My Mom

Tuesday, 4/24, my mom went in for a CAT scan to see about what was going on with her gall bladder, the suspected source of pain and problems for her for the past three or more weeks. She had been diagnosed with diabetes about four months ago, and had diabetic symptoms on and off since about November. The CAT scan showed that her gall bladder is fine, and that the diabetic symptoms she's still having are due to tumors on her pancreas, liver, and maybe lungs, too. There was a biopsy yesterday, Friday. It looks bad. It is bad. It's non-operable cancer, probably of the pancreas. If it were the liver or lungs, tumors could be removed, but with the pancreas you can't, just chemo to prolong life and keep the cancer at bay for as long as possible.

So. We're reeling, we're scared, we're sad, we're in disbelief. We're crying a lot. We've been flooded with love and help and prayers and generosity and God's grace at the same time.

Tuesday afternoon, after all the local kids and spouses gathered and cried together, Laurel and mom went out to find a perfect recliner for her to sleep comfortably, something that lying down flat in bed didn't afford. They picked out a cushy beige leather beauty, which we all got to test ride, but then... Wednesday, I didn't see her out of the chair. I know she got out of the chair, she had a doctor's appointment (the one where the surgeon looked at her scans and told her the tumors were inoperable). But our normally unstoppable mom, up and down and in the kitchen, was only in her chair. Now it's kind of like she's holding court, and since I've seen her out of it lately (she's sewing stockings for our unborn children!) I'm feeling better about the recliner. It can be her throne, as she is the Queen of Beckdom. And our glue. And sounding board. She knows where everything is, or where to get it or how to make it. She runs our show. If she didn't impact so many people, starting with the ten of us kids who call her "Eema", this wouldn't be so hard. If she wasn't so wonderful and thereby have created so many "dependents", it might be easier. We depend on her. I depend on her: for advice and counsel, parenting help/commiseration and support, feedback. I depend on her to be there when I walk down the hill, to chat with me about this or that, to pass along books, to loan me ingredients, to watch my girls. She has been at all my big milestones, though, graduation, marriage, births (she plans to be at this birth any day now, though she is tired.) For the younger kids who haven't had these milestones, who haven't benefitted from her wisdom at tricky times in their lives, there is different, more piercing pain, the possibility that she won't be there.

Yes. Yes, be positive, be positive. I am wary about superstitious positivism. People die. From cancer. This kind of cancer. That my mom has pretty bad, wrapped up inside her. Would I love to eat these words, later? Yes. I don't have faith to move mountains. It's something I'll get working on, but I just don't have it. I am not going to set myself up for "If I think positive, all will be well." I have seen enough here on earth: all is not well. I am positive about cherishing each day with her, helping her have the best next few years or months as humanly possible. Yes, yes, there are stories about miraculous changes in diagnosis and prognosis and disappearance of terribleness and years gained from medical leaps and all of that. Yes. Yes. And God is sovereign even if I can't spell it on the first try, and He is with us and loves us and holds us in His hands, and cries with us. And He might have a plan of miraculous healing, and we will accept that joyfully, as we will accept anything else He has in store for our mom and for the rest of us. We will take each day as it comes. We will appreciate each moment that we have, with all of our loved ones, given this reminder that life is brief. We will take a lot more pictures and videos, and keep track, and record, and use this precious time to soak up all of her that we can.


On a practical note, a blog is going to be set up to give updates and missives, and ways that people can help. Mom is in good spirits in between being really sad, especially for Elijah and Jayden. At one point she started apologizing for having cancer, which was almost too much to bear. First thing Monday morning, she has an appointment with an oncologist to figure out her treatment plan, which should get started right away. As things get scheduled and fall into a rhythm, we will be able to take people up on their generous offers of time and service. And mostly, we appreciate the prayers!!

And on a personal note: In talking with my mom, who has a very specific, very serious kind of cancer, she is not finding it helpful to hear about people with other kinds of cancer who have gone into remission. This is not expected in her case, and while it is with such good intentions of being encouraging that people share theirs and others' stories of cures, the best thing you can say to encourage her is how much you love her.

At our wedding, 2005.

Pascha, 2012

The day before Easter, at one of our favorite services where the priests throw flower petals and bay leaves all over the church. Adessa is in the spirit, mugging here with her Nina, godmother Romina.



Pascha morning we got up early and went to breakfast and then West Cliff, all part of a plan to get the girls to nap earlier and be ready for the Pascha picnic. It worked!


Easter Baskets! The girls still haven't caught on to the fact that I've been recycling the Easter kitsch every year since Adessa's birth. Thanks to half off sales, I've added to it, so their bounty is getting a bit ridiculous.



Impromptu egg hunt at our house, trying to disperse the candy as much as possible to as many as possible.


