings to you all - you're in our prayers.
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