Happy Birthday, Mom. We miss you.

We're coming to the end of the blogathon, and I just want to take one more opportunity to thank all my sponsors.

Rob--for your donation as well as taking Noah all day so I could blog, and staying up with me for the last 7 hours of the event. UPDATE: And then watching Noah all day Sunday while I slept.

Linda--for the writing as well as financial contributions

Kris & George--again, for stories, too

Andie--whose email in the middle of the night kept me going when I wasn't sure I wanted to anymore

And to Chris, Bruce, and the ever-philanthropic Anonymous, for their generous donations to a great cause.

I hope you all found this website worthy of your sponsorship.

UPDATE: Also, almost forgot. A very special thanks goes out to Kat, who stopped in to give moral support throughout the night, even though we've never met. Until you've done one of these things, you can't imagine how much feedback helps.

UPDATE 9/4: Also, thanks to Len Zazzarino, who made a donation in my mom's name after reading this site, even though the blogathon was over. It's much appreciated, Len.

Thanks, and...



...bye-bye! (Picture is my mom and I, New Year's Eve, 1974)

My last content post...from my aunt Linda:

"Watching her die was one of the hardest experiences I
have ever encountered. I was her friend as well as
her sister in law. She and I confided in each other.
Her faith in God was so strong, but she also struggled
with the fear of dying and not wanting to die. She
asked me to come be with her at the hospital thru
those last few weeks of her life. I was there when
she died. She valiently struggled to live. She even
put herself thru being on a respirator.

"I do know she knew we were there even tho she couldn't respond to us. It's
an honor to be with someone you love when they die.
You get to hold their hand and remind them that the
angels are there to assist them crossing back to the
spiritual side. I never regretted being with her
during this time of her life."

The last hospital visit (now with 57% less glurge!)I originally wrote this story as part of an essay in my freshman comp class. At the time, I thought it was the--best--writing--ever, but reading it back this week, I have realized that a lot of it was contrived, sentimental, melodramatic crap. I've taken out the most cloying sections, but I've left most of the minorly sappy stuff intact...because, well, that's what I do here. And it's 7 am in Houston, I've been up for 24 hours, and I'm too delirious with sleep deprivation to write anything better. So here it is:

The bell in the elevator beeped when we reached the third floor. We stepped out into the too-dark hallway and walked down to Mom's hospital room. The dimly lit hallway reminded me of the long corridors in the emerald castle in the Wizard of Oz. When the nurse opened the door to Mom's room, I half-expected to see columns of fire and a big holographic face floating in the air, shouting, "You have come to see MOM, the great and powerful?"

Instead, all I saw was a standard hospital room, and my mom sitting on one of the beds. She smiled when we walked in...but as I stood there across the room, I was frightened at how fragile she looked. She had always been small, but now she was just skin and bones. Tubes ran from both her wrists up to IVs on either side.

"Hi, kids." She said it in a voice barely over a whisper. Her voice was the same one I had heard since birth, and come to love more than any other. The ominous tone of the day was broken, and we all rushed to sit next to her, and to answer her questions about little league games and swimming lessons. She held baby Jordan for a while, and made jokes about the hospital food. After about 10 minutes, the nurse approached us and ushered us out into the hallway again. She told us that Mom wanted to see each of us alone. Uh-oh. This had never happened before. My brother Creed was to go in first, then me, then Ryan, then Dad would go in with Jordan.

I could feel a lump forming in my throat as I walked slowly into her room for my turn. My mom was still sitting on the bed, but she looked like she had been crying. I felt sorry for her, and for myself. That emaciated person across from me was my mom, the one who had been there for every major event in my life. She was the one I turned to when I woke up scared in the middle of the night, the one who cleaned up my scraped knees, and the one who wiped away my tears when I cried. She was always there after school to smile and ask me about my day. I could not imagine life without her. I started to cry.

Mom reached out one of her hands to me, and I took it. She pulled me closer and gave me a hug...I hugged her back gently, and felt like I might break her. As she wiped my tears away, she whispered, "Don't cry, Joy. I love you." I smiled at her weakly, and said I loved her too. The nurse approached us then, and said that I should send Ryan in. I waved good-bye from the doorway and left the room.

That was the last time I saw my mom alive. I was too young to go visit her in ICU, which is where she was headed later that day, I think. They put her on a respirator, and feeding tubes, and made every effort to keep her alive for as long as they could, in the hopes that she would recover. My older brother was the only one old enough to see her like that.

I used to wish that I could have been with her when her soul left this earth, but now I'm glad I wasn't. Some things are just too much for a child's mind to bear.

The Wizard of Oz

My mom loved this movie. The day it came on network TV was an extremely big deal at our house. We'd look forward to it for weeks, clear our calendars as soon as we knew what day it was coming on...I don't remember a single year that we missed it.

We would all sit on the couch downstairs, eat popcorn, and enjoy the movie, commercial interruptions and all.

warning: I'm gearing up for another sad post, so be ready. In the meantime, here's my favorite picture of my older brother and me:

Let's see...what else have we got left on the list...there have been some comments that my posts lately have been depressing (ok, 1 comment, but every one matters). So here's one of them thar homecoming queen pictures that I like so much (and I said I might post sooo many hours ago...):

You're also starting to talk to yourself. :-)

ok, Joy...enough with the long posts...you're starting to get behind. :-)

"I think if she would have believed she was dying, she would have taken more time to write letters to her children about what life meant to her, how much she loved them, and advice for growing up..." - Linda ShepardShe probably would have, and I would have read every word over and over again. But in a way, she did write a letter like that, at least once.