The Pascha Picnic!

Thank you, Daddy, for BBQing for us!


The Easter Egg Hunt. Here's one!

Reach!

Hmm... here's another one!

Sweet sisters! Miss Katie and Miss Marylynn, the girls' Sunday School teachers were most attentive, and the girls loved it!

Checking out the loot with Elijah and Jayden. Adessa has become an excellent sharer when she wants to be. She got all kinds of candy and distributed it to all the kids or willing adults she could find. (Yay!) She still managed to come home with tons, but it's been great to see her share. She would whisper to me: "Jonah didn't get any of this kind of chocolate, so I'm going to give him some of mine. I don't need that much." I tried not to overdo my reaction and jinx anything--but inside I was dancing jigs!

Eliana hanging out with Auntie Lolo and her great friends.

Eating... more sweets. Nary a well balanced meal occurred on this most special day.


Christ is Risen! We had a lovely Lenten season, this year, making it to many more of the (many) services than years past. The girls did well in church, as long as we had steady supplies of Cheddar Bunnies, and stickers helped, too. The Pascha picnic was delightful, as the girls are at the age where they just roamed around and played with friends, aunts, uncles, godmothers, etc. They were pretty low maintenance as far as parenting goes, and it was a refreshing look at our distant future. They both cried when it was time to go, just too much fun.

Side not on Eliana: Eliana is doing some more development with her language, which I'm getting a total kick out of. Her vocabulary isn't changing as fast as it was, now it's her gestures and facial expressions that are getting worked over. She punctuates her stories with the appropriate sad, mad, or happy faces, and her chubby little arms wave around, shoulders shrug, hands on her hips sometimes to make her point. As I write this, it reminds me that she's been watching our expressions, too. The other day I was cutting an apple with my brow furrowed (my concentrating face, unfortunately for my forehead wrinkles), and she asked if I was mad at the apple. She's watching! Soaking it all up. Cute!

Mysterious Ways

And not so mysterious. I am greatly encouraged that I can make positive changes and that there are tools available to me as a mom and a wife. There is hope! There is love to cover a multitude of sins! There are lessons and small conversations and old wisdom heard again, and new breakthroughs and God is so good, so faithful to keep spoon feeding me in small bites tidbits that can transform me. There are people along the way who have things more figured out who can help. Thank God, there is hope!

Lots of things have transpired this Lent, this year, this life of mine to help me to feel this way. I see God's hand and am so thankful and encouraged. Most recently, it was a lenten retreat given by a family therapist, George Papageorge. He talked about living from the heart, and finding our true selves from within the roles we were raised with.


Key Points, in Bullets because I'm not feeling super eloquent, and neither are the notes I took from the retreat.

*In a Family System, all members are connected and affect each other. Hopefully all work together for the good of each individual. When something happens with one person in the family system and kids can't share their thoughts/feelings/wants, they shut down (experience mild afflictions. Larger traumas cause larger afflictions/scrambling/fragmenting, true self becomes confused about who individual is and who God is).

*Afflictions in our childhood (emotional ones) scramble us and separate us from our true self, and from our idea of God.

*True self is ourself, made in the image of God, becoming who God created us to be. We're meant to glorify God, by having Him shine through who we are. (The more fragmented we are, the more fragmented the lens and the less God shines through.)

*In families, we want our kids to have an internal locus of control, where ones' well being is up to them. The opposite is an external locus of control, where our emotions/happiness are outside of ourselves.

*When something is unstable in a family, all other members try to stabilize the family whole by putting their true self on hold and replace their sense of true self with a role. Some roles are:
-All Star: If I do things perfectly...
-Lost Child: acts invisible, no needs, no opinions
-Mascot- class clown, cute/darling, very perceptive and will try to alleviate tension with humor/antics.
-Rebel- scapegoat, warning light, the one who gets dropped off for therapy (and often saves the family)
-Enabler- enables dysfunctioning person to not experience consequences

*Dysfunction isn't about judgement, its about compassion and the need to address problems. In a dysfunctional family, there are unwritten rules: don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. We find this family system everywhere, at work, church, the less recovered we are the more our roles show up. The less we face our story (and avoid our true self) the more we repeat it.

*For a functional family, the sense of each person's heart matters, and is on the radar of the parents. The hearts of the parents are fed, parents work on their own issues so that their hearts are available to the kids, and the kids are able to feel their own emotions and discover their own true self.

*Every person is born looking for the answer to "the value question"- Who am I?/What am I worth? That's what we're answering for our kids.

*Addictive Model: If the value question isn't properly answered and we have unmet needs, then we have internal insecurity. WIth no internal sense of value (no internal locus of control), there is a greater appetite for needs to be met and more need for outside approval. Addiction is: External source to solve an internal problem, a compulsion. (Can be food, work, drugs/alcohol, people pleasing, relationship dependency, etc.)

