You Give and Take Away

The song on my mind this morning:
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
Blessed the name.
Blessed be His glorious name.
Every blessing you pour out I turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in, Lord,
Still I will say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be your name."

It's been almost a week since my mother passed away. I am finally able to compose some semblance of coherent thought about it today. I can't believe it. I still have it running through my mind, "Just don't think about, just don't think about it. If I don't think about it, it didn't happen...."

However, over the course of the week I have had little glimpses from the Spirit of blessings that God sprinkled out on us during our last little bit of time with her. I took her with me to my 10-week sonogram. She was so, so excited, and said at the time that this was major to her-- it was the first time for her to get to see a sonogram in person. She never had one herself, so had never been in the room and seen it/ experienced it being done. She was also so thrilled about having another little grandbaby! She told almost everyone we came across. And during the sonogram, the baby put on quite a show for his/her Grammy! He jumped around and kicked his little legs quite a bit, and sucked on his thumb the whole time. Mom thought that was really cute.

Another big blessing of that day was that we accidentally showed up 2 hours early. We had planned that day to take her out to lunch with us, and then go to the hospital and be on time. Mom was never on time, so we planned on giving ourselves a full 2 hours to eat lunch and then get to the appointment. The original appointment time was at 3pm. So, in our plans that turned into "Pick Mom up at 1pm". Then the day before, when we were talking about it, we forgot that we had already scheduled extra time into our plans, so we thought, "The appointment is at 1, we'll pick her up at 11am".

Well, regardless of the way the snafoo came about, it was a major blessing. We took Mom to eat at Cafe Max- she had never been there before, and she LOVED it. She also loved getting to try new things, which made it doubly good. We got to the doctor at 1, and discovered our error, but it wasn't a problem because she got to go shopping at the 2 boutiques on the first level of the hospital. And, one of them had a SALE! She had a great time, and bought a couple of family members some Christmas gifts.

I'm not sure that I'm ready to really discuss everything that has been happening lately, but I take great comfort in knowing how much she enjoyed her last weeks on this earth. She spent a lot of time with her "little Kylie" (my brother's 4-year-old), and made a fantastic costume for my 7-year-old neice Shayce. She spent time with my dad, and they came over to my house together several times recently. I've been having some struggles with being pregnant, and she was always wanting to bring something by that she thought might sound good to me, or something she had found on sale for the baby. I had to have an at-home fluid IV two weeks ago, and she and Dad came over and stayed with me during the day while David was at work, just in case someone came to the door or I needed something that would be awkward for me to get myself while dealing with an IV pole. They brought whoppers from Burger King for lunch, and jalapeno poppers from Weinerschnitzel- healthy eating wasn't really on the agenda, I guess (lol). She also brought me grapes several times in the last month- I've been craving them. She enjoyed being able to take care of me, and loved shopping, so it seemed like my pregnancy cravings were one of her favorite reasons to do both :). She was also starting to plan and think about my oldest sister's birthday party. She loved to plan parties. This year, her idea was to have a surprise party at my sister's house- she was like, "I'll just tell Neal, and we can all just show up at her house that night! She'll be really surprised!" I told her at the time that I wasn't sure that all of us showing up unannounced to make a mess and then leave would be what my sister wanted on her birthday, but my opinion did not deter her in the slightest- she just decided to plan it with one of my other siblings instead of me... Lol.