The summer my mom passed away, I went to girl scout camp for a week. Even though this was less than a month before she died, she was still at home that week. I think she had the oxygen tanks, though, and wasn't moving around very much. Anyway, on the second day of camp, I sent a letter home, and on the third day, she sent a letter back to me at camp. I still have the letter, and keep it as one of my most cherished possessions. Here's what it said:

"Dear Joy,

Glad you are having a good time at camp. We all read your letter and were very happy to hear from you.

Not much has happened around here since you've been gone. Dad and Creed built a new pen for Sonny & Ginger [our dogs] back where you and Kallie had your club house. Ryan found your money, you left home on the counter.

Creed caught a nice wide-mouth bass up north fishing with Grandpa. You and Kallie only missed one [little league] game this week. One of your games was a "Bye". Dad and I are going to Creed's game this afternoon. (Wednesday)

Dad will be picking you & Kallie up Sat. morning. We can't all ride along cuz there isn't enough room in the car if Jordan goes along. His car seat is too big.

It sounds exciting at camp. Enjoy yourself.

I love you,

Mom and Dad

P. S. Creed, Andy [Creed's friend], Ryan, and Jordan all say "hi". Tell Kallie "hi" also. See ya soon XXXXXXXXX <---- All our love and kisses"

No, it wasn't deep insights, and it wasn't Shakespeare. It also didn't try to pass itself off as life advice. However, if you look at it closely enough, it imparts as many insights about what was important to her as if she had written a memoir.

"...she would have taken more time to write letters to her children about what life meant to her..." She wrote this letter when she was deathly ill, and didn't mention anything about being sick. Life, to her, was about self-sacrifice.

In two short pages, she mentions every member of our family, and chronicles everything they did that week I was gone. Life, to her, was about family.

She includes two neighbor kids in the written conversation, as though they were members of the family. Life to her, was about inclusiveness.

"Enjoy yourself." Life, to her, was about fun.

"...how much she loved them..."

"All our love and kisses"
"I love you, Mom and Dad"

"...and advice for growing up..."

"Creed caught a nice wide-mouth bass up north fishing with Grandpa" Acknowledge your children's accomplishments, no matter how small.

"Ryan found your money" Give credit where credit is due.

"Dad and I are going to Creed's game this afternoon." Be there for your kids.

"Dad will be picking you & Kallie up Sat. morning. We can't all ride along cuz there isn't enough room in the car if Jordan goes along. His car seat is too big." Do what you can, and be honest about your limitations.

"I love you, Mom and Dad" Tell people you love them.

See?

You can see the actual pages of the letter here: Page 1 Page 2

Need to upload some stuff...changing computers.

Oops...need a new post. Took me too long to write that last one.

The things she's handed down--the generation beforeWhen I asked people this week what they remembered about my mom, they always talked about how strong she was, and how she was dedicated to her family. When I think of those qualities, I know immediately where she learned them.

My grandmother is one of the most remarkable people I know. Her whole life has been based on faith in God and dedication to family, and it has not been easy. I don't know much about her life before she met my grandfather, except that her family survived through the Great Depression, and she lost her mom when she was young.

My grandma doesn't drive. She never learned how to drive a car, and still catches rides or takes the bus wherever she goes. She also was not a farming girl...she didn't like animals, and prefers indoor activities to outside ones. When she married my grandpa, she moved to his family farm, on the end of a dead-end country road, with nothing within walking distance. They lived on that farm for somewhere around 30 years, until they sold it to John and Linda in the 70s. She didn't like farming, but she loved Jack.

They were strong in their faith, members of St. John's Catholic Church. They started having children shortly after they were married, with no idea of the heartache that would come with the joy of their family. Grandma and Grandpa lost four children to CF over the years, 3 of them before they even had a chance to move out on their own. One was just a baby. As a mother, I cannot begin to imagine the kind of grief I would face in watching my son die of an incurable disease, let alone 4 children. Through all the pain, the family held strong.

My grandparents celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary this year. They have good relationships with all their surviving children, and everyone lives close to one another. Even their daughter in law Linda describes them as "the best parents in the world."

On May 15 of this year, my grandma faced yet another death in her life--her husband's. May he rest in peace, and I hope she will find comfort in her family and her faith to get her through the one death she wasn't able to face with Jack by her side.

My grandmother is the embodiment of strength and grace under fire. Mom truly did learn by example.

More musings from Aunt Kris, as left on my voicemail"Your mom was always such a good mother. Everything she did was for you kids. Let's see...what else do I remember?"

"That even when she was in the hospital, on a respirator and dying, she remembered her wedding anniversary."

I actually had to cook this time *gasp* Next post has content--promise.

I'm fried, guys....i can see the light at the end of the blogathon tunnel, though.

I'm rounding up posts for the last few hours...we're going to revisit some of that quote in the last post, hear from my aunt Kris one more time, have a cry over my last visit with my mom in the hospital, and hear from Linda again.

But right now, I need food...again.

More words from Linda"I remember when she was admitted to the hospital for the last time, and how we had prayed for a miracle for her to be healed...I remember how she struggled to live and how she hated leaving her children. I think if she would have believed she was dying, she would have taken more time to write letters to her children about what life meant to her, how much she loved them, and advice for growing up. She never intended to die and leave them. [In the end, though,]her dying was her healing."

Goodbyes and BubblegumWhen I was 6 years old, my uncle Ronnie lost his battle with CF. He was 22.

Though we have pictures of him playing with us kids, and he lived with my grandparents during a time that I went to visit them often, I don't really remember much about him. I remember that Grandma would always want us to be quiet when he was home, because he was usually sleeping. And I remember that he liked Mad magazine, he liked to draw, and he played the drums. And that he would always sit in the same chair on holidays...the one in the corner by the archway into the kitchen.

