Happy Thanksgiving?

Well, today was officially Thanksgiving although not really. Our family celebration is not until tomorrow afternoon out at Gramma and Grandad's, which is something we are definitely looking forward to. The day started out okay. I was still feeling bad, so I slept in. Joe was up with Olivia just after 7:00 and then went out to get donuts for everyone. I woke up and realized Harry was still asleep too - a bit late for him. That should have been the first sign. I did my usual hacking and coughing until I could breathe normally, but now I had a new symptom: my ears were plugged. No matter what I did, I couldn't unplug them. We had breakfast and I started cleaning up while Joe and Lily went to the Rescue Mission to serve food during one of the many Thanksgiving shifts. I managed to get some laundry done, clean up the kitchen, and get the kids some lunch by the time Joe got back from dropping Lily off at her grandparents. I felt all right, just still completely plugged. Everything sounded strange - like I was inside a barrel - and I could hear myself chewing inside my head, which sounds particularly unpleasant. The kids went down for naps and Joe and I started cleaning the living room in preparation for Christmas decorating. We specifically tried to clean the rug - which is a color far too light for any sane person with children to choose for their home. It's supposed to be an off-white with brown flecks, but in places where it's walked on, it just looks dark and gray. It will have to be professionally cleaned to ever look decent again. Just about the time Joe brought in the tree, Olivia woke up. She was so excited to see the tree - "It's Christmas?" she asked excitedly, her eyes lighting up. "It's Christmas!" she cheered, jumping around the living room. Harry was a bit groggy when he woke up but seemed okay. My ears continued to stay plugged and my hearing was decreasing quite a bit. At one point, Joe told me the phone was ringing but I swear I could NOT hear it. I made dinner while Joe worked on a string of lights on the tree that was burned out, but my ears were bothering me more and more. We ate dinner and I began to feel lethargic. "I'm not feeling good," I told Joe. I looked over at Harry, who hadn't touched his food, and realized he was pulling at his ear. That was the second sign. Joe's brother Jeff called shortly after dinner and that's when Harry started crying. I went to get him out of the high chair and realized he was burning up. I took him into the cool shower with me and he just laid his head against me and whimpered. Joe took his temperature afterward and it was 104 degrees - sign number threel! There's no doubt he has an ear infection, which strangely enough, is probably my problem too. We gave him a dose of Ibuprofen and dressed him lightly. Olivia, sensing what was going on, told us: "I need to give Harry a hug," and she did, whether he wanted it or not. "Poor Harry," she lamented.

So now we have to decide whether to go to the ER or wait it out until morning and go to Urgent Care. I can only imagine how many people wind up in the ER on Thanksgiving. I don't think I can subject Harry, or myself, to a crowd right now. Harry seems to have calmed down since his Ibuprofen and is getting sleepy. We will be heading to Urgent Care as soon as it opens tomorrow morning and hopefully still make it for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow afternoon. To be continued...

Daily blogging is good for the soul

It's so easy to forget the day to day little things that make life with kids such a joy. Especially for me - someone who forgets EVERYTHING! What did I eat for breakfast today? Ummm...not sure, maybe a muffin? Forget what I did a month ago - or even a week ago! It just escapes me like the metaphorical sand through my fingers. So in an effort to remember more clearly, I'm going to trying to start daily blogging (fingers crossed). That means my blog posts will probably be full of mundane, routine stuff that goes from day to day in the Rachal household. But better a little dull than nothing at all, right? I watch my kids grow and suddenly can't remember them being younger than they are today. Where did the time go? I ask myself. I see pictures of Olivia and Harry as babies and can't remember the way they felt in my arms when they were so small. And forget trying to remember Lily as a baby...that's ancient history! I think Nonnie's passing has also made me want to remember more. It's made me realize how precious the moments are - as cliche as that sounds. But when I think of Nonnie, I remember moments..small things that left an impression on my mind and in my heart. I don't know if writing down the daily events of our lives will help, but it certainly can't hurt. I am a teacher of writing who encourages her students to keep journals to write down their thoughts and spread their feelings thickly across the page - like peanut butter on a blank piece of bread. I remind them how important it is to think on paper - to let go of things by writing them down, hash things out, celebrate life. So if nothing else, I need to practice what I preach.

