I haven’t done any updates since just before mom’s ordeal with her health. At the time I last blogged, I think we had a feeling that mom’s health was tenuous, but naturally, had no idea what we were in for. I took some pictures on her birthday that turned out to be the last great shots taken of her. In the very very back of my mind I think I knew that this might be the last ones taken for a while, but you just never know for sure. So here are a couple really great shots, one is a repeat; I also wanted to include a copy of what I wrote and read at her service on Sunday, July 12, 2009. Along with Andy’s really terrific tributes on his site I hope that this provides some comfort, closure, and some introspection for some of you.
Transitional Blog
http://web.mac.com/andyhint/Canaveral/Blog/Entries/2009/7/6_IMG_3241_1.html
I also want to thank all of you for your comforting words, even when it is hard to know what to say, your warm hugs and your thoughts and prayers. I will be drawing on those in the coming weeks and months. Gratefully, Becky
Here’s my copy:
When we left the hospital on Monday night, my eyes panned the bumper stickers of cars in the parking garage as we trudged up the ramp for what would be the last time. I had become too familiar with that walk and frequently read the stickers or checked out license plates as I went. Sometimes I would see the same cars and think, “Oh someone else is here going through a loved one’s illness too, or maybe that is a car belonging to some one who works here.” The bumper sticker that caught my eye that evening was a very simple one: white with black lower case letters which read: “hope won.”
It was an obvious reference to the political beliefs of the driver as other stickers indicated. My first was response was to think, how wrong, hope didn’t win today. It is a terrible day. But almost immediately, I began thinking that hope had to have won somehow. Hope can’t lose.
Earlier in her illness, Mom and Dad and Andy and I had conversations about hope. “What hope do we have of recovery?” and “I hope she is improving”…and the like. During one conversation Dad had with Mom weeks ago about her wishes and what decisions should be made for that day, mom wrote on her white board, HOPE in capital letters. Dad took a picture of that message and sent it to us. That picture held such meaning for all of us. We had hope that everything would be ok, mom was going to hope and so should we. I know I looked at that image with hope in my heart and a lump in my throat.
So even though some people may think that hope was lost on Monday or that we’d given up hope, or that there is no hope, my very being is screaming that hope can’t be LOST. There has to be hope. I have been thinking about that sticker and wondering how I could prove that hope did in fact win and what I came up with was this: Mom and Dad had a hope that she’d recover from her cancer years ago, which she did and we have a wonderful family and friends of all kinds to prove it. Mom lived a good life doing things she liked to do, volunteering where she could, reaching out to lonely people or those that might not quite fit in, loving her family, trying new and creative things, entertaining, laughing and loving all of us, all of you. Yesterday so many people expressed to us what we have been hearing since March, how they loved mom and wanted the best for her. I also heard how she touched their lives in some way. I appreciate all the kind words and sentiments, but what has really stuck in my mind are the stories that we have recalled, the stories others have told of the way she lived her life and the grace and spirit of her actions.
These stories, these memories, these lessons she taught us are how hope is going to win every time.
So hope has won, it lives on in all of you, those she touched, those who were lucky enough to call her friend, sister, cousin, mother-in-law, grandmother, wife and mother. I hope you all will hang onto one little thing she said or did that gave you hope and made you smile, even if for a moment and pass that on when you see someone else who needs encouragement, or a hand to squeeze or a hug or just someone to listen. In that way hope will always win and that will go on and on…
