Ok, at risk of people getting offended by not getting a personal phone call or notice...

My mother is officially seeing hospice as of today.

Every effort is being made to make her comfortable (she's staying at home, she has morphine, etc.)

My sisters will both be here by next Monday to see her for the last time.

We will take everyday day-to-day and enjoy the time we have with her.

Thankfully, a tender mercy from heaven to be sure, we do have time to say goodbye.

**************

I was listening to the soundtrack to "Wicked" today while I set up stuff in my classroom (not knowing what will happen next week, when I'm actually supposed to be there, I was doing bulletin boards and stuff today) and a few lines from "For Good" really stuck out to me and made me cry:

 I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you


 It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart


***********
I know we'll get through this and I know there's a divine plan at work, but I don't know how to say good- bye to my mom. "It's devastating" she told me when I broke down tucking her in Sunday night. "I'm so sorry, Adrienne. It's devastating. I really thought I would get better and I'd beat this. But apparently, that's not what's going to happen."


Yesterday, I helped her soak her feet in cold water on the front porch in ice cream buckets and she was so giddy to give her swollen feet a break and it was all I could do to not cry and wish I could have my pre-cancer Mom back. The woman who'd walk 5 miles a day and hardly ever sit down and always had a project to work on or people to see and things to do. The woman who ran out into the snow on Christmas morning in her pj's to make a snow angel or who was the first to use Will's new Pogo stick on the tile in the basement or who'd make cookie dough just so we could all eat it (it's a wonder she isn't dying of salmonella considering how much she loved raw cookie dough). The mom who once drove 40 miles to my condo on Valentine's Day to heart attack it while I was work so I felt loved that day. I miss my Mom already. I can't even imagine what it will be like when her number in my cell phone doesn't reach her anymore. I feel like I can't breathe and my heart just aches and it hasn't even happened yet.