Thursday, November 25, 2010

...Be Like My Mama

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope that you and your loved ones have had a good day and that you've taken time to count your blessings.  I believe in counting my blessings each day and think that every day is Thanksgiving, and I know it may sound strange, but the holiday of Thanksgiving is just not a big deal for me.  Our family is scattered, so we sometimes get together and sometimes we don't.  In fact, for the past few years, my husband and I go to Cracker Barrel to eat with whoever is around.  There's no shopping, cooking, or cleanup, and the food is good.  You see, my health has been bad for the past six years, so I haven't been up to cooking a big meal, and my mother-in-law, who lives near us, is legally blind and suffers from other health problems, so this is just the easiest solution for us.  She used to be the one to cook the big holiday meals.

My mother, on the other hand, is a dynamo.  She is 73 years old, works four days a week managing a store, helps out everyone she can, and comes to take care of me every time I have surgery or have to go in the hospital for some other reason.  That's been a lot over the past few years.  Since 2005, she's been here to help my husband take care of me when I started peritoneal dialysis, had a kidney transplant, had a rejection episode, had sinus surgery and two total hip replacements (those three took place in a five-month period), and then when I fell in the hospital here and had to be airlifted to UAB so that my transplant doctors could oversee my care.  You'd think she'd be sick of me by now!  After all, most 54 year-olds are taking care of their aging parents, not the other way around.  I'm so very thankful for Mama.  She's the best.  And did I mention that she fractured her hip, had pins put in it, and then had it replaced the following year?  Strong woman!

She's starting a new phase in her life tomorrow.  She's moving.  This week she's been packing her belongings and will load them on a truck tomorrow with the help of her nephew and some other dear relatives who live near her. Her sister died last year, and my cousins have offered to let Mama live in my aunt's house rent free.  That is a great blessing!  She'll be next door to one of my cousins and her husband, which gives us peace of mind knowing that she will be near family.  Her remaining sister lives near her now, and they are very close, and they'll still see each other often.  They go to church together, buy groceries together, and just do fun sister stuff.  They'll be living farther apart now, but I know that nothing will separate them for too many days in a row. 

My mom not only has physical stamina and strength, but she also has the strongest faith of anyone I know.  She's such an encourager and friend, and she has a positive attitude about everything.  In times when I could have given up, she wouldn't let me.  When I'd get frustrated because I couldn't do something due to physical limitations, she would make me stop and listen while she talked to me about what I could do and helped me focus on that and working toward what I couldn't do at the time.  She has taken such a load off my husband by being here with me so that he didn't have to take off so much time at work. 

Mama would have made a great nurse.  In fact, I think that someone should make her an honorary nurse.  You see, on December 13, my younger brother, Mark, will have a kidney transplant at UAB.  Mama will be there to take care of him after his surgery because his wife, Michelle, will be his donor.  Another blessing!  After they are discharged from the hospital and move to the apartments near the hospital for three weeks, she will stay and take care of them there.  That's at least a month that she will be off work with no pay, but it's what she wants to do, and what she does so well. 

She took care of our dad, who was on dialysis for about ten years.  Daddy had two kidney transplants at UAB, a year apart.  Our other brother, Randy, gave him a kidney, but due to complications from the surgery, Daddy didn't leave the hospital with the kidney.  The following year, he got a cadaver kidney, but rejected it before he was able to go home.  Mama stayed with him in that tiny hospital room both times for four long weeks.  A testament to her strength is the fact that kidney transplant patients are still put on the same floor Daddy was on in the early 1980s.  When we'd walk the halls after my transplant, we'd pass the rooms Daddy was in, and she'd point them out to me and talk to me about their stays there.  Daddy passed away in 1988.  Frank and I were amazed that she could pass by those rooms and have all those memories rush back at her and still hold her head up and keep going, encouraging me the whole time. 

My daughter, Jen, had surgery a couple of weeks ago, and the mother in me wanted so badly to be there to take care of her.  Before she told Frank and me that she was having surgery, she and her husband, Marcus, had already lined up child care for Dean and had everything arranged.  She knew that I wasn't able to go and take care of her and Dean.  It hurt me to know that I couldn't do it, but I'm so thankful that they have friends who stepped in and helped them, and did a wonderful job.  They made it through a rough weekend with the help of those kind friends and lots of prayers. 

I see other moms, daughters, grandmothers and wives taking charge of situations and stepping in to handle things with such grace and strength, and I wish that I could do that.  But, I know that there are things that I'm just not able to do, and have to accept that and do what I can.  I pray a lot.  I feel like this is the ministry that God has given me and it's something that I can do whether I feel well or not, whether I can walk or not, and I can do it from any place at any time.  This is something else that my mama and daddy taught me. 

So, if you have a mother who is always there for you the way mine is for me, I hope you'll let her know what a blessing she is to you and how much you love and appreciate her.  I'd give anything to be able to help my mom move this weekend, to pay back a small fraction of all she's done for me.  But, as I told her earlier, since I can't be there with her, I'm praying for her.  It's what I do, and I'm honored to be able to do that for her.

I love you, Mama.

Dean, Jen, Mama and Me

1 comment:

  1. I do have a mom like that--it's you! You're the best listener EVER and I alway brag that you're the strongest "prayer warrior" in the world.

    Grandma is a MACHINE. In retrospect, I should have called her to come when I had surgery. She would have kept things in shape around here!

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