20 Days Till Heaven…Day 11 – Setting The Stage, Urn Emoji, and Check Yourself

October 26, 2017 Michael Weese Comments 0 Comment

20 Days Till Heaven…Day 11 – Setting The Stage, Urn Emoji, and Check Yourself

Memories from October 26th, 2016 – Day 11

Moving on with the remaining 10 days I want to set the context and mentality of which we were living by. It may help to make sense of some things that I haven’t had a chance to mention. It may seem strange or unsympathetic that I was continuing to work while all this is going on. It may seem strange that we communicated with text messages and calls often while we were in the same house. A few other things may seem weird given the circumstances.

Trust me, hindsight I wish I would have done things differently as well, but there was no telling how things were going to occur or turn out.

I’ll say these things to help explain a little more. We were told nine days ago that we probably had months, but not years. Of course no one can ever really tell when, but that was the baseline that we used. We assumed that when you’re in hospice care, eventually you get to the point where you’re confined to your bed, your body shuts down over time and eventually you pass away. Sorry to put it straightforward, but that’s what we envisioned.

In the meantime, my mother was there with Kate until I got home from work everyday. We figured it was best for me to continue to work and then start taking my time off when things got to the point mentioned above. We thought I would take off then and be able to be there by her side everyday until she passed away. That’s what we thought would be the best idea, so that’s what we planned for.

So how about spending so much time apart from each other when we were home together? Well, Kate needed to be in bed resting a lot. We had a one year old and three year old. Kids of those ages are impossible to keep in a bedroom or on another floor alone for long amounts of time. We had Regan there as well, but it wasn’t fair to put that burden on her all of the time. Don’t get me wrong, Kate and I spent a lot of free time together, but more often then not, I would take care of the kids while she rested in bed. We would call and text each other as needed when we were both home and I was taking care of them or watching them. She had a lineup of shows that she loved to watch and a bunch of friends that she would text and keep in contact with to stay busy as well.

Kate had told me something one night after we were done praying. I couldn’t tell you what day it was, but it was definitely prior to this day. Word for word she said, “We are going to make it to my birthday, make it to Thanksgiving, make it to Grantley’s birthday, make it to Christmas, make it to Pierce’s birthday, and make it till New Year’s.”

She added, “We will see what happens after that.”

I figured if anyone would have insight into how long she would have left, it would be her.

Again, I just wanted to set the stage on how we viewed what the remainder of this time would look like back then. It’s why we did some of the things that we did and why we made some of the choices that we made.

OK, back at it. This new day starts off so much better than the last two. We have our morning call, she sounds groggy, but it’s still a huge difference. I am pretty sure the bug has run it’s course and she is on the up and up.

Here is an audio clip of that call.

She sends me this text a little while later. Letting me know that she found an urn emoji on her iPhone. She often tried to be clever and make light of the situation.

I called to check in again when I could. She had an appointment with the nurse, but the nurse was running an hour behind. She told me that she was still very tired.

Here is an audio clip of that call.

Randomly later on around lunch she wanted to ask me an important health question. After all I guess we all should check from time to time right? This will always serve as a good reminder to do important health checks. 🙂

Just a few more messages for the day. Letting me know how she was feeling and keeping me posted on a car jacking that was going on locally where a baby was still in the car.

We did have a few more calls that I listened to, but really not much to get excited about. I went back to the Halloween store to grab a few more things. I asked her if Grantley had a costume yet. She told me that she had already purchased one, but I had forgotten. She let me know that I had to pick up some pretzels for Pierce’s Halloween party at school the next day.

The last call we had was her calling me to tell me that Pierce was coming downstairs to get a snack before bed time. They were up in her bed hanging out together playing on the iPad.

We prayed for a better day, and we received a better day.

What more can you ask for?

-Mindset Matters

Day 1 – I’LL TRY NOT TO SCARE YOU AND YELLOW CHEESE

Day 2 – DO YOU KISS ME, CO-PAYS, PINTEREST, AND SCANS

Day 3 – I GET TO BE HAPPY NOW, THIS IS A POSITIVE THING

Day 4 – SHARE THE NEWS, HAPPY DWARF, AND PEOPLE ARE AWESOME

Day 5 – FIELD TRIP, DELICIOUS FLOWER BOUQUET, AND LAST PICTURE

Day 6 – DISNEY SMELLS, NURSE, AND SLEEPOVER

Day 7 – CONFESSIONS, CARDS AND JOURNALS

Day 8 – PIGGYBACKS, CHEER SUPPORT, VISITS, AND ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

Day 9 – SPREADING GERMS, CINNAMON TOAST, AND LILLY PULITZER