Counting

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

The house is quieter without the hum of Mom's oxygen machine. She left us for glory yesterday morning and it's really just starting to hit me. I was just starting to get the hang of how to answer her surprise questions. "Is someone coming to take me home tonight?" she had asked at supper on Monday. "No, you're staying here tonight," I'd told her, but something deep inside told me perhaps she wasn't talking about the little house on Mohawk Street. In the three years she's been here, she never talked about going home. After she was in bed that same night I heard her talking. "That's my Uncle Louie. He's a great guy." and then something about Uncle Tom. She's seeing loved ones already passed on, I thought. And on and on she talked into the night, things I couldn't decipher. I don't know who she was talking to, maybe Jesus.

And then we took her out to see the doctor on Wednesday and she couldn't figure out why we needed to do that. She seemed pretty good during the visit aside from our concerns and the slight rattle in her left lung. The trip wore her out and on the way home she sometimes made strange sounds or had a hard time talking, and once we were home she slept much (with her head on the table) and talked little. I thought I might have to help her into her pajamas, but she managed to do it herself. Ben heard her coughing in the morning but by the time I got up at 7 am she was quiet. I don't always look in on her, but yesterday morning I did.

She's with Dad now and yesterday is pretty much a blur. The roles have flipped and now I am the child once again. It's going to be harder than I anticipated.