Life Kept On Going

Life.         Sometimes it's good, sometimes it bad, sometimes it just is. 

When I was a little girl I heard a song sung by Skeeter Davis called "The End of The World."  It got stuck in my head, and I have never forgotten it.


"Why does my heart go on beating, Why do these eyes of mine cry?  Don't they know it's the end of the world?  It ended when you said goodbye."


There have been times in my life when I've asked myself that same question.  How is it that life can still go on?  Surely it should have stopped when my first husband told me he wanted a divorce; when the man of my dreams decided he should take back his straying ex-wife for the sake of his children; when my dad died.


I suppose mom asked herself the same question after dad passed on.  It was difficult for all of us, but for her it must have been horrible.
Dad had always been healthy, while Mom's health declined for years.  It seemed obvious that dad would be the one left alone some day, so none of us were prepared when it turned out to be the other way around.
Mom was a trooper, though.  She just kept on getting up every morning, doing what she could to take care of the rest of us, and holding on. 

"I hate this," I told my husband one night after taking mom shopping at Wal mart.  "Mom must be bored to tears, sitting home all day, but she just doesn't have the strength to enjoy shopping anymore."

"Why don't you get one of those motorized scooters for her to ride while she shops?" Moe wanted to know.

"We've tried that, but mom worries she's in other people's way," I explained.  "She says she does better holding onto a push-cart, but she gets so worn out she can't enjoy herself."

 Little by little mom's pulmonary hypertension took it's toll, and eventually she ended up confined to a wheel chair.  Still, she went with me once a week to the Temple, and never missed church on Sundays, although she worried that the beeping noise from her oxygen disturbed the sisters sitting around her.

Mother tried to be independent.  I will never forget seeing her in the kitchen in the mornings, laboriously pouring scrambled eggs into a frying pan to make her own breakfast, or scrubbing the kitchen sink every Saturday, supporting herself with one hand on the counter, determined to do at least that much of the housework.

Most days she spent in the office bringing her journal up to date, or sitting at a card table in her bedroom, making scrapbooks for her grandchildren.  In our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, children aren't baptized until they are eight years old and mature enough to know right from wrong.  Mother made a beautiful, detailed scrapbook for each of her thirty-four grandchildren when they were baptized.  Towards the end, that labor of love took up nearly all of her energy.

As Relief Society President, I was able to assign mom to be my Visiting Teaching partner, hoping it would give her something to occupy her time.  Like most things, though, it turned out to be a greater blessing for me and the sisters we visited.  Mother had a knack for making people feel loved and important.  The sisters we visited both had grave problems of their own, and mom listened and loved them, and made them feel like they were her dear friends.  Both sisters thanked me over and over for sharing  mom with them.

Eventually mom had to stop going with me on my visits, but she still sent cards to these women, and plants and goodies to let them know she was thinking of them.

Little by little, time went on.  Christmas Eve, 2009, was the first anniversary of the day dad died.  I worried a little about how mom would do, but dad took care of it for us.

That morning, my niece Jennica Lyn had a a little baby girl, AT HOME!  Not by choice.  Jennica lived in New York City.  My sister Linda, and her husband Alan, (the doctor) flew out to spend Christmas with her, and be there when the baby came.  That morning Jennica started feeling like it was about time to have the baby, but when her dad and husband tried to help her out to the car her water broke and the baby began to come.  They took her back inside and Alan delivered the baby for her there, on her ottoman in her living room. 

"It was so special," Linda told mom when they called to tell her about it at 9:00 that morning.  "We all felt dad's presence, helping bring little Evie into the world." 

One more tender mercy the Lord bestowed upon mother, and the rest of us, that year.  Dad may have been on the other side of the veil, but he was not gone. 

And so the world kept on spinning, time kept on passing, and life kept on going.  And it was good.