Sick Day

Today is Monday...a good day to start. Unfortunately, on this particular Monday, I am sick. I have contracted some viral thing that started out as a sore throat and ended up in my chest. Now my head and lungs are congested and I feel like a dull, throbbing version of myself. I took Joe's prescription cough syrup an hour ago and it's beginning to kick in. The edges of things are getting fuzzy and I won't be able to type much longer.

I slept in because I was feeling cruddy, but got up and fed Harry breakfast before falling asleep on the couch again. He was watching PBS and eating his muffin and drinking his milk, so he was happy. I shudder to think how many episodes of Curious George and Clifford he's watched this past year. The muffin, by the way, is a low-fat version of a banana chocolate chip muffin. I found a great cookbook called "Mom's Makeovers" that takes yummy, high-fat, high calorie, recipes we all love and makes them healthier. These muffins have no butter, only a little canola oil, and are made with whole wheat flour. The chocolate chips, I tell those who look at me skeptically, are there for the antioxidants!

When I woke up, I took Harry into the shower with me and tried to wake up a little. I kept coughing up the most disgusting stuff - Good, I thought, get out of there! The worst part is my voice - once the cold goes to my chest, I start to sound like a chain-smoking Demi Moore. Usually I pick up Olivia from ChristKids around 1:00, but Joe was sweet and picked her up for me and we had some soup for lunch. Olivia is so sweet and concerned when anyone is sick. She's already a nurturer. Daddy told her I was sick on their way home, so she came up to me and looked at me sympathetically with those big brown eyes and said, "You not feeling good, mommy?" I shook my head and she began touching my face and feeling my ears, the way I do when I check her for a fever. "You feel hot." she tells me seriously. The kids took naps and I laid down again for a little while, but my coughing kept waking me up. Lily came home at 4:30 - late again. I was getting ready for work and the kids were awake, so it was crunch time. I was out the door to teach at 5:00.

Talk,Talk

Watching Harry play on the floor today, I listened carefully to his babbling. He is now 2 years and 3 months old, and although he babbles a lot, he says very few decipherable words. "Tra" is truck - one of his favorite things, "Choo-choo" for train, "Kee" is kitty, "Joo" is juice. Basic everyday words with the endings left off. He also leaves the beginning sounds of some words off like "No," which comes out as "Oh" while he's shaking his head. But then he also says some phrases like "Where'd he go?" and "Gonna get you!" which sound very clear to me. I have been worried for awhile that he is speech delayed even though Dr. Nagatani says he's fine. I read more child-related articles than I should, and most of them state that Harry should have a much larger vocabulary by now. But I try not to worry about it. We read to him, talk to him all the time - I'm not sure what else we could be doing to further his speech development. Olivia was talking up a storm at this same age, but of course, she's a girl and I know that girls are different. There's also the fact that Harry is techinically the "baby" of the family and the older kids can talk for him. I'm just going to keep working with him and see if he can continue to expand his vocabulary. I know he understands what I'm saying, which is a good thing. If I tell him to go get his cup, he does it. If I say we're going bye-bye, he runs to the front door.

The Little Gym

Harry is even beginning to follow some simple instructions, which is something that just happened at our new Monday morning class at The Little Gym. The first week we were there, Harry just ran around screaming and laughing like a lunatic - he was so excited to be in there with all that cool STUFF! He was so keyed up, I couldn't grab his attention. But we're supposed to encourage them to join the circle and clap, sing, walk together - things he just doesn't have time for. I'm always happily relieved when I see some other mom chasing her kid around the gym because he's not the least bit interested in structured "circle time." But last week, during our third class, Harry joined in the circle for awhile and clapped, ran with the other kids, and then stopped - putting his hand out wide - when the teacher shouted "Freeze!" I was shocked - he actually knew what he was supposed to do! And the teacher, Miss Audrey, was impressed - "Great job, Harry, wow!" she praised him. I found out that Miss Audrey has two girls and a boy too, so she gets it. "They're like wild animals," I told her, and she nodded in agreement. "Absolutely! My son seems so aggressive." Hearing that again reassured me that Harry is indeed a normal little boy - fearless and full of testosterone. As far as the speech thing goes, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before he's quoting lines from Cars and singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of his lungs and we wish he'd just be quiet.

