Making Sense of Everything

I am so tired. After spending 8 hours on bills and stuff for my aunt, I drove 4 hours to see my mom. I am not so sure I am ready to handle two estates when my own hasn't closed yet. Let's just hope that my aunt and mom both recover quickly and go back to taking care of their own things. Not because I don't really want to but because I want them to recover.
Spending time with my mom was happy and sad. She wasn't real bright before the stroke but now it is like talking to a three year old that is learning to talk and walk again. She smiles a ton and has some fun expressions. The workers LOVE her because she is so easy to take care of.
From one minute to the next she can't remember things. I made her a picture book with lots of family pictures and our names so she could look at it and then put lots of pictures on the wall in her room. There is one picture of her from 1947 that is beautiful and she always knew it was her. The other person she picked out the most was Rachel my daughter. Rachel and mom have always had a good bond. Mom had to live with us off and on from the time Rachel was about 2-4. During that time they would have tea parties and play together. It was fun for them both. For some reason as a toddler Rachel called her grandma Dede and that has always stuck for them. I was glad she could remember Rachel.
She would often think I was her sister. If I asked her to repeat something I said, I would have to be careful because she would literally repeat everything I said. I took her on a walk around the rehab center and a gentleman in a wheelchair said hi to her.  I told mom to say hi to the man and she said, "Say hi man." It was kind of funny. He was a bit puzzled since he had said hi!
They are taking excellent care of her and Phil is there everyday. He had to go out of town so I went down to be with her while Phil was gone. It is hard because they have lived together for 13 years but never married. That meant that I was given Power of Attorney for her and he felt excluded. So I made sure everyone knew he could have all knowledge of her condition and they could call him for information. I told them to treat him as her husband. He cried when I told him that. He definitely loves her.
The best way to describe her situation would be to say she knows things but when she talks something different comes out and then she stares off like she is wondering why those words came out. It is like her mind is working but it can't come out.
I have to say, I am glad that when Mike took his life it ended quickly for him. If he would have survived and been in the hospital messed up, it would have been even harder on all of us. There is still a lot of healing to do. I recently came across something that one of my children wrote. About a year after Mike's death, they started locking them self into a room and hurting themselves, mainly using a curling iron to burn their arm. It puts the pain into a different area of life. I am glad to know that was a phase that came and went quickly, thanks to a caring third party that had a major impact in their life. 
You cannot push depression aside and pretend it isn't real. You cannot assume everyone is fine a year or two after a suicide. You cannot expect survivors directly involved to get over it. It takes years of pain, tears, questions, guilt and figuring out how to let go of it all and be happy again. I am one of the lucky ones who can move on and be happy. . . most of the time.  

*WARNING NOTICE* and Just Surviving

WARNING NOTICE - I am actually working on my book that is based off my blog. I plan on including all comments. They will only have a first name attached to them and any private info that may have been in a comment post is being removed. IF YOU DO NOT WANT A COMMENT PRINTED OR YOUR FIRST NAME ON IT you have 30 days to contact me and let me know.

Having said that, working on a book is difficult.  It is making me revisit everything and that is hard. I have finished about 133 pages and am working on cleaning them up right now so the font and stuff is all uniform. It is a huge undertaking and I guess my next step is finding a proof reader (I am awful at spelling even with a spell checker!) and a publisher. Rachel said after the book tour (haha) we should travel more! I am hoping this book will actually sell. I would like to donate some of the proceeds, if there are any, to NAMI - National Alliance on Mental Illness or the Suicide Hot-lines/Prevention. I wrote an introduction about life leading up to the blog so it helps people to truly understand what our family has been through.

Now onto the "surviving" part in the title. We arrived home from our trip abroad and Rachel took off for another 3 weeks of visiting family and different camps. I have seen very little of her which means I have been alone a lot. That might not have been the smartest thing to do. It has been very lonely around here. I did have Max a German foreign exchange student living here for two weeks, but he was gone a lot of that time. I have found myself wasting a lot of time and accomplishing very little. There have been no tears, but I have been melancholy and just bla.

I am trying to deal with my aunt who is recuperating in a rehab center and now my mom had a stroke and is in one too.  I am Power of Attorney for both of them and the demands sometime are overwhelming. My aunt and mom need me to do a lot of financial paperwork for them and I don't want to deal with it sometimes. Believe it or not, to escape I have gone out and done yard work. Yes you heard me correctly, I have been willingly going out to do yard work. I pulled out 125 feet of wire fence and redid 5 tree planters. Not bad for someone who hates working outside.

I find I am not eating properly or at all sometimes. Right now it is like I don't mind being invisible and am fine not talking to people. On the other hand, I received a few calls lately and I really enjoyed the company of the callers. Spiritually my life is a wreck. I find myself playing loud music so I don't have to think. I hope I snap out of this soon because I am starting to miss the other me!

What Now And Where Do I Go From Here?