I also remember his funeral. It was the first one that my mom took me to. I'm not sure if it was because I wanted to go, or because she wanted us to see what a funeral was about before we faced hers.

The memories I have of that day are a little scattered (especially after 16 hours of blogging). I remember that there was a bouquet of flowers that my mom said were from us--his nephews and nieces. There were either 5 or 6 carnations (I don't remember how old my cousin Nick is...if he was born before then, there would be 6), and all of them were blue except one. The pink one, for me, because I was a girl. I wanted to take it out and home, but Mom wouldn't let me.

I remember walking up to the casket with my mom, holding her hand. She knelt down next to her youngest brother, and reached out her hand to touch his. Then she kissed him on the forehead, and we moved away and sat down with the rest of our family. I don't remember the service, and I don't think I was at the gravesite when they put him in the ground.

The only other thing I remember about the day was walking out of the funeral home, crying. My mom asked me if I wanted a piece of gum, and I nodded. It was Trident bubble gum...I'm not sure why that sticks in my mind.

Four years later, I went to my mother's viewing at the funeral home. As I waited my turn to go up to the casket to see her body, I watched the other people ahead of me. None of them touched her. I thought back to Ronnie's funeral, and how my mom had touched his hand, and kissed his forehead. Was I supposed to do that? I just didn't know.

I stood in front of my mother's lifeless body, that looked just like her, and yet wasn't her. Even though I was afraid that it wasn't the right thing to do, I touched her hand. It was cold and rough, but it was still my mom's hand. I stroked it a minute, and then went and sat down with my family.

No one offered me gum that day, though.

The back-clapping lady

My mom was always sick...she never acted like she was, but we all knew. Her CF mainly affected her digestive system, but the closer she got to the end of her life, the more the mucus started to fill up her lungs as well.

I don't remember exactly when the back-clapping lady started to visit our house regularly. I know she didn't always come...but I know she was a regular visitor for at least a year.

The back-clapping lady was a nurse that came by our house to pound on my mom's back and sides with her cupped hands. This treatment loosened the mucus in her lungs, and helped her to breathe easier. It also made her cough harder while it was going on. At first, it looked like the lady was hurting her. I would stay out of the room, and just let them do their thing.

After a while, I started to listen in the hallway...between the coughing spells, my mom and the nurse would talk about her kids, and us, crafts and shopping. Over time, I realized that the back-clapping was a good thing, and the nurse taught me a little bit about how to do it.

I would practice on my dolls(or my brothers), trying to get my hands cupped just right. Every once in a while, I would try it on Mom. She always told me that I helped, though I doubt that I was really strong enough to do much good.

Master of DisguiseI asked my aunt Kris (dad's sister & our actor in the family), yesterday afternoon if she had any memories she could give me to put up here for the blogathon. Here's what she remembers:

"One halloween, I decided I was going to really surprise you kids. I was dressed up in one of my old lady costumes, with this old mask that covered my hair, and my whole face. I parked my car two blocks away, and walked around the back side of the block and up the front walk. I even changed my walk a little, to make sure that no one would know it was me.

"I rang the doorbell, and your mom answered and said, 'Hi, Kris.'"

"You gotta blog...like there's nobody watching..."This is frustrating...on the one hand, I have other memories that I feel like I should share, because that's what I put this site up to do. On the other, I've had like 4 visitors all day that stayed long enough to read anything. (Thanks, Kat, for your comments. It's good to see you come back tonight.)

15 hours into this, and I'm just not sure anyone cares anymore. It's entirely my fault, of course. I didn't advertise, except to family and friends...and I didn't join the webring so I could get fellow-participant traffic. All I can really hope for is whatever traffic ambles by. And on some level, that's the way I wanted it. It's just that after 12 or so hours, that lack of feedback can get discouraging.

Aw hell...I considered just writing about news, product reviews, and life for this last 10 hours, but I think I'm going to keep going with the memories. Whether anyone's reading them or not, I feel better when I write them.

More Writings from Linda"I remember when she became pregnant with her last child, Jordan. The docs wanted her to abort this last baby. She really wrestled with this one. We went away to a women's retreat. While there she counseled with the priests and we had many long talks about what her options were.

"No one said she had to have the baby, in fact, most were agreeing with the doctors to abort. She felt very strongly that God would help her have the child. It was a difficult pregnancy, adn she spent the last of it in the hospital. Her son was born premature and her health was shot.

"Mary knew that she would need a lot of help, and she turned to her parents for support...She has the greatest parents in the world.

"She only lived for 7 months of Jordan's life. I can't imagine the emotional struggles she felt about dying and leaving a 7-month-old baby and 3 other children."

Ack. I really should have gone to bed earlier last night.

My brain is as fuzzy as...as...something really fuzzy.

Real content coming in next post...I promise.

Mission: ImpossibleWhen I was a kid, we lived in a college town of about 12,000 people. Even though there was technically a mall there, it was pretty well known that you would have to go to the next town over if you wanted to do any serious shopping. And my mom was a serious shopper.

The nearest zoo, orthodontist, and the doctors and hospitals we regularly went to were also in the next larger town, so it happened that we made a lot of car trips. Before every one of them, we were charged with the same nearly-impossible mission:

Find Mom's glasses.

My mom hated to actually wear her glasses around the house, and wasn't required to wear them unless she was reading or driving. Since she could read anywhere in the house (and subsequently take her glasses off), and she was a pretty avid reader, there was just no telling where we might have to hunt.

Not to mention that finding her glasses was, most of the time, the last thing she thought about before we left. By the time she got the diaper bags and the picnic baskets, and the purse, and the shoes on every kid, she would often get to the car before realizing that she couldn't see well enough to drive.

