Many of you know my mother-in-law passed away this last Monday evening. My husband has had quite the journey with her the past three months and decided to be a guest speaker for me while she share the feelings and emotions through losing a loved one. Not only losing a loved one, but someone who was young and a mother, wife, sister, grandma and someone who had years left to live.

My husband is taking this journey with us and sharing the last two weeks of what he has gone through. Please welcome my dear husband Michael!

I am sitting here with the craziest of emotions. Up then down, down then up. I cried and cried and cried yesterday, thinking that my mother was on the cusp of dying within a few hours. I drove home from work to pick Tiffany and Cooper up to head to the pain management care facility for hospice, dreading what we would encounter; a lifeless person without saying goodbye. Lucky for us, she was still with us and without all the pain she had been enduring for days. She was completely sedated and convulsing as we weren’t sure if she was going to make it through another night, let alone hear what we had to say. I finally went into the room and sat down and just sobbed for minutes, telling her I was so sorry for what she is going through, telling her that it’s okay to let go and that there is something better for her outside of her earthy body. I also had a chance to speak with her without any filter and through raw emotion on what thirty year five years of my life meant to me and how she has been a part of it and how she shaped me into who I am today. Although she didn’t know it, she had shaped me in many ways even throughout the past 27 years we hadn’t spoke. I know there has been a couple years of bad history between her and I when she reconnected with me, but through all the pain, I wanted to let her know that I forgave her and that I loved her very much and appreciated the life that she provided me.

Her poor body has been taken over by cancer. She looks ENTIRELY different now than before cancer took over. This shows you how deadly it truly is. :(

What I have today is simply because she gave me life. As of more recent, I have come to a point in understanding what love truly means. I guess I never showed it nor truly spoke love to my mother when we reconnected 5 years ago because as of that night while she laid helpless in the hospital bed with machines connected all over her poor body, she whispered in my ear “I thought you said I am a terrible person.” One of the only things she said to me while her body was shutting down. What a shockwave to think that’s the way she believes I feel about her. Sure I have had my anger outbursts with her, sent abrasive emails and had terrible phone calls. Yes, all out of hurt and anger for so many things that have happened to me over the years. My selfish being got the best of me to the point that I couldn’t see anything further than my hurt and my pain that I have endured. I never chose to see that she had made peace with everything in her life and that there was nothing else she could do after all these years. I finally came to the realization a few weeks ago after an email response she sent me explaining and apologizing for her role in what had happened to me; that she was truly sorry. I heard those words she whispered to me yesterday and realized that she still thought I had this chip on my shoulder towards her and what has transpired, yet I felt quite the opposite about her and the past. It’s done…. She has gone through enough in her life and has earned the respect of everyone she now encounters. She deserves the peace and happiness that we all seek in life, the unfortunate thing for me, is that it took her dying to realize what that meant and why each one of us are a blessing and can do so much for one another. It’s a breath of fresh air, it’s that feeling you have towards your loved ones and it’s your life itself. She needs to know my love for her and respect for her apart from the mistakes we ALL make in life. We need to step back for a moment and reflect on times like these and simply be thankful for one another because that’s all we have; one another. In a quick blink of an eye, you may never have that opportunity again, live your life to the fullest, loving and caring for the relationships that surround you.

If anything, her death has and will continue to change my life and change me for the good. If I don’t let this happen, I am simply taking her name in vein. We must step up and do something with the relationships that surround us for them to mean anything. Don’t waste your life.

Tomorrow I will be sharing a poem that struck me to the core while at hospice watching my mother helpless in bed. A poem that meant so much to me and taught me how to slow down. Soak in the moment that we have without all the questions and “what ifs.” Please join me again tomorrow as I continue to share a little bit about what I am learning through the death of my second parent. It’s a journey alright, and one I am willing to share!