Take the Long Way Home

Thank you to those of you who have commented on recent posts and those who continue to visit here.

In May I kept thinking I would start projects to work on over the summer. I dug out a quilt that I started more than two years ago by cutting out all the squares of different sizes in solid colors; I made the first block and hated the process. Then I looked at the squares from every angle and tried to configure an alternate pattern. After days of consideration, I realized my brain couldn't focus on anything that structured, so I pulled out scraps I've been putting aside for years. I cut all sizes of squares and rectangles to sew together with no pattern in mind. It is the perfect illustration of how my brain was working ~

And I love it. It's on my design board to remind me that everything doesn't need a plan, and there is not always a happy ending. Sometimes we take the long way home.

On Tuesday May 24 I got a text from my brother that changed any plans we had made or wanted to make. Our mom had fallen and broken her hip. The local hospital couldn't accommodate the surgery she needed and the closest hospital with a bed was one hundred miles away. She was transported by ambulance to Ruby Memorial Hospital at WVU in Morgantown, West Virginia. My brother drove from southeast Virginia to northwest West Virginia to be there when she went into surgery. I spoke to her briefly and figured the doctor would put in a pin, she would be in the hospital for a few days, and she would be discharged to rehab for a few weeks.

Nothing went as expected. There was a complication during surgery; she rallied from that and had a good day of eating and sitting up; then it was complication after complication. I knew I needed to be there so I started driving south on Saturday May 28, stayed overnight in Pennsylvania, and arrived Sunday May 29. My brother headed back to work in Virginia and we were in communication multiple times a day. I texted him Thursday that he might want to come back to the hospital. My sister in Scotland made plans to fly in Tuesday June 7, and we had permission to visit after hours late that night. 

It was two weeks of hoping that things would improve amidst the reality that nothing was getting better. Mom didn't leave the Surgery Intensive Care Unit until June 8, when she was finally granted her wish and moved to in-hospital hospice care.

My mom died peacefully that night just after midnight. 

So much happened and there is so much to do now, with most of the tasks falling to my brother. We are all sad and tired and trying to do things we have never had to do before. I have some thoughts about how to write about all of this; I started a notebook the first day of her fall and haven't stopped taking notes. I wish I'd had a guide and still wish there was a reference for what to expect, what to do, and how to get help when we need it. 

I may just figure out how to make sense of this somewhere down the road.

The journey continues....