So there was always this mad rush to find her glasses whenever we went anywhere. Some of the more unusual places we found them:

In the cushions of the couch
In the refrigerator
In her closet
Hanging from a lampshade
In the cookie jar

Most times, they were just hidden under stacks of mail, or on the windowsill above the sink, though.

When baby Jordan was born, the task's intensity doubled, because a mission was added to the quest: Find Jordan's bottle.

It's a wonder we ever made it anywhere on time.

The things she's handed downWhen my mom wrote notes to school, she signed them "Mom Radle". I rolled my eyes at it then, but now I sign my son's school notes the same way.

Hey...it just occurred to me. We're over halfway there...only 10 1/2 hours to go. at least 21 posts. I can do this. I've still got a good 12 mom topics left to cover. Plus, when you take into account that there's at least two more hunger-induced writer's blocks on the way, it's smooth sailing. :)

Gratuitous Pledge-Grubbing Hey...sponsor me, will ya?

Dammit, TLC!Oh, sure. I move my blog operations to the living room so I can watch the Trading Spaces marathon, and now it's over. *sigh* I guess I'll have to watch crime shows.

Speaking of hairWhile we're on hair...one of the things I missed most about my mom right after she died was her ability to style my hair. It was something I didn't think I'd miss...I've never really been much of a girly-girl, and hair mostly just gets in my way.

My mom loved to brush my hair, though...she did it every morning before school, and on special occasions she would spend hours putting it into french braids down the back. I knew how to brush my hair, but it was long enough that it wasn't all that easy, and I didn't have the coordination to ever put it up properly. My dad didn't have the time for hair brushing, nor was he particularly interested in doing it. With working, and raising 4 kids, and dealing with the grief of losing his wife, he had all he could handle.

Sometime in August of 1984, I went to a salon and had my hair cut short. For the rest of my life since then, I've never had hair longer than shoulder length. I don't really miss it, but I still miss the talks my mom and I had while brushing it.

Bad Hair DayMy mom was a natural blonde. She had beautiful, long, healthy hair...but for some reason, she spent what seemed like forever (to a six-year-old...the whole quest probably lasted about a year) trying to dye her hair the color of mine(sandy brown). Blondes may have more fun, but I guess my mom wanted to settle down--she wanted to be a brunette.

She tried one home coloring kit after another, none achieving the desired effect. She got to where she would buy three different colors, bring them all home, and test each one on a section of hair she had cut from her head. I would then have to come into the bathroom so she could hold up the various test strips and see which one was closest to my color.

There was this one time that I'll never forget. About 3 or 4 weeks after yet another failed attempt at "mousy brown", she came home with another kit, certain that this was The One. She did the testing thing, careful to wait the required amount of time to see how the changes played out. I was called in for the requisite comparison. Apparently, she liked what she saw, because she did go through with the full application this time.

Unfortunately, she didn't take into account that her hair had just needed to be dyed back to blonde only a few weeks earlier. The reaction between the new dye and the old dye was not good, and...well...

Her hair turned green. I thought she might just cry for days.

(She got over it after a short while, put a scarf over her head, and made an appointment to have the hair professionally returned to its original color.)

More from my guest author, LindaHere's some more comments from Linda Shepard, on the kind of person Mom was:

"Mary made tough choices and lived her choices the best she could. Her life wasn't about accumulating wealth, although she liked pretty things, a nice home, a fun night out, and clothes. Her life was about having what most people said she should never have--a family. She gave her life to that dream to make it a reality."

Hi, my name is Joy, and I am a Trading Spaces addict... Well, instead of writing something blogworthy, I moved my operations to the laptop in the living room so I can watch Trading Spaces on the big TV while I blog.

Considering that TLC's been having a marathon all day today., I've showed uncharacteristic restraint in leaving the TV off for this long. I held out as long as I could.

7:00 pm: Post...something. Anything. Then eat some wings.

Aw, screw it...who wants pie?I think I'm beginning to see a pattern in the blogging timeline, today:

(all times CDT)
7:15 am: Wake up, hungry.
7:30 am: Eat cereal.
8:00 am: Start blogging.
12:00 pm: Get hungry.
1:00 pm: Lose all desire to blog.
1:30 pm: Eat chili dog.
2:30 pm: Think of interesting (I hope) things to say again.
6:30 pm: Get hungry.

Hmm. I think my non-stop blogging tolerance is right around 4 hours, don't you? And by an amazing damn coincidence, it also coincides with my need to gnaw on something. Any guesses on what the next step on the timeline will be? :-)

But let's look on the bright side...if we follow the pattern, the posts will only be truly devoid of content every 5 hours or so.

Yay, me!

I guess you had to be there

One time, Mom took pictures of my younger brother Ryan and me sitting in the living room with balloons on our toes. We were maybe 8 and 5 years old.

I don't remember why we did it, and I don't know why she would have wanted to take a picture of it. But I'm glad she did.

(I couldn't find the picture..it must be at my dad's house. I don't know what would have made me think of it, either.)

Things I wish I hadWhen I was 3 years old, we lived in a rental house in 11th street. I used to have this recurring dream about a glass watch behind the dresser, and every morning I would get up and check to be sure it wasn't really there. It never was.

I'm not sure what the symbolism of that dream is...I'm not sure I completely believe all the dream analysis psychobabble anyway. I only mention it because sometimes I have memories of my mom that I'm not sure are real, and would give anything to find evidence that they were.

I remember a tape recorder sitting next to her on the piano bench. I would love to have just one of the tapes that she made with it.

I remember her spending hours writing in a journal. I haven't seen that journal since she passed away.

