Grandmother of the Bride

A year ago, we were happily planning my younger daughter’s wedding that was scheduled to take place March 24. At the time, my mother lived in Texas, daughter lived in New York, the wedding was in Oklahoma and I live on the east coast.

In late February, we converged on Oklahoma for a wedding shower and thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone. We ate at the County Line restaurant (an odd choice given that daughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law are vegetarians) and visited the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Mom was in great spirits but just picked at her food. She had lost a lot of weight and when asked, she said, delightedly, that she had, “given up sweets.”

On Sunday, March 4th, I called my mother, who had returned home to Texas. I could barely understand her because she was coughing so much. She insisted that there had been a cough “going around” and that she’d had the same cough when I’d seen her the week before, in Oklahoma. Just not so. I insisted that she go to the doctor and she did, the next day.

He scheduled ex-rays for that Thursday. When I asked her if he was looking for pneumonia she started to hedge then said, “Well, I used to smoke…” then tried to change the subject. I’ll skim over the rest of the conversation but you can see where this is going.

On Thursday (a year ago, today), they found spots. Not “a” spot, but “spots.” An MRI was scheduled for the next day. By Saturday, she was in the hospital with a plural effusion and a diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer.

Mom made it to the wedding and and while she was on oxygen and very tired, she just glowed with happiness at being the grandmother-of-the-bride. The next day, I took her home to Texas to pack and say goodbye to her friends and neighbors. We traveled cross country to my house with oxygen tanks and as many of her precious keepsakes as we could cram into the car. I also mailed about 40 boxes of this and that so that it would be waiting for her when we got home to my house. We arrived on April the first.

My son was also getting married, in August. She really wanted to be able to attend but refused medical treatment, a decision that hospice and the doctors supported, given her prognosis.

Mom died the day before Mother’s Day, at my home, with my children and me at her bedside.

Mom has been on my mind, as you might imagine. She loved daisies and I have some fabric with daisies on it that I bought to make her a quilt a couple of years ago. I ended up using a different fabric but still had this sitting around. This morning, I used the fabric to make a sewing caddy to sit by my sewing machine. I can’t look at daisies without thinking of her. Both are bright, cheerful, optimistic and happy. My mom was like that.

I miss her.