my mom's passing at age 92

On Saturday the 16th mom went to the beauty parlor and then to bingo. That Sunday she was in the ER, last night the 23rd. she died.  It was that fast and that shocking.  At age 92 we knew it would happen eventually, but she had always been our Energizer Bunny pulling miracles out of her hat and bouncing back no matter how dire the circumstances.   The results of her tests on the 17th were devastating, a massive heart attack on top of a stroke.  There would be no miracle this time.  Dad had always said please God let me live at least one day after her so I can take care of her. He got his wish, and with his diagnosis of stage 4 metastasized prostate cancer we didn't think he would.

I had never seen anyone die before, never knew the stages of death, never saw a last rites ceremony. It was fascinating and upsetting all at once.  I was with dad at Hospice where she had been taken. I just had a feeling that would be the night.  The nurse came in and said she was "actively dying".  I didn't really grasp what that meant.  Did that mean she had a day or two left? I found out that meant she had an hour or two! So the family was called in, Tommy and Ruth my brother and sister in law making it in from Tampa about 10 minutes before she passed.  I had whispered in her ear to hang on that Tommy and Ruth were on their way. Then I whispered again that the family was all there and if she wanted to pass she could and go to Heaven with her sister Trudy who she had told us in a lucid moment a few days prior was waiting for her.  It was a few minutes later she did.

It seems so strange that she's gone.  Last night when I took dad back to the retirement home to get a few things I would look around and see all her little knickknacks and it's just so sad.  We would remember things about her that would make us smile. Her "mystery rides" she would pile me and my sister in the car and just take off with no plan, no direction, just go.  It was so much fun and we saw parts of RI we didn't know existed. Not that it's all that big but most of RI is rural and gorgeous.

One great memory I have is when I was in elementary school: my french teacher Mr. Menard called me up to the front of the class. I thought oh God, what did I do now. But it was to thank me for having such a wonderful mother! Mom was head nurse in obstetrics and would cover for the doctors if they could not make it to the hospital in time.  Mrs. Menard's doctor could not be contacted and mom took over with a very difficult delivery! If mom hadn't been there it was very possible she would not have lived and he was so grateful and thankful!  I was so proud!  Up till that point I really didn't like my mom having a high profile career. This was the time of Ozzie and Harriet and everyone else's mom was home making cookies. My mom was up to her elbows in surgeries! I got a new perspective about just how important she was to the world, it wasn't about me.

She was unintentionally funny:   One year for Christmas she bought dad some coal that was on the Titanic. People would ask what she was getting dad for Christmas and she'd blurt out a lump of coal. Another time a woman approached us and asked how she knew mom, she knew her from somewhere, she had seen her somewhere and couldn't figure it out . She asked where mom worked and mom said :the state mental hospital". Her friend burst out laughing and said,  Oh yeah that's right that's where she knows you!"

One time she went with me to help my mother in law Koula move.  We were driving on US 19 and anyone who drives that road knows it can go from 75 to a dead stop instantly! And that's exactly what happened.  I slammed on the brakes and the huge Buick wagon fishtailed and was sliding right into the car in front! I looked in my rear view and a Greyhound bus was now sliding and fishtailing! OMG,  this is it, we're both dead!  I sharply turned the steering wheel in the other direction and now it did a 180 and was facing 4 lanes of traffic!  I peeked through terrified squinted eyes to see all 4 lanes stopped dead in their tracks! Like the parting of the RED SEA!   I was afraid to look at mom who I'm sure would be panicky and upset. Nope, she had a HUGE smile on her face, :That was great! That was just like in the movies!"  That was mom.

I am so glad our whole family which has had issues like all families have all came together to help in this crisis: my sister Roberta and her husband Steve, my brother Tommy and his wife Ruth who is a Hospice Nurse and was so valuable during this, my husband Jim, and my daughter Tara who had spent more hours holding it together with dad than anyone during this.  It's too bad it took a death to bring everyone together as a team but if that was a test we all passed.

The Prom at Salishan where they were king and queen. She was so thrilled!

Their last picture together

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Dad and Jim this morning enjoying breakfast by the pond

Irma -thou art a heartless bitch

We expected the worst Irma and all her wrath but luckily once again we were spared.  

Irma in all her fury "smiling" at us

What we ended up was basically a Cat 1.  Many other places were not so lucky and some small islands were totally obliterated so again -VERY LUCKY.  The native Americans in the Tampa Bay area though expected the best they said the whole area is protected by native spirits!  Cool 👻 Also a cold front had come down from Canada and lopped off the whole west side of the storm. Thank you Canada!

We had been without power over two days, just came back on late last night.  I was so happy I cried!  It seems petty to be SO miserable without electricity when so many had it so much worse. It's amazing how much we rely on and are crippled without electricity.  I wished we lived off the grid.  When Jim was building his dome in upstate New York he did, and would bathe in an icy creek. We are partly off it, house is extremely well insulated and has no heating system and our own well water.  Our worst electric bill in the summer with air cranking is $125. That is a joke to most people. We paid much more when we lived in a tiny mobile home. The other day when it was 87 outside the inside of the domes with no AC available were 80 with the sun beating on them, actually not that bad, that is the power of the domes. And obviously there was no risk of losing a roof, we don't have one.