Maybe someone else in my family has them. If so, then that's cool. I'd just like to know that I'm not imagining glass watches again.

File under 'Miscellaneous' My mom loved Juice Newton's music...but she never called her by her real name(if "Juice" is even her real name). She always called her "Peach" Newton.

I have no idea why.

Unfinished, with LoveMy parents bought the house on 2nd Avenue in the summer of 1980. It was the end result of years of sacrifice and diligent saving, and my mom was proud of it. The house was always an ongoing project. She painstakingly chose paint colors, and painted every room the color that best suited the mood she wanted to inspire. I remember dad building walls in the basement, we kids making handprints in the front walk after Dad poured the concrete, and Mom putting up peel-n-stick tile on the wall to the side of the basement stairs.

My favorite home improvement memory, though, is in the bathroom.

The bathroom was one of the last rooms to be decorated. I'm not really sure why...maybe because it was small, or because she wanted to wallpaper it, and wallpaper was expensive. Perhaps because wallpaper did cost more (or just because she wanted it that way), her plan was to wallpaper the wall with the vanity mirror and the toilet, and then paint the rest of the walls.

By the time the bathroom was being papered and painted, the newness (and, consequently, fun-ness) of decorating the new house had worn off. People had gotten busy with other projects, so she did that room on her own. The trouble arose as a result of three factors:

1. Mom was just over 5 feet tall
2. The walls in the house were 8 feet tall
3. We had no stepladder that would fit in the bathroom.

The wallpaper went on ok...I think she must have had help with that. When painting the other 3 walls, though, she simply could not reach the last foot of sheetrock on the tops of the walls. The decor in the bathroom ended up with the bottom 7/8 "Saharan Sand(or something like that--it was tan)", and the top 1/8 a perfect "Drywall White".

I'm sure she meant to come back and finish it...but with her life as busy as it was, and getting sicker every year, she just never made it back to that project. We had the house for 7 more years after she died, and the bathroom stayed that way for the duration. I'm not sure why my dad didn't ever finish the painting. Maybe it was because he was too busy with raising four kids, or that it had just been that way long enough that we didn't notice it anymore, or maybe because that clean foot of drywall that she couldn't reach was just another little reminder of the woman we all loved. I prefer to think it was that last one.

The house has changed hands a couple times since my family owned it...one family added a garage, another replaced the hand-poured walkway with a more professional job. Every time I saw a new change to the outside of the house, I wondered if the owners had repainted the bathroom. And it always made me sad to think that they probably had.

One time when I was in college, I delivered pizza to that address. It was so hard to fight the urge to ask to use his bathroom.

Many thanks to my newest sponsor, Bruce(my uncle)! This brings the total to $344.

The Sneeze"CF causes the body to produce an abnormally thick, sticky mucus, due to the faulty transport of sodium and chloride (salt) within cells lining organs such as the lungs..." -From the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website, About CF page.

I mentioned several posts ago that I don't really remember my mom being sick. That's only partially true. She was always sick, so it was really more that it was so much a part of who she was that it gets forgotten. That, and she never complained.

There were times, though, that we got little reminders how seriously ill she was. The summer I was 9 years old, we had 2 or 3 daycare regulars and the occasional drop-in, most of them babies. This was just about a year before she died, so her lungs were not in very good shape at this point. She may or may not have had the oxygen tank home with her...it was another one of those background things--she didn't always have one, but it was there often enough that it wasn't worrisome to see it in the hallway.

It seemed like an ordinary day...we had already been outside for a while, and I think she was getting the babies ready for a snack, or something. There was another adult there...but I don't remember who it was. While she was bent over to pick up one of the babies, she sneezed--and her lung collapsed.

She had to be rushed to the hospital, where they reinflated her lung with a tube in her chest, and she stayed there for a few days. This wasn't the first or last time this had happened, but it was the first time I had been there when it did. For years afterward, it didn't occur to me that the reason the sneeze collapsed her lung was because her lungs were too weak from the CF.

I am still careful never to sneeze while bending over.

[Mary] could have used her intelligence in the business world, but chose mothering. She never never regretted that choice." -Linda ShepardMy son goes to day care every day from 8 am to 6:00 pm. He's the kind of kids that likes it. He's very outgoing--whenever we move to a new place, he goes around to all the houses in the neighborhood and knocks on doors, asking "Are there any kids here?"

I have no idea where he gets that from--some recessive gene, I guess. I was a shy kid...almost painfully so. I was afraid of other kids, and was my own best friend. I used to go to the park near my house by myself, and go home if there were kids already there. .Day care would have been my own personal hell during childhood.

I am so thankful that my mom chose to be a stay-at-home mom. She took in other people's children, and helped me make friends when I didn't know how. Yet, she never tried to force me into situations that I didn't feel comfortable with...she encouraged me when I wanted to stay home and read books instead of being in the girl scouts. She understood when I wanted to stay home and play with her, instead of going to the park with my brothers. She took me shopping with her, and let me "help" her with crafts, even though I know it took her longer that way.

She always made me feel like it was okay to be just what I was. And eventually (many years later), I started to come out of that shell I was hiding in...on my own terms.

On being 28...

There's that old saying that as you get older, your parents get smarter. While I don't think I ever had any doubt that this is true, it should also say that your parents get more impressive.

I was sitting around my house the other day, thinking about how well my life had turned out. Sure, I had made some mistakes....I was a slacker in college, ended up getting pregnant in a relationship that was going nowhere, dropped out of college, had a handful of failed relationships, etc, etc.