I have had a lot of time alone the last few days and I am trying to figure out where I fit in and what I want to do with my life. I have one year left with Rachel at home and then what do I do? Here are some interesting things I have observed. They are just observations, not bad or good and I certainly don't mean any of this negatively.
Last week when we arrived back from Europe, we stayed the night in Redmond. I felt so at home. Going to church the next day after being gone for 3 Sundays was like going home. So many smiles and friends. I love just hanging out and talking to the Calvert's and Munk's and feel so at home there. Granted I always spend time with the teens more then the adults, but it just feels so comfortable.
My kids are all in Utah visiting each other. Max, a Germany foreign exchange student from 2009, is here at the house visiting his friends so I am not totally alone. But in the last 4 days the only time the phone rang was when Phil was calling to tell me how my mom was doing (she suffered a stroke last Sunday) or telemarketers begging for money I don't want to give them. I did go to lunch with my friend from Redmond who came over for the lavender festival, I also worked the parking lot fundraiser with the cheerleaders, and I walked around the festival for awhile with one of my favorite families. I also spent a lot of time home . . . alone.  Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it made me think. What am I going to do after Rachel leaves? I don't like being in this big house alone and honestly, I don't have very many friends here that I can just drop in and bug like I did in Redmond! I went to church and sat alone today, one teenager came up and gave me a hug then no one really ever smiled or spoke to me unless I started the conversation or it had to do with the classes. I tried. I started several small conversations, but I just don't feel like I fit in around here. Of course I do with the teens when they are not all gone on vacation! So my question again is what am I going to do when Rachel leaves? I love my home but hate the yard. I like the weather here but not the seclusion from the city. There is really no opportunity to date or meet people around here. I am down 45 pounds but still look heavy so I doubt I stand out in the crowds of singles! HAHA!!! So let's say after Rachel leaves I can do anything or go anywhere I want. What do I want to do? I have no idea. I can't keep traveling and having people take care of the house and animals. I am not a bottomless pit of money! Although that sounds like the funnest thing to do! I would go to England, Danmark (that is how they spell it), Australia, South American Ruins, Panama Canal, Washington DC and Fuquay-Varina NC!!! Then maybe I could come back and teach history or geography and make it come to life. But if I did that I would never get the chance to date and plant roots so I feel more at home. I could just stay home and write a book which would save money so I could pay someone else to take care of the yard! It is amazing how we have are lives planed out then something happens to change it all and then we don't know what to do. I guess it is a good thing I have a year to figure it all out. Maybe I should spend that time making friends and feeling more at home where I am.

An Amazing Trip With My Daughter - Then Back to Reality

It is always fun when you can spend time with your children. Rachel and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to France and visit our exchange student who has come to our home twice now. Since we were going all the way to Europe, I asked Rachel what other country she would like to see and she picked Italy. So we spent 4 days in Rome, 1 in Florence, 1 in the Cinque Terre and 4 in Venice. Then the rest of the time we spent with our exchange student, Alice, in Paris. We had a great adventure and nothing ever went to terribly wrong. We missed a train once but that was about it! So here is a short comment on each:
Roma: (Rome) Trevi Fountain is beautiful, the Form and Coliseum are cool, the Vatican is massive and fascinating. Favorite memory is climbing the Cupola of St. Peter's Basilica, all the stairs and the food.
Firenze: (Florence) the crazy people watching soccer and yelling in the streets!

Cinque Terre: The beauty, peace, color and the fact that I made the hike and tried anchovies! and the stairs...
Venezia: (Venice) late night walks with Rachel, the Doge Palace, gondolas, walking everywhere and more stairs! The shops, Grand Canal and Murano. All the masks Rachel tired on especially the ones with glitter!
Marseilles France: The sleeper train on the way there was great but hard to sleep on!

Paris: Alice, Anais and their families, Eiffel Tower, Musee d'Orsay, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Louis Vuitton, Versailles Palace, but especially the French Assembly. Evening dinners in the backyard, 100 degree weather and Parc Asterix with it's crazy loops! Night's in the Paris lights and just spending family time with Alice and Anais' families.
All in all we calculated that if you add the Spanish Steps, Cupola, Cinque Terre hike, Venice canal stairs, Eiffel Tower, subways, etc we climbed over 5,000 stairs in 21 days! We went on 6 airplanes, approximately 21 trains, 2 buses, 40 subways, 8 boats, and half way through Paris my shoes fell apart and had to be glued! AMAZING, simply AMAZING. Oh and European keyboards have the keys in different places and make it hard to type!

Now not to end on a downer, but we came home and had to go back to the reality of life. My mom had a stroke the Sunday we arrive home, my aunt is still in the rehab center after coming down with Guillain Barre Syndrome, my kids are all down in Utah and it is kind of lonely here. Interesting how one week you can be so busy doing so much fun stuff and the next week you are stressed out and lonely. I missed all the walking I did in Europe, so today I walked to my doctor appointment. It was nice but I have to get back to reality now and pay the bills.

Traveling the World

So I haven't been on here much because Rachel and I have been traveling in Europe. We are having an amazing time. We strated in Italy and are now in Paris with our exchange student Alice. It has been wonderful and keeps our minds busy. We were traveling on the two year anniversary of Mike's passing and it made it go by easier. Didn't have time to think much. I don't know if Rachel did, we didn't talk about it. I will be able to post pictures and write more when we get home. French keyboards are all scrambled!!!