After a couple of weeks (I don't know) the family needed to get home so Mother and i had to decide what we were going to do. Wayne screamed at Bev that Bakersfield was no place for Mother. Jeff felt that Hot Springs wouldn't be good for us as I would need help with Mother and they were so busy all the time. I thought it would be best for her and the family if she were in California so they could come see her more often. Told her she needed to get out here as her kids were getting old and she'd want to see them before they started kicking the bucket. ;) The best way for her to travel, if we decided to go to California, was with Bev and George in their MH. To make a long story short, she said she wanted to go, then she didn't, then she did but that was the day after they left so Wayne came and got us in Henry's van. He had a bed made in the back for us so she'd be comfortable traveling. Riding back there was fine, but getting her in and out was a chore for her.
At Flagstaff we stopped for the night. They told us we were in room 16. Went there and it was a storage room. Mother could hardly walk but we made it to the right room after being sent back and forth a few times. It was cold and windy too. The transmission went out while we wer there so Wayne got on a bus and went home to get his Jeep. Poor Mother was not feeling at all well while we waited and just slept most of the time. Couldn't get her to eat. Once Wayne got back and we got on the road again she felt a bit better.
We stayed with Renee until October when Wayne found us this house. The owners knew him so didn't have to do a check on us and only asked for first and deposit. They are really nice and keep the place fumigated. I love them. :)
On the 25th I went to Jamestown for the memorial Mark's family held for him. I think all of them that I know were there. Patty had a screensaver on her TV that was a slide show of Mark and a full sized picture of him on one of the doors. It was hard seeing him standing there looking so cute; knowing I could never hug him again.
After I got back Mother started having one health problem after another and the doctors kept changing her medicine and she just got worse and worse until taking her back to the hospital didn't help. It was congestive heart failure. Hospice set her up with a hospital bed and other accessories we needed to take care of her at home. Bev and George came back down. Leah caught a train, and Brenda flew out. When Brenda got here she went over and said "Hi Mother." Mother said, "Well, who are you?" Brenda said "Oh, Mother, don't you know me?" "Well, I might have an idea." she twinkled. We lost her in her sleep on the 29th of October. Just a little over a month before her 99th birthday.
I still haven't taken it in that she's really gone. She never was gone before; she was just somewhere else. I miss her very much. Nobody ever loved her kids and grandkids more than Mother did; especially when she was younger before she had hundreds of them.
Food: Eating Us Alive
15 years ago