Our Life: Whirlwind

The past month has passed quickly and much has happened. A lot of it is a blur and I am having a hard time remembering what day it is now and what has happened when. I will do my best to recap.

The day after Thanksgiving our Elf on the Shelf, Alice, returned. Leila was so excited she helped her brother and sister write Christmas lists for santa and then proceeded to fill out over 30 sticky notes with questions for Alice and an assignment to create an "All about Alice" poster complete with pictures and lists of favorite books, favorite foods, favorite activities, etc. Fortunately (?) a classmate informed her that Elf on the Shelf was pretend and I did not lie to her when she asked. She was excited to be in the know and still pretend for her siblings though.

Just after Thanksgiving, Jer had a mucus cyst removed from his lip. He also contracted a virus so he was down for the count for a good 4 days recovering.

The kids and I needed to get out of the house.

Cheap entertainment!

They all still love to ride the horse at Meijer.

We also treated ourselves to McDonald's lunch and time in the play place.

Henry was excited to show us the gingerbread house he made at school. His sisters were just as excited about eating it for him.

We had the family Christmas party with Grandma Dort's side early in December. They had gotten mom a prayer shawl and we all prayed over her as she had already been admitted to Hospice care.

We did bingo with the kids

and saran ball for the adults.

We got a late start to decorating for Christmas after we had a flu bug go through the family, but Grandpa delivered a fake tree for us (better for allergies!)

We started the pickle ornament tradition - whoever finds it first Christmas morning gets to open the first gift.

The kids put up all of the ornaments this year - except for a few at the top.

We went to see Mary Poppins put on by Holland High School.

Nana wanted to take all of the grand kids to see Santa again this year, so we all went downtown one night and terrorized Home & Company until it was our turn.

Mom and dad came back to our house for supper afterward.

A few nights later, papa babysat for us so we could go downtown for Up on the Rooftops with friends.

We got to check out the view from the new hotel on 8th street.

Papa and the kids made a gingerbread house while we were out.

Papa asked Alice to guard it for him so that Stella wouldn't eat all of the candy off from it immediately. That night, mom had stayed home with Kari because she had a fever. We realized that she was getting weaker and people were starting to wonder how she was doing and what they could do to support mom and dad. I suggested we start a blog for mom, which we did: sunshine8nana.blogspot.com, and we sent it out to people so that they could follow along on her final journey.

The girls were in the Christmas program at church and grandpa, nana, and papa were able to come see them. Mom had her final communion that day.

We had a snow day and the kids found a craft book that instructed us on how to make a boat out of an orange juice carton, paper, popsicle sticks, and a straw. They were pretty pumped that it