Archives for November 2011

I have been in Green Bay since Wednesday night.  Mom went into the hospital the day after I arrived.  She had another surgery and now she is at home resting until God calls her home.  For the entire time she was in the hospital she was joking, sleeping and just being Janet.

Now she is unresponsive yet still every bit “Janet”.  I rub her feet.  I put chap stik on her mouth.  I slept beside her bed last night. I counted the seconds between breaths.  I got up to give her morphine.  I put water in her mouth.  The hospice nurse came in the middle of night and I think I slept better when I knew someone was at least taking care of her.  This morning we turned her, the nurse came again and we have watched her throughout the day.  The life is leaving her.  Eternity awaits.

Her breathing is labored and has been since we got her home.

She’s still beautiful.  And I am so thankful to have this time. She gave me life and now I’m watching hers slip into Jesus’ arms.

After Gina made her phone call to this mystical mommy creature named Janet I got a phone call back from her.  Janet did, indeed, want to talk with me.  Gina gave me her phone number.  I nervously pondered whether I wanted to call or not.  I was about to make this mystical person in my head real.

Beside myself with nerves I finally dialed the number.  I can’t remember how long we talked that night but we talked on the phone for hours.  It was so strange to be telling my mom about my life growing up.  One thing we had in common was that we were both Mary Kay Consultants.  It’s a wonderful family to belong to and so nice to have some common ground.

For the next few days I felt as if in a dream.  Life seemed surreal. It was almost like an out of body experience.

I’ve often wondered how my mom has come to grips with seeing me as a baby and then as a 38 year old woman.  I know she has always thought of me as “Lynn”….the sweet baby she gave away so I could have a better life.  At our meeting I had grown up, developed my own personality, and was married.  How do you link the two differences?  For me, I was meeting someone I had never known but for her she was being reunited with a grown woman who was once her baby.

I know now that she was able to care for me for a period of time after my birth.  In 1965 things were done differently than they are now.  And the home she lived in provided a chance for moms to stay with their children for several weeks after their birth.  They were assigned different duties in the house but everyone took their turn with the babies.  She also got to see me right before I was adopted.  When we found each other she gave me the cross she had sent with me but was not allowed to leave for my adopted parents.  What a sweet thing to have.

As I write I am sitting in the airport waiting on my plane to go see her one last time.  Her battle with cancer will soon end and she’ll be standing at the feet of Jesus rejoicing with all the other Christians who have gone before her.

Our first meeting was on Mother’s Day.  Our last, on this earth, will be before Thanksgiving.  How appropriate.  I am thankful for having the time with her that I’ve had.  We first talked on my half sister’s birthday.  She was the person who put the information into the computer on the adoption website many years ago.  I have her to thank for having both my birth mom and birth father in my life now.

I think back on that Mother’s Day many years ago and remember looking at her, my half brother and half sister and thinking, “Wow.  I look like these people.”  For those not adopted it is an amazing connection that most just take for granted.

Since our first meeting which was awkward, wonderful and a million other things we have gotten to see one another quite a bit even though she lives in WI.  Her brother, my uncle, lives in NC so I try to meet her there each time  she visits them.  This visit will be my last.  I was blessed to be able to spend my first alone time with her in September.  We had five days together, just the two of us.  There was a blessed peace, a quietness, a playfulness we were able to experience all on our own.  And it was then I realized it was our first time where it was just us.  No outside distractions.  We slept.  We ate.  We slept more.  It was quiet.  We both enjoyed ourselves so very much.

Now as I am off to see her for the last time I draw on the time we had together in September.

And I’m thankful for her, her choice, and her ever closer meeting with The One We Love.