But after my son was born, I dropped back into college, graduated, and moved across the country to take a job that would support the two of us. It's 4 years later now, and we're doing ok. My son is almost eight, and he's happy, smart, healthy, and mature for his age. I make a comfortable living, own a home, and my son goes to good schools. No, I don't spend as much time with Noah as I should, I can barely keep up with the housework, let alone decorate it. I don't have any money in savings, and I don't really like my job...but overall, if you were going to do a balance sheet for my life at 28, most things would fall into the "success" column. I was managing my complicated life pretty well, if I did say so myself.

Yeah, I was starting to feel pretty self-satisfied...until I thought about where my mom was at 28. By the time my mom was my age, she had 3 kids under the age of 6 and a husband to take care of, a house to run, and a day care business out of her home. She was also putting money away in savings toward the house they would buy 3 years later. She kept everything going...the house was clean and pretty, the kids were fed and clothed, and no one ever felt neglected.

And she was doing this on roughly 1/4 of my budget, and while terminally ill. Somehow, she made it look fun, and even easy. That's a truly amazing person.

Ok...I'm feeling refreshed now. Since we're now up to the point in Mom's life that I took part in, the rest of the blogging will abandon the chronological format. And also, I'm tired of trying to plug things into the timeline. Plus, my memories are jumbled, as childhood memories often are. More in a minute...

On-topic content of this post: 0 Mmmm...Sonic. It's time to eat me a chili dog. See you in 30....

Well, crap. I am feeling a little burned out here. I meant to write down a set of 40 or so updates this week, and ended up managing to get about 5 out there. So now I'm out of pre-written material (as is apparent from the last 3 posts or so...) and am resorting to complaining about my procrastination in this sorry excuse for a post.

Oh, well. I post this, and I have another 1/2 hour to come up with a memory worthy of your readership. It'll get better---I promise!

Mom and Dad lived together for about 4-5 years before they finally got married in July of 1975. In the meantime, I was born in early 1974. This pregnancy didn't go as well as the first, and I was born 3 weeks premature and underweight (about 5 1/2 lbs). My brother and I were in their wedding pictures.

When I talked to my dad a little while ago, I pumped him for stories that I didn't already know. He had this to say about the wedding:

-My mom had to jump through some religious hoops to marry him--since the Catholic church at that time didn't acknowledge divorces, she had to get her first marriage annulled before her new marriage would be recognized by the church.

-At the wedding dance, the singer got sick at the last minute. Luckily, there was a guy there that was an acquaintance of my dad. He had brought with him a "belt of harmonicas", and agreed to play for the dance. He played blues on the harmonica all night long.

-He remembers the wedding was fun, with music, friends, and practical jokes. A group of his friends stole the coil wire out of the car so that they couldn't leave. Since my dad looked like he was quite possibly shitfaced in this picture, it's probably best that they didn't drive themselves home. :-)

oh...no. My free image hosting account has exceeded its bandwidth limit. Pictures will be unavailable until I upgrade. Sorry, guys. I'll get them back up in a few minutes.

UPDATE: That's what I get for trying to get something for nothing. :-) I've sent them money, they've granted me more bandwidth. You should see images if you refresh.

My parents met while working together at a car dealership, I think. He had just graduated high school, and she was 22 and unhappily married. It was the early 70s.

I don’t know a lot of the details, but if pictures and half-remembered stories are any indication, it was the beginning of a “wild-child” sort of phase for Mom… My dad was one who lived "in the moment", younger than her, and offered some excitement in her life. She fell for him pretty quickly.

They must have started seeing each other in 1971, and she was pregnant by mid-1971. She was reasonably healthy then, and was able to carry Shayne to term. He was a normal sized baby, and showed no signs of CF, much to everyone’s relief. Even though it wasn’t the circumstances she wanted, she had achieved her dream, against the odds. She had the beginnings of her own family.

UPDATE: Just talked to my dad...it was a car dealership. She was the secretary, he was the "grease monkey", as he puts it. They were friends for a while, because she was still married. When she was separated from Dann, they moved in together.

“Mary was a very strong willed gal who set her mind on
doing what she wanted. She married who she wanted,
divorced when she recognized it wouldn't work…” –Linda ShepardI never knew my mom’s first husband, other than what’s in her scrapbook, and the scattered stories of people that knew them. Mom married her high school sweetheart, Dann, on February 7, 1970. The marriage was pretty short-lived…by the time my brother Shayne was born in 1972, she was in the process of a divorce.

According to Linda, Mom and Dann did truly love each other…there were just other factors that were more than she could bear. Some of the reasons she married him were the wrong ones, also…back to that sense of urgency about having kids. Once she started to realize that they were not going to live happily ever after, she thought it better to let him go, and look for someone with which she could be happy.

They divorced in 1972, I’m not sure exactly when. I didn’t even know she had been married before, until I happened upon my brother’s original baby book when I was 11. Shayne had Dann’s last name when he was born…and since they were still married at the time, it was hard for her to admit that he wasn’t Dann’s baby. My aunt (again) tells it like this:

”[Mary] owned up to some big truths about the birth of her first
son, even though it would have been easier to live lies...and moved on to the man she thought she
could love.”

Dann stayed in their hometown, and remarried. I went to school with one of his kids, who was a few years younger than me. By all accounts, he is a nice guy, and I’m sure he was good to her while they were together. All the same, I am grateful that she moved on and met my dad...or I wouldn't be here.

”Because they said I couldn’t have it.”Scene from Men of Honor:

Master Chief Sunday: Why do you want this so badly?
Carl Brashear: Because they said I couldn’t have it.

Of course, in that movie they were talking about being a master diver in the navy, but when I first watched it, I thought of my mom.

Her whole life, she was told that she wouldn’t have a family. When the doctors weren’t telling her that she wouldn’t live to be an adult, they were telling her that pregnancy would be life-threatening for her.