* The church can be a place to heal, if we face reality and are humble and compassionate with each other. We have to approach the church like a hospital, though, acknowledging that we need healing, otherwise it is a museum, where we are on display/put on a show of everything being fine.

*The more courageous we are to face reality, the more we will see God.

Parenting, specifically:
*Kids are wired to receive and maintain their value (answer to the value question, etc.) by connection, connection, connection.
*We can ask ourselves in our parenting: Is what I'm doing having a connecting effect or disconnecting?
*Kids who have "high risk behavior"= low connection.
*Price of Privilege (studies by Madeleine Levine): With a combo of parental performance pressure and material advantage, kids are shown to have an underdeveloped emotional life. Kid thinks- I'm valued by my parents because I jump through hoops and perform, and I'm valued by my peers because I have cool things. I am not valued for who I am-- sadness/depression/drugs.
*John Gottman (Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child): Most parents are either those who give their kids guidance about the world of emotion and those who don't. Ask ourselves; How can I participate in the world of emotion in the life of my child.

*Many parenting styles:
-Dismissive, treats child's feelings as trivial, wants child's emotions to disappear quickly (me so far),
-Disapproving Parent: judges/criticizes the child for emotional expression, distinct focus on child's obedience to authority.
-Laissez-Faire Parent: Freely accepts emotional expression from the child, but offers little guidance on behavior/is permissive
-Helicopter Parent: Feels & carries the pain of the child, overprotects child, unclear boundaries between parent and child.

*The Best Way to Parent: The Emotional Coach
- values child's negative emotions as an opportunity for closeness
-can tolerate spending time with a sad, angry, or fearful child; does not become impatient with emotion.
-is aware of and values his or her own emotions/is emotionally aware
-sees the world of negative emotions as an important arena for parenting
-is sensitive to the child's emotional states, even when they are subtle.
-respects child's emotions
-does not say how the child "should" feel
-does not feel they have to fix every problem for the child
-uses emotional moments to: listen to the child, help the child label the emotion, offer guidance on regulating emotions, set limits and teach acceptable(effective) expression of emotion, teach problem solving skills

Wow! Reading through the Emotional Coach part made me just cry and cry. I am sooooo not there, but there is hope!! There are guidelines! There are books I can read. There is work to be done, for sure. I do want to do that. I think that would help my conflicts with Adessa so very much. And I have so far to go.

*Behind negative emotion is the value question, asking "Who am I? What am I worth?". If child is dismissed for negative emotion, their value question gets an unsatisfactory/bad answer. Kids may escalate bad behavior, hide emotion, get sick, etc.

The other thing he said about kids' emotion was... that negative emotion most often reveals itself at bad times. That makes me laugh. Of course it happens at a bad time, that's what I'm always so mad about.

Okay, this is taking forever for me to post, and I have pictures of the girls that need to be uploaded. There was more. There was a marriage section about being responsible to our spouse but not responsible FOR our spouse's emotions or "stuff." It was a great retreat, I feel myself more patient and willing to give the girls a chance to have their feelings acknowledged. I have hope. Yayyyyy!

q`190-;'

Braids!

The entire photo shoot below was trying to showcase the braids the girls have been asking for. They look so much like little girls when they have braids in, I love it.


Eliana is changing so much, it's so fun. She uses big words now, most of the time correctly, and is very frank. She'll say: "Please go away, I don't want you to see that I am wiping the furniture with baby wipes." or, "Please go away, I don't want you to see that I'm picking my nose." She is very joyful and seems uncomplicated (after Adessa?) She does get fussy, but it all feels more benign than the fussiness did with Adessa. Eliana wants to do whatever Adessa does, loves to make us laugh, and is snugly and affectionate. She does not like to clean up after herself, no sir, and it takes a lot of cajoling to get her not to drop whatever she's done with wherever she happens to be. Her stuttering is almost completely gone, and has been for months but I forgot to record it in here. What a relief, it was just a stage. She has cute voices she does to make us laugh, though, like her mommy voice: "I'll be the mommy, and you be the sweetie, okay?" which is high and whispy, and her make believe voice, which is... also high and whispy. All punctuated by her ever-present lisp.

I just had to fill in Adessa's Kindergarten paperwork. Very exciting. She's convinced it will be just like her preschool, which worries me a bit, but we have all summer to prepare her for the change. Part of the application was a series of questions about the student for the teacher to get to know a little bit about them, some background. "Is there anything we should know about your child?" Ha! I left that one blank. Another one asked for a description of the child's personality. There were so many things I was tempted to write. I settled on "Bright, Curious, Selective, Creative, Strong, Earnest." There are many other things she often is, too, charming, delightful, humorous, pleasant, joyful, excited, silly, etc. But she isn't those things consistently for me at home. I know her behavior is much better at school, which is fine with me. I refrained from writing down: moody, competitive, feisty, angry/easily frustrated, persnickety to distraction, stubborn.

