Aug. 30: 9 am. I just arrived here this morning with Mom’s friend Mary. There was little activity overnight. Mom was pretty restful and Dad said that she was only restless and agitated briefly around 2 am.
When I left at 6 am, Dad had recently arrived. Also, Mary Isaacson and her son Donald, past neighbors from the other side of our duplex, came by to visit Mom. Mary brought a frame for Mom’s room with the pictures from Mom’s last Christmas card…a picture of the four of us kids and a photo of Mom and Dad and Andrew. It’s a nice reminder of happier times we all had together.
Julie and Kevin took Dad to The Great Dane for dinner last night, and Michael came over to stay with Mom for the evening. Dad went home around 10:30 to sleep for a couple hours. Tom came in the late evening and stayed with Mom until I arrived in the morning. Dad also came back at about 2 am and slept in the chair next to her through the night.
I took Mary Read home last night. Bryan made us all a yummy dinner, and after a while, Maretta and Kyle came over to visit too. I had a nice talk with one of Mom’s friends, Debbie Riccio. Then for a few hours, I worked with Joe and Terry to set up plane flights for Joe to return home. He’s flying in to Milwaukee this afternoon, and Becky is going to go pick him up. Just so everyone knows, I don’t think it’s worth bothering with “bereavement fares.” From what I’d read, they are often higher than normal tickets, and when I tried to get one for Joe, the ticket cost $250 more than the price I could get normally.
Mom’s developed a cough and a bit of a rattle in her chest at times. It’s a beautiful day today, and I’m torn but hoping that Mom doesn’t have to struggle down this difficult road much longer.