So, of course, this made her want and appreciate us even more when we got here. It also affected every decision she would make, because there was always that sense of urgency to achieve the most desperate desire of her heart—children.

My mother, the pack rat One of the things for which I’m most grateful to my mother is that she kept EVERYTHING. All our art projects, old calendars, birthday cards, thousands and thousands of pictures…As someone who took about 400 snapshots of my son during his first year and probably less than 20 photos since then(including school portraits), I am so grateful that she took the time to document her life.

One of my favorite memoirs of hers is her high school/early 20s scrapbook. It’s full of your typical high school fare—athletic letter, pins and awards, graduation programs, football rosters, school newspapers, etc.

Ah, but then there’s the good stuff. On one page, there’s a little paper pouch with the cryptic inscription “Now don’t break it!” Inside is a tiny, floppy vinyl 45 that she got from a Doors concert. “Light My Fire” on one side, “Break on Through” on the other.

On another page, there’s an ordinary piece of notepaper, with the words, “3:18 pm Sunday, July 20, 1969. Man touched foot on the moon. 19 years old” in her handwriting.

There are ticket stubs from concerts she attended. Newspaper clippings about “The Hendrix Experience”, and a clipping of the sheriff’s log in the local paper when my dad was arrested while they were dating(minor offense—my dad’s a good guy). A fairly decent original poem. There are 1960s teen magazine boyfriend/girlfriend quizzes that she took with her high school sweetheart…her answers on one page, his two pages later. Letters from the same guy, after he became her husband. Napkins from northwoods snowmobile resorts. The sales slip from her first car. A blank order form for a class ring.

It’s all in there, and every piece of it gives me another tiny insight into the person she was before I knew her. I had to ask my aunts and uncles about the significance of some of the more obscure stuff; and on others, no one but her could have given me an answer.

I guess when you grow up knowing your life will be short, every scrap of memory is something to treasure. In this one book of sometimes-inexplicable things, she chronicles a journey from preppie to hippie, the ups and downs of a blossoming (but ultimately doomed) romance, and the fact that Steve Best probably still owes her a dollar.



It may be just another collection of flotsam to anyone else, but it’s the best history book I’ve ever read.

Other Linda Stories - Homecoming QueenIn her senior year of HS, my mom was elected homecoming queen. These are some of my favorite pictures of her, because she looks so genuinely happy. (I haven't scanned more than just the one on the left there--I'll try to get some more up soon and link them in this post)

Still, Linda used to tell me that Mom was always insecure about getting the crown. By the time she was in high school, it was pretty well rumored that she wasn’t expected to live too long past 18. Even though she was outgoing and well-liked, Mom was never really sure if she was elected because she was pretty and popular, or because she was sick. No amount of reassurance from her friends could really convince her that she was homecoming queen because of personality, not pity.

Other Linda Stories – Tagalong MaryEven though she originally introduced them, my mom was sometimes jealous of Linda’s relationship with her older brother John. After a while, she had a boyfriend of her own (that she later married), but Linda used to tell me how my mom would always tag along on their dates. Linda used to get really upset with her, because Mom would even go so far as to make her parents force John to take her with them.

I guess that was one of those times that she was “the worst of friends”.

In jr. high, mom became friends with Linda Benning….little did she know how important that friendship would be. According to Linda, as emailed to me,

“Mary and I were the best of friends and the worst of
friends. We were close, then estranged, and then we
worked thru the differences and became very close
again. Real friendships face the facts that two
people can be friends and be very different in what
they believe and the way they live out their lives.
We learned a lot about reconciliation from each other.
We also learned unconditional love.

“Your mom and I became friends during our Jr. High
School year. In fact it was she who introduced me to
Uncle John. God Bless her. She had no idea at the
time that I would be dating her brother, let alone
become her sister in law. She invited me to her home
one day after school. While we were walking up the
stairs to her room, John was walking down, and she
turned around and casually said, ‘This is my brother
John.’"

“I took one look and something clicked in my
heart and soul. I knew I wanted to date him. It took
over 3 months to finally get him to date me. But
heck, I'm a patient woman, I waited. Three years later
we married. He's been the love of my life for 36
years.”

“I thank Mary for introducing me to him.
Little did she know one of her purposes in life was to
introduce me to my future husband, her brother.”

When my grandparents retired, my uncle John and Aunt Linda took over the family farm. Because of problems at home with my dad, I lived with them for about 4 years during junior high and high school, in the house where my mom grew up. Because Linda was my mom’s best friend in high school, she was able to share memories of that time in my mom’s life. Some will be in the next few posts.

And we're off!

I agonized over what the best way would be to organize the updates...do I go in chronological order through mom's life, or start with my memories and go back to others when the material's getting thin? In the end, I decided to adhere to the timeline approach, at least loosely. I started to write a little photo biography, but only got through childhood. Depending on how fast I can get the pictures uploaded and the links entered, there could be more installments. But there may not be, mostly because the writing's not what I would like it to be. Here's what I started:

Mary Beth Shepard was born on July 29, 1949, in rural western Wisconsin. She was the third child and only daughter of John and Lois Shepard, who ran a dairy farm outside Downing, WI. She was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was a young child. Three of her four younger brothers were also diagnosed with CF--Bobby, Ronnie, and Gregory.

Technology and research into CF has made great progress over the last ½ century, but in the 1950s and 60s, the rural doctors weren’t always sure how to take care of Mary and her brothers. The doctors tried, but over and over their parents were told that they wouldn’t live to be adults. (Of the four of them, only two did. Gregory only lived a few days, Bobby until he was just 15. Mary and Ronnie survived to adulthood, but Ron was still only 22 when CF took him.) The family did their best to provide normal childhoods for all their kids, sick or not. They went to school, played in the backyard, and rode bikes and horses.