With hundreds of trees we did get some branches down and our long driveway was unrecognizable as a driveway.  But that was all.  Tara and family were lucky to not lose power AT ALL.  They were definitely in the minority. My brother and sister also lost power but my parents safely tucked away in their retirement home fared the best of all.  We went over for a hurricane party Monday with Kevin's parents who were visiting from Northern Maine. They had just put a deposit on a house not far from us.  They had no damage either and the storm although scary didn't damper their spirits for a move here.  If this is the we will get we can muddle through.

broken branch

wind whipped trees

driveway

downed tree

Preparing for the "big one"

Florida is known for it's hurricanes.  In fact we are number 1 in lots of things and none of it is good!  So every year between June and November we are on hurricane watch.  News of a hurricane is nothing new.

But Hurricane Irma is not your average hurricane. They said this morning on the news that THREE Hurricane Andrews would fit "inside" it!  This is a Cat 5 monster storm. ☁  There is no where in the entire state of Florida that is safe! It will cover the whole state.  Even if you don't get the eye you will get a strong outer band.  We are all in for a hell of a ride!

Clearwater where we used to live had a mandatory evacuation and a friend of ours went to her other home in Interlachen to wait out the storm. It looks like the worst of it may escape her area so she may be lucky.  One funny story from that same mobile park in Clearwater where we used to live: one hurricane that was pegged to go right through Clearwater caused another mandatory evacuation. My Parents stayed in their mobile but their friend across the street evacuated to Orlando.  The storm then missed Clearwater completely and caused no damage whatsoever and the hotel he stayed in Orlando lost it's roof! So these scary weather patterns can be real unpredictable.

Our Dome is "supposed" to withstand a Cat 5 in fact it is supposed to withstand everything Mother Nature can throw at it.  We'll see. This will be the ultimate test.  We feel "pretty" safe but with hundreds of trees on the property there is nothing to prevent a huge air-born tree from landing on top of one of the domes. Nothing we can do about that and nothing we can do to prepare for it.  We took in all the little potential projectiles and piled the outdoor furniture in the garage which will also house the boat by tomorrow. Mind you I have had a tile guy here all week and the house is still tore up and cluttered due to the furniture from the main dome shoved everywhere out of the way!  And me being a neatest freak seeing messes for a week and sure to be an even bigger mess tomorrow and Monday this is not okay.  😡

tile-so far

We have taken down some dangerous limbs and a tree guy came out just yesterday to remove a tree that was hanging right over the pool. We were so happy he could squeeze us in! So if you don't get an update by Tuesday on how we made out we are either without power or our domes have flown off to see the wizard!

tree over pool screen

Tree guy

Cave People

Lots has happened lately...

First we welcome a new frog to our pond. This one is a gorgeous Leopard Frog!  He makes "Kermit  the first" look pretty ordinary.  Today he was noisily making frog sounds I guess to attract a mate. We hope he remains happy and healthy in our little pond and at least with the raccoon baffles in place every night he won't end up being "frogs legs" dinner.

And we have been moving forward on our Dome improvements.  This week we have painters giving us estimates on painting the 4 domes,  our tile guy is coming this week to put stone tiles on our common area floor which is all prepped and ready and we also have a tree surgeon coming to take down one of our trees that is leaning precariously over our pool!  We already had a huge tree pull right out of the ground in the back yard. It looks sort of cool though like a natural tree bridge.

Tree Bridge

Floor cleared of cheap laminate

We are so hoping the painters don't give us "sticker shock".  It was a little difficult to take the dome measurements, you have to use math formulas. It came out to a painting surface of just under 6 thousand square feet! Yeah, that sounds pricy but I am keeping my fingers crossed. They both pulled up to our home and said "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen"!  We get that-a lot.  One even said that a Dome is his wife's dream home. Hum, since there is a chance it may be for sale in a year or too we need to keep his number!!

Kilzed floor

I spent the entire day the other day Kilzing our floor, I thought I was gonna Kilz myself! It was such hard work I had to keep taking breaks and I have killer blisters on my hands. That night I went to sleep on so many pain killers I'm shocked I woke up again. But Jim was out fishing all day with Kevin so it was the perfect time to do it.  Kilz is a great product to seal anything and keep out mold.  It was so hard thought pushing that roller over 625 square feet. I had forgotten why I hate using a paint roller, I remember now!  Hard to spread it out and in the end you end up with more paint on you than the surface!  Once the floor is done we plan on having someone paint cave drawings on the walls. Between the cave drawings the dome and the rock floor it will really look like a cave, enough to ease the frustrated archaeologist in me.

,So this will be a very busy week, keep your fingers crossed for us!