Goodbye Nonnie

September 29: I started to write the following entry the day after we lost Nonnie. I needed to write it all down - maybe to remember or just simply to do something - the shock that follows an unexpected death can make you feel helpless and lost. I couldn't finish it, but I went back later - a few days after Nonnie's service - and filled in the details. I didn't want to remember, but I couldn't forget. It's too early to tell if it has helped because I still feel the loss every single day. The crying has subsided to occasionally, but the hole seems as if it is growing bigger. My dad says that hole will always be there. 

September 15: My whole world has just stopped. I feel numb, sick, heartbroken. Yesterday afternoon at 3:15, my grandmother, my Nonnie, passed away. She had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke on the morning of September 13 while talking on the phone to her daughter, my Aunt Cindy, at her home in Canada. "I've got to go," she told Cindy, "I've got a pain behind my eye and it's pretty bad." She hung up the phone and when Cindy tried to call back, no one answered. Nonnie told my grandfather, Hal, to go and get her best friend Gerry who lived a few doors down. When Gerry arrived, Nonnie was vomiting and confused. Cindy called again and Gerry answered just as the ambulance arrived. Nonnie was taken to Kaweah Delta hospital. When she arrived, she was confused but still talking to the doctors. She knew her name and could respond to simple questions, but she couldn't remember exactly where she lived, her phone number, or her children's last names. They sedated her in order to get a CT scan, and that's how she was when I arrived - sedated and unresponsive. My mother was out of town and so was my sister, Julie. I was alone when the doctor came in to show me the CT scan. "This is very serious," he told me. Nonnie's brain showed a massive amount of blood collecting on one side - the same side where she'd suffered her first stroke. Her brain was being compressed. I felt my heart drop to my stomach. I called my brother Danny in Sacramento, where my sister Julie was also visiting, and told him the news. I tried to hold back my tears as I told him. I wished I had a cigarette even though I don't smoke. I knew how serious it was and I said the words that I had been thinking for the past 15 minutes. "I think this is it." I told Danny. A few hours later, after my mother had arrived, Nonnie was flown to Modesto Memorial Hospital in the hopes that she would see a neurosurgeon and he would provide more answers on her condition. I didn't drive up but waited for my mom to call with news. Later that evening, I was going crazy. I couldn't wait any longer and called the hospital. My mom said the neurosurgeon told them there was nothing he could do, which we had already figured. Nonnie was on a respirator and had never regained consciousness. My mother's only sibling, her sister Cindy, was in the air, making the trip from Eastern Canada to California. It was a lonely decision. My mother took Nonnie off the respirator. She was told it would possibly be an hour or so before Nonnie stopped breathing, if she breathed on her own at all. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to be with them, but mom said that Nonnie would be gone before I could get up to Modesto. I paced, I cried, I bit my fingernails, and finally went to bed that night only after taking Benadryl - knowing that the next morning, Nonnie would be gone. On Sunday morning, I tried to call my mom and my sister Julie, but there was no answer. I called Danny's number and my sister-in-law, Stacy, answered. "They're at the hospital," she told me, "and I'm getting ready to go too. There's no change." Amazingly, Nonnie was still breathing on her own 12 hours later. I had to go - I couldn't stand it one second longer. Joe and I scrambled to get people to watch the kids while we threw things in a bag. We didn't talk much the whole way up, not knowing what to expect. But when we arrived, Nonnie was still breathing. We greeted Mom, Steve, Danny and Stacy in the room, but I could hardly stand to look at Nonnie. She was so pale and still, her head to one side and her mouth open, her breathing somewhat labored. I kissed her cheek. Mom filled us in on the details, which weren't many. Nonnie was holding her own, but they assured her, it was just a matter of time. They decided to move Nonnie out of the ICU and into a private room to wait it out. Nonnie's friend Gerry came in and looked at Nonnie and said to my mom, "She looks different, Jana. She's paler." I looked at Gerry and she whispered to me, "She's not long for this world now." I didn't want to hear it - it even made me a little angry. But she was right. We began to clear out of the room so that they could move her. I was following my mom down the hall when I heard Steve say, "They're not moving her! She's stopped breathing." I grabbed my sister Julie out of the waiting area and we ran back to Nonnie's room. Her breathing had stopped. I grabbed Nonnie's hand and held it and we all began to cry. We couldn't stop the tears or the sobs - such immense sorrow washed over that little room. The nurse came