Monday, December 23
My Daddy and I had already
planned to meet at the nursing home Monday morning to visit her after the news
he’d received Sunday night, but Nana’s health had declined so rapidly during
the night that he texted to tell me to get there ASAP because the doctor had
called and said he thought Monday would be the day. It was time to say goodbye.
I got ready and got the kids
to my mother-in-law’s house as fast as I could and headed to the nursing home. Brian had to work Monday and I didn’t feel
right about bringing the kids to the nursing home, so I was thankful to my MIL
for keeping them for a couple of hours.
My Momma, Daddy, brothers,
two uncles, and one of my cousins and I spent the next couple of hours sitting
around her bed reminiscing, laughing, and crying and it was just really
tough. I don’t handle death well. I mean, I know most people don’t, but I get
major anxiety over it to the point where I can barely function. My body just goes into hibernation as a
coping mechanism and I can’t eat, I can’t drink, and I get exhausted to the
point where all I want to do is sleep.
Nana hadn’t been conscious for
a while at that point, so she wasn’t able to participate in the conversation,
but it was good to just be in her presence for a little bit. Just before lunchtime, I kissed her on the
forehead, told her I loved her, and said goodbye one last time and then it was
time to go. My dad and his brothers spent
most of the rest of the day there with her so she wouldn’t be alone.
Prior to all of this, we had
accepted an invitation to one of my closest friend’s son’s birthday party at
Chuck E. Cheese, so I went straight back to my MIL’s to grab the kids and head
to the party. It was a welcome
distraction, and watching the kids in all their joy cheered me up a little.
They had been begging to go
to Chuck E. Cheese for a while, and it was a perfect day to be there as not
many other people were. The kids at the
party basically had the whole place to themselves and they had unlimited
playtime for two whole hours so they played more games than they ever have and
they ended up racking up 967 tickets, shattering their old record there. We had pizza and cake and sang to our sweet
Mack and then the kids all cashed in their tickets for the best prizes they’ve
ever gotten there.
B and I put the kids to bed
after that and then he and I watched one of my favorite movies of all time,
Serendipity. That movie makes me so
happy and that’s just what I needed after worrying about my Nana all day. She was still hanging in there with basically
no changes all day, and I was just praying for her to go ahead and let go. It is just awful that anyone should ever have
to suffer like that.
And for documentation's sake, I wanted to post this picture that I took of our kitchen table after the kids hung their paper snowflakes from the chairs... such a special touch in the decor knowing that the kiddos made them!
And for documentation's sake, I wanted to post this picture that I took of our kitchen table after the kids hung their paper snowflakes from the chairs... such a special touch in the decor knowing that the kiddos made them!
Tuesday, December 24
We awoke to no changes on
Christmas Eve and my mom and dad said that they wanted to proceed with the day
as we normally would. B and I spent the
morning cooking and baking for Christmas Eve dinner at my parents’ house later
that evening. I also spent some time
cleaning and prepping the house to host my momma’s whole side of the family the
next night for Christmas.
We all got ready and headed
to Christmas Eve mass at 4. It’s pretty
much my favorite hour of the whole year.
We always have a children’s choir and it’s just the most precious thing. My brother and sister-in-law and their kiddos
were in town so they attended mass, too, and my nephew sat with me for about
half of it which just made my day. I
miss having teeny tinies like that. After
Communion, a little girl from the choir did a solo of O Holy Night and it
brought me to tears. I cried during the
whole song and all I could think about was my Nana.
Momma and Daddy headed
straight to the nursing home to take care of things and my brothers and me all
headed to their house to tend to the ham and dressing and everything else that
had been cooking all day (my littlest brother had been home watching it while
everyone else was gone).
We got dinner on, business
as usual, but it sure felt weird/sad going about our typical Christmas Eve things
knowing that Nana had just passed.
Growing up, Nana was always included in our Christmas Eve celebrations
at my parents’ house, but she had missed the last few because her health was so
poor. I just know she was there with us
in spirit that night… part of me thinks she passed when she did just so she could finally be there for it
again. She loved Christmas.
The rest of the evening was
joyful with sad undertones... that's the only way I know how to describe it. Mom and
Daddy got home from the nursing home and we all sat down to dinner. The kids drank out of Nana’s old cups, they
played with her dancing Christmas reindeer, and we all laughed and joked about
how obsessed she was with keeping the ice trays full (before there were ice
makers). My gosh, my brother Zach and I must’ve filled them a thousand times
under her care.
We made Winter White Cosmos,
we opened gifts, we ate too many homemade chocolate chip cookies, we watched
Home Alone as we always do, and we even made it partway through Home Alone 2
before it was super late and time to head out.
It was, in essence, the perfect Christmas Eve… surrounding circumstances
overlooked.
See? Emotionally confusing.
B and I got the kids in bed
around 11 and then we ended up making it to bed a little after midnight. We haven’t gotten to bed that early on Christmas
Eve in a long time, but I had a killer headache and wasn’t feeling great
(hibernation mode: ACTIVATED) so I wanted to try to get a decent night of
sleep.
Wednesday, December 25
Since the kids had been up
so late the night before, they both slept late (YES!) and we ended up going
downstairs just after 8 o’clock. I went
down first and turned on all the lights all the while oohing and aahing over
what Santa had brought. B and the kids
came down once everything was ready and the looks on their little faces were
just priceless. Christmas morning never
gets old, that’s for sure.
Santa had been very good to
them, bringing Jacob a LEGO Voltron and the LEGO Star Wars Y-Wing he’d asked
Santa directly for so many times. Jacob
coincidentally got the same Y-Wing from my parents the night before, though, so
Santa left a letter to Jacob explaining that he’d already loaded the Y-Wing
Jacob had requested on his sleigh before
my Mom and Dad gave the other one to him.
He went on to say that he’d left some special paperwork with Brian so
that he could return that one and let Jacob pick something else out in its
place. Christmas snafu averted! ;o)
The kids opened their gifts
from us and then I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. In the past, we’ve always gone to my parents’
for breakfast or my parents have come to our house, but this year, we all decided
to do our own thing for breakfast to keep things simpler since we were going to
host Christmas dinner later that day.
The rest of the morning was
spent playing. Jacob immediately started
putting together LEGO sets while Olivia worked on making jewelry from the set
she’d gotten from Santa. I helped Olivia
a little bit and then got the house all clean and prepped for company.
We had over 30 people
coming, so we had borrowed folding tables and chairs from my mother-in-law to
ensure we had enough seating for everyone.
I got the bar cart all set up for drinks, got the table cloths on the
tables, made the dish I was contributing to the dinner (everyone brings
something so it doesn’t fall on one person’s shoulders), and I also made the
prettiest charcuterie board.
Everyone showed up between
5:30 and 6 and we spent the next few hours throwing back drinks, stuffing our
faces, and spending time together. The
great grandkids all opened their gifts from Mama Cass and ran around like
maniacs all evening while the adults chatted and laughed. Everyone headed home around 9 and then B and
I collapsed on the couch, exhausted.
It was a good day.
Thursday, December 26
Thursday was spent playing
all day. Jacob worked on LEGOs literally
all day and I helped Olivia with some of her new crafts she’d received as Christmas
gifts. Since the Christmas décor takes
forever to take down, I went ahead and started taking some of it down. I knew I wouldn’t be spending anymore time in
my office for a while, so I took the tree down in there, and I also took the
tree down in our bedroom since we spend minimal time in there, too.
At 5 we had a date with our
friends at the Botanical Gardens. Y’all
may remember that my friend Katie and her family moved to Korea Florida for Christmas and they made the drive to Georgia
The weather was amazing… it
was warm enough that we didn’t need jackets, and we were treated to a stunning
sunset while we were there. We took
advantage of the gorgeous backdrop to take some framily pictures, and we
managed to grab a great group shot by pulling a bench over, resting a phone on
top of someone’s purse while propping it up with one of the kids’ thermoses,
and then using the self timer.
Haha. Gotta do what you gotta do!
After the sun set, we all
headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant – the one where the girls and I
always do our Wednesday margarita nights.
All of the kids sat at one end of the table and all of us adults sat at
the other end. We ordered a couple of
pitchers of margaritas and had THE BEST TIME catching up with Matthew and Katie
and hearing about all of their adventures in Korea
After dinner we said our
goodbyes and then we headed home.
Friday, December 27
Friday morning I worked on
getting the Christmas stuff down in the kids’ bedrooms and I also started
cleaning the house. I like to have everything
back to normal and super clean by New Year’s Day so it’s a lot of work getting
it all done.
B was home from work that
day and he kept the kids while I met up with Katie, Jeannine, and Shelly for a
girls lunch at Panera. We wanted to soak
up as much Katie time as we could in the short window that they were here.
The rest of the afternoon
was spent taking down more Christmas stuff and cleaning, and then late in the
afternoon B, the kids, and I all met up with Katie and Jeannine and their
families again for a play date at the park.
The park we went to has been there for about a year, but we’d never
been, and it is AWESOME. It’s HUGE and
the whole thing is fenced in, there’s a playground, a massive green space for
the kids to run around, a walking track, a basketball court, and huge covered pavilion
with tables and grills, giant Connect 4, a bathroom (praise be!), drink
machines, a zipline (the kids’ favorite), and my favorite part – a huge fire
pit! So many amenities!
The kids played on the
playground and ran around for hours while us adults turned on the fire pit and
sat around and talked some more. We were
treated to another beautiful sunset, and before we knew it, it was time to say
goodbye. Katie and Matthew and their
girls are now in Germany
Saturday, December 28
My Nana’s funeral was Saturday
morning in her hometown in south Alabama
It was a long drive to get
there (over two hours), so we were on the road by 8:30 to get there on time. My oldest brother drove and my youngest
brother called shotty, so I was stretched out in the back alone for our sibling
road trip. My parents rode separately
and we all arrived about 30 minutes prior to the viewing.
The next couple of hours
were spent at the funeral home for the viewing and I did okay because there
were multiple rooms. I’m not a fan of
seeing deceased people in their caskets – it freaks me out a bit – so I stayed
in the other room while the others went in to see Nana. The time spent at the funeral home was pretty light and filled with happiness and laughter and I was feeling so good that I decided to go in and say
goodbye one last time before they closed the casket. That was a big step for me, and I was pretty
proud of myself for taking it and handling it well. And I had my brothers for comic relief so that
helped tremendously.
We had to drive about 30
more minutes to get to the gravesite because it was in the middle of nowhere,
and that’s where we held the short and sweet graveside service in the misty,
grey rain. My anxiety peaked right at
the beginning, but thankfully, it ended as quickly as the service did. We each plucked a rose from Nana’s casket
spray as a final memento, said one final goodbye, and then it was time to head
home.
My littlest brother had to
be at work by 6 and I wanted to try to make it back to attend the end of my FIL’s
Christmas celebration, so my brothers and I headed back home without our
parents in tow, stopping quickly at a Chick-Fil-A for a super late lunch.
The day was incredibly
gloomy, but thankfully, the big rain held off and we made it home without incident. I headed straight to my FIL’s in my funeral
black and we spent the rest of the evening eating, opening gifts, and
celebrating Christmas with B’s side of the family.
Sunday, December 29
Sunday, we headed to my mother-in-law and father-in-law’s house to do Christmas with them. We had a delicious lunch, even yummier desserts, and then we opened gifts. We also celebrated my nephew whose birthday is December 26.
See what I mean about joy
and sadness and magic and heartbreak? Christmas
week was a roller coaster.
Don't forget to link up with us below!
Time for a link party! Blogging friends, share your post below and meet your hosts!
Brittany https://www.
Mary Leigh https://www.
