I had a nightmare the first night of our honeymoon, the night of the last day I saw my mommy conscious. I had a terrible dream that we were fighting and it upset me so much that I called her from Los Angeles in the middle of the night. I knew she was sick and in the hospital and I really struggled with whether to call her or not (it was like 3 am in Dallas). But in the end I did, because I was so shook up from my dream. I thank God every day that i did, because that was the last really good talk we had. She was loving and sweet and the wonderful mommy I had always known that night. I will forever treasure my memory of sitting in the dark living room of a bed and breakfast in L.A. hearing my mommy tell me how much she loved me and how proud of me she was. When I told her about my dream she said "Oh honey, why would I ever be mad at you? You're my precious baby girl and I love you."

I have to try to remember that, instead of thinking of how she was at the end, when I asked if she loved me and she said she was doing the best she could. My poor mommy, she must have been so sick and in so much pain to say that.

She had a rare blood disease called 5q minus syndrome. Basically, the 'q' arm on her 5th chromosome had disintegrated (they don't know what causes this, it's not genetic.) and the main symptom of this was that her bone marrow didn't make red blood. So she had to have 2 pints of blood every 2 weeks for over 5 years. Obviously this was very hard on her immune system and the iron levels in her body caused a lot of problems too. Still she was pretty stable, and did a lot better than most people who have this. She'd had some bad patches but was never even hospitalized for them and always came through. We both had a lot of faith and believed that she was going to get better.

She'd had over 300 pints of blood by december though, and her immune system was really suffering. She was sick last summer and they never discovered what it was that was making her so ill, she just started feeling somewhat better after a few weeks. Her doctor says he thinks she got an infection that they didn't catch & it just spread unchecked over the fall and it became septic the week of my wedding.

She was really in a lot of pain the week of the wedding, to the point where she was in the hospital here in Seattle on wednesday and thursday, but she bore up beautifully through the rehearsal and the ceremony and reception. My mother was absolutely amazing at putting on her happy face in public. When she was in public, she always looked perfect, no matter what was going on inside her. The thing I heard most often after she died was "I had no idea she was so sick" or that she was sick at all. She didn't want people to see her as a sickly person, so she worked really hard to always put on her lovely smiling face.

I knew this about her, but it never failed to amaze me. The night of the rehearsal dinner, she was in SO much pain and she was bloated and we could hardly get her into her dress, which upset her a lot. She could hardly stand up straight in the room, she was on the verge of tears and moaning from the hurt. I helped her down the hall and into the elevator, and as soon as we stepped into the lobby, she appeared to be FINE. She was smiling and laughing and when I got upset in the car about something important that I'd forgotten and all the things I needed to still do, she consoled me and it was like she was totally healthy and her only concern was me and my wedding. She was amazing.

I didn't know then, and know now, how much pain she was in and how hard she worked to appear lighthearted and happy the entire weekend and it just breaks my heart how she gave that to me, like she had for my whole life.

Of course, now I wish I'd spent more time with her that weekend, I wish I'd called her from Fiji when I felt like I should but didn't (because I was worried she'd be sick still and depress me on my honeymoon - I feel *so* selfish now because of that!), I wish I'd called her again the sunday night I got home (I ttalked to her 3 times in the afternoon from LAX and said I would call her the next day since we didn't get back to Seattle until very late. She said "Whatever, it's not like there's any day or night around here" and I didn't call until the next day when she was already too sick to talk to me, and I feel so bad about it...I know there's no use feeling guilt over things I didn't do now but I can't stop it.

She flew home on monday & went straight to the hospital. I am so glad that she wasn't moved to ICU until the morning after we got back to the states. By the time I actually made it to Dallas she wasn't conscious anymore, but I at least got to talk to her on the phone a few times. She was pretty drugged, but I at least got to tell her how much I loved her.

After I'd been by her bedside for about 24 hours, just holding her hand and telling her how much I loved her, and Gus had flown down to be with me, the doctors told me that she had no more reflexes and wasn't responding to pain, and that she was probably bleeding in her brain. They said it was only the massive ammounts of drugs keeping her alive, and they thought it would be best to turn them off. This was what she had wanted in a case like this, so I let them do it.

It was the most horrible 5 or 10 mintues of of my life after they turned off the iv. I'm not sure how long it really was, it felt like forever. I just stood there and held my mommy's hand and stroked her hair and told her how very much I loved her and what a good job she'd done raising and I sang her favourite hymns to her and prayed that God would just take her in His arms and welcome her into Heaven. When I was crying to hard too really think anymore, I just started singing Jesus Loves Me to her. She used to always hold me and sing that to me when I was sick or scared as a little girl.

After she went I just couldn't leave, because I knew I'd never see her on earth again. I stayed there hugging and kissing her and saying good-bye for about 30 minutes. I just kept kissing her forehead and stroking her beautiful hair and repeating "Bye bye mommy. I love you. Bye bye, I'll see you again mommy, I love you, bye bye..."

Finally I told Gus to take me out of there right then or I was never going to be able to leave.

I am indeed grateful that I at least got to hold her and kiss her again even if she didn't know I was there with here. Obviously I wish she'd been conscious, but I am thankful for at least getting to say good-bye to her in person. I promised her I wouldn't remember her like she looked in the hospital, because she was so very beautiful and always liked to look her best and it was terrible seeing her in the ICU all swollen up and on a respirator. At least she went peacefully and quietly. I made the doctors promise me that she would if they turned the drugs off, I didn't wwant her to go into spasms or anything. She just coughed weakly a few times. God, I'm so sorry I don't even know if I am making any sense here, I just...I miss her so much, she was so beautiful and kind and she loved me like no one else ever will.

We really had no other family, so I've had to handle all the insurance and selling her house and wrapping up all her business affairs and everything else. It's been hard, but it actually helped distract me to have so much to do. We stayed in Texas for 10 days trying to wrap up everything we could and then drove back up here with her car and two cats.

Almost every day, I forget and think about calling her or telling her something that happened or asking her something, and then it starts to hurt all over again. I found in the 2 weeks directly afterwards that I'd wake up in the morning with a wall built up around my feelings and I'd get through the whole day just not thinking about it, and then as the day wore on, the wall would start to crumble a little bit and sometime between dinner and bed I'd collapse into a crying fit again. Now it's just random throughout the day. I have a hard time sleeping still, I just think of her and can't stop.

I thought I'd be okay, I mean I thought I wouldn't need support groups or whatever, because I've lost 7 close friends over the years as well as several beloved pets and my grandmother. But all of those combined were NOTHING compared to how adrift I feel now. I realized that part of it was the fact that in the past I'd been surrounded by people who felt the same way about the deceased as I did, I had a group to grieve with. But no one knew or loved my mother like I did, and I feel so alone.