in and told us that we would have to wait until her heart stopped. I held Nonnie's hand and squeezed her wrist until I could feel her pulse. It slowed steadily and after a minute or two, it stopped. "Oh, Nonnie..." I cried. Almost at that very moment, the hospital chaplain came silently into the room and put his hand on my mother. "Is she gone?" he asked. My mother nodded, "Just now." Then he held my mother's hand and put his other hand on Nonnie and said, "Let's pray her into heaven." I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing that this was exactly what Nonnie would have wanted - all of us praying. I looked at the clock and realized that it was 3:15 when she died - just an hour or so after I arrived. She waited for me, I thought. She waited until we were all here. Soon after, Julie and I rushed around trying to find Danny who had left the hospital to get something to eat. We met him as he and Stacy were coming back toward the ICU. I shook my head and Julie said, "She's gone." Danny covered his face with his hands and we all hugged each other. The four of us went back to the room so that he could say goodbye, and Danny began to sob. He hugged Nonnie and we all stayed with her awhile. By the time the paperwork was finished and they were ready to take her away, I knew in my heart that she was already gone. I looked back at her body there in the hospital bed and told my mom, "She's not here anymore." We cried a lot that day - sitting around a table outside the hospital - trying to decide what to do next. My mom was fairly calm, keeping it together for the rest of us like she always does. She and Steve still had to travel to San Francisco to pick up her sister. I was glad she was coming so soon - they were going to need each other. Joe and I drove back to Visalia, and I called other family members on the way to give them the news, including my Gramma Mary - my father's mother. "You're the only grandma I have now." I told her. She laughed and cried at the same time, "Oh, honey, I'm no substitute for Nonnie." That statement sums it up, I think. There is no substitute for Nonnie. There will always be this giant missing piece - this vital presence - gone from our lives. I still can't fathom that she's gone. I had just talked to her on the phone the night before, inviting her to a fashion-show party I was having at mom's the following Friday. Nonnie loved clothes, and I knew she would enjoy the party. "You're so stylish, Non." I told her that night. She laughed, "Oh, I don't know about that.." Which of course, she did - all of us girls in the family benefited from Nonnie's love of shopping and nice clothes. She often bought things in a size just a bit too large for her tiny frame and would say, "This just doesn't fit me, sweetheart, I want you to try it on." I wore lots of Nonnie clothes and was proud of it. I used to tell people I had just gone shopping in Nonnie's closet. "Go look at those old ladies living around you." I said to her that night. "Do any of them look like you?" She just laughed. "I am proud of the fact that my grandmother is so stylish." I told her. Nonnie was making beans and cornbread for dinner that night, getting the cornbread out of the oven as we talked. I never thought that would be the last time we would speak. I called her all the time, just like everyone else in our family. And she called us - just to check in on us, or to tell us how much she enjoyed our lunch together, or to find out how Harry's first day of preschool went, or how I was feeling after I'd been sick, or just to say "I'm thinking about you and I love you." Nonnie always called. She was always there. You could count on her and you never doubted that she loved you unconditionally. When you felt bad or down or worried, you could call Nonnie and be reassured. That kind of peace is so precious. No family party or special occasion was without Nonnie. She had been to my house earlier that week to visit with me. She had just come from getting her nails done and was on her way to Costco. She was always busy - always doing. She played with Harry and let him drink her iced tea, laughing at him. She loved the kids and they loved her. Joe cried at the restaurant on our way home that night saying, "It just makes me so sad that our kids won't get to know her...or how wonderful she was." That is up to us, I suppose. We have to tell our kids about our wonderful Nonnie. We are her legacy. I feel privileged to have had her in my life for so long. It just wasn't long enough. That is selfish, I know. I would never have wanted Nonnie to suffer through some horrendous illness or disease. But I wish we'd had her longer. Our family needed Nonnie - I needed her. I continue to see her in my mind and I often hear her voice. Nothing profound - just little moments - things she said, what she was wearing on a certain day. I see her giving Harry a drink of tea, walking through my front door, sitting at my mom's kitchen table. It's strange, but everytime I picture her, I see her laughing. Maybe it's because she laughed so much at Harry on that last day I was with her. Or maybe it's because that's how I choose to remember her - smiling and laughing. I miss her...