As baby number three approaches (I'm 32 weeks right now), I worry about the permanent damage I may have done to Adessa the first year of Eliana's life. I'm picturing myself bathing in patience in anticipation of a new little one. I'm going to drench myself in patience and understanding, so I don't take my frustrations out on the girls like I fear I did with Adessa. Adessa is getting a handle on herself and her outbursts much better these days, and we've really cracked down on whining, freak outs, and bad-attitude behaviors. But, I watch her and feel such deep regret. She has serious rage, as I seriously raged at her when she wouldn't let me put Eliana down to sleep, or didn't otherwise cooperate when I needed her to. I'm sure she had tendencies toward persnicketiness as part of her personality, but I guess I'll never know how I exacerbated her inner angers. It makes me feel like just weeping. And how do I undo it for her, or help her undo it? Ach.

Aquarium, at age 4.5 and 2.5 (and 35.5)

How fun to take the girls to the Aquarium this year! If I keep organizing field trips there, I can keep getting us in for free. It was so fascinating and fun to watch the girls experience the Aquarium one year older than last time, and compare. They loved it! Things they were scared to try last year (like the tidal wave you can experience by standing under glass) they were excited by this year. Adessa was interested in everything, and so eager to point things out to Eliana and I. Eliana had a mental list of creatures she wanted to see, and while what we were seeing was great and she put up with Adessa showing her things, she was much more relaxed after we had seen: penguins, sea stars, turtles, an octopus, and a hermit crab. In that order, she was obsessed.

Posin' with Penguins! We saw them swim and preen. (They couldn't have had a more appreciative audience.)

Posin' in a Penguin Egg.

Trying to get a good picture in the clam shell. Adessa is finally posing for the camera, we'll have to wait another year for Eliana, perhaps.

An exhibit I could really stand by, the Potbellied Sea horse. I felt an instant kinship. That's seven months of baby in there! 8)

Playing in the kids area. It was so fun to see them have so much fun, eager and excited for each new display.* Fun!


*I was reminded that it won't always be this way- part of the school group that went were junior highers and high schoolers. The junior highers made a point to look bored and irritated with their parents, only livening up in the gift-shop, and the high schoolers were found in corners and stairwells where there were no fish or sea life to look at at all. I'm thankful for the age my girls are at right now, even if it comes with occasional stressful tantrums and frustrations (theirs and mine!)

Ohhhhh.... A new post.

So... life moves on. We got through Christmas and had a great time with family (which ironically, Grandma would have loved the most of anybody) for the funeral preparations and for the funeral. I wish we were a society which encouraged loud wailing and lamenting, clothes rending and ashes in our funerals. I felt I could throw myself down and be held up by friends and family, I could just wail. But I didn't. I feel a big cry brewing, now, instead of the ache that Edna's being gone has left, but am a little bit scared to give over to it. What a bizzare process, who knew? We've figured out childcare, thanks to my mom and Grandpa and our neighbor and friends filling in. We feed Grandpa a lot. We miss Grandma. There are lots of things we've been up to that she would have loved to hear the girls recount. It was better with her here. There's nothing better about her being gone.

We included the girls in every part of Grandma's memorializing, with hopes that it would help them understand a bit more, have closure(?), be included. And so that we could talk about each part of living and dying, and how they were there for all of Grandma's events, like: "Look, see girls? Pictures! You were there."

At the viewing:


I understand loss a little more. How people show up, and how meaningful that is. I haven't shown up for funerals very much in my life, but I will in the future. It's comforting and reassuring and life-affirming when people show up for you. People came to the viewing just to be supportive, people came to the graveside just to be supportive, people came to the funeral and mourned with us and were supportive. People who barely new Edna wanted to come, tried to come, even thinking about coming was comforting. People wrote cards and made food and volunteered their houses for family, which was so very wonderful, and I had no idea. I'd never sent a sympathy card before. What a nice invention.

Here's what we would have told Grandma alllllll about:
Christmas!! Calvin's oldest brother, Ralph and Auntie Kim and their six kids came up Christmas Eve from Riverside after hearing about Edna's passing. It was hard to be sad with them around, the girls were so excited to be with their cousins, and for Christmas, of course. They opened their first present, soft, brushable horses, and were content. They had to be coaxed to open their other presents. (Note to self- they don't need a lot!)


Cousins!!




Horse-riding lesson! A most-perfect Christmas present, the girls got a horseback ride. They were SOOOOO excited. Eliana was super serious as she rode, and then would burst into beautific smiles when asked if she was having fun.