May or may not be continued…

UPDATE: Some links are broken...trying to fix them. Sorry.
UPDATE: Links fixed.

Oh, and a couple requests...Still in the preshow, but I have a couple requests, for those of you lurking out there...

1. Even though, on some deep intellectual level(and by reading my site meter stats occasionally) I know there are people reading this site, I could really use some moral support from those of you reading the site throughout the day. Even if you just pop in for a minute, even if you aren't sponsoring...comments via the comments link on the bottom of the posts or through the email "Contact" link at the top of the page would be a great way to let me know that you're here and pulling for me.

2. For those of you who live in the Houston area and know where I live, some Starbucks caffeine would really make my morning. :-)

Thanks...and stay tuned.

On your mark...get set...Less than an hour to go...testing to see that blogger is going to play nicely today.

Also, a big thanks to all my sponsors--we picked up one more yesterday, which makes the list:

Linda Shepard
Robert
Myself
Chris
Anonymous
Andie
Kris & George

Don't forget, for those of you that haven't pledged yet, there's still time! Click here to become a sponsor.

Sponsor List UpdateWow...18 hours till blogathon time and I have 6 sponsors! Thanks to all who chipped in--you guys are all wonderful, and your money is going to a great cause. Here's the current list:

Linda Shepard
Robert
Myself
Chris
Anonymous
Andie

$294 so far...you rock. For those of you that still would like to pledge, either click here to go to the sponsorship page, or click the button in the next post down. Thanks again...don't forget to check tomorrow to see the updates!

UPDATE: Ok, I was wrong. The deadline to sign up to blog was the 20th. You can sign up to be a sponsor whenever you like, right up to the end of the blogathon. My bad. :)

Well, it's coming down to the wire...the deadline for blogathon pledges is July 20th. Please click the button below to support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation by sponsoring me in the blogathon on July 27th!

A little explanation of the pictures on the left over there...

The first one is a picture of my mom as Glenwood City HS homecoming queen in 1967.
The second was taken on the day she married my dad in 1976.
The next one shows our family on Christmas, 1982.
The last picture is my mom holding my brother Jordan...she still has the hospital bracelet on, but they were in the hospital for a while. I think he was a few weeks old in that picture--which would make it sometime in January, 1984.

She never quite recovered after having Jordan, though she had refused to abort the pregnancy to prolong her own life. Nothing was more important to her than her kids. Even though she fought for life with everything she had, cystic fibrosis took her that July. Jordan was barely 7 months old when she passed away, and completely healthy. He graduated high school this year.

The little thingsI suppose every parent wonders what their children will take from their childhood. What will they toss aside? What will they treasure? What memories will they keep, and which will they forget in favor of more “important” things?

When I start worrying about what my son will remember about growing up with me, I always go back to what I remember about my mom. I’ll admit my memories have a slightly rosier tint to them, since we tend to remember the nice things about someone after they’ve passed away. When I think back on what I remember from the 10 years I knew her, I find that it’s the little things that are the most precious.

I don’t remember our daily routine. I don’t remember her yelling at us to hurry up and get ready, because we were going to miss the bus. I don’t remember times she was angry with us, or times that she punished us. I don’t remember any times that I resented her. I don’t remember her being really sick, even up to a month before she died.

I remember a little blond dynamo, proud of being “5 feet and ¾ inches tall”. I remember her sunning in the back yard on an old plastic chaise lounger in the summertime. I remember that whenever we went to Kmart, each of us got a treat…even though our family didn’t have much money. I remember that she would point out every rainbow she saw, and that sunshine rays through the clouds were "Jesus light". I remember her playing T-ball with us in the back yard. I remember her wearing a yellow striped tennis dress and spinning around completely when hitting the ball off the tee…and for some reason, the memory of that spinning yellow dress always makes me cry.

I remember the way she smelled, and the way she smiled. I remember sewing with her, and reading with her, and that she always packed the same 4 things in our picnic cooler when we went to the beach(grapes, corn chips, sandwiches, kool-aid). I remember taking family bike trips down the Red Cedar Trail. I remember every movie she ever took us to. I remember her sitting at our old, out-of-tune piano and singing.

I would give anything to remember the sound of her voice.

These are just a sampling…not all of my memories are pleasant, and not all of them are simple. But whenever I wonder what Noah will remember of me, I pray that he remembers the little things, and that he thinks that I am even half the mother that I know mine was.

Sorry to anyone who notices that the template keeps changing every couple minutes. I can't find one I like, and I'm a perfectionist freak. Sorry.

Welcome! Here's the story of this site...

One of the blogs I read every day, Up Yours, had a link to the blogathon on her website yesterday, which got me thinking. Today, I went over to the site to find a good charity to sponsor (besides Dawn's, natch), I noticed that of all the totally amazing charities that bloggers were pulling an all-nighter for, only one blogger was blogging for a Cystic Fibrosis-related cause.

See, I have a soft spot in my heart for CF causes, because it has touched my family personally. I have lost 4 family members to this disease, including my mother.

Mary Radle lost her lifelong battle with CF on July 17th, 1984, at the (for a CF victim, ripe old) age of 34. She was truly a special person, who touched many lives. I am one of four children that she left behind, and this is my way to honor her by sharing my family's memories of her with the world, while raising money for a charity that may someday prevent another family from having to suffer through losing someone to CF. Since my normal blog is a joint one, and I plan to do this on my own, this site has been set up to participate in the blogathon to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

There's going to be some content here before July 27th, but most of the good stuff will be on the blogathon day. Thanks for stopping by!