I got home from dinner with my girlfriends on Friday at about 9:00 and got a call from my sisters that my mom had a seizure and had to be rushed to the hospital. Keith, me, and the girls jumped in the car right away and went to Kennestone Hospital.
Earlier that night, all of my sisters and their husbands and kids were over at mom and dad's having dinner and singing Christmas carols. (My sisters and parents all live close to each other; my family lives in Athens.) Anyway they have videos and mom was laughing and having a great time surrounded by her family that night! After everyone left, mom went to bed. Shortly after getting in bed, she had the seizure. My sister, Dawn gave mom CPR while dad called the ambulance. Mom had brain surgery 3 years ago for an aneurysm. The coils they put in her brain were only supposed to last 2 years, but they lasted 3. She is such a fighter!!!
Me, my dad, and all my sisters slept at the hospital with mom Friday night. Then Saturday we moved mom to hospice and Dad and I slept there with her on Saturday night. Sweet Uncle Ray kept the girls the whole time we were there. (He took the picture above of Ellie and Emma with their cousin's Will and Maggie.) On Christmas Eve, Dawn and Jeannie spent the night with mom at hospice while dad went home to get some sleep and Natalie and I went home so our kids could have a semi-normal Christmas Eve and morning. On Christmas night, mom passed peacefully... surrounded by her loved ones. I'm so thankful for her peaceful transition. The 4 days she was at the hospital and hospice, she was unconscious, but breathing on her own. They gave her a morphine drip so she felt no pain and passed peacefully.
Mom was an incredible woman!!! One thing that I have heard my whole life, over and over again, was how wise my mom was. She was full of pure, simple wisdom! I remember being young and noticing how every time we moved, my mom always seemed to be the one in the neighborhood that people would come to for advice. Whenever there was some kind of crisis, people would come to her. But it wasn't just her friends that came to her to glean her wisdom, but my friends as well. And it didn't stop there, all of her children and grandchildren and their spouses were drawn to her. She always knew just what to say to encourage you, inspire you, calm you. She was a rock for so many people. She planted seeds of love and wisdom in every soul she came in contact with. She will be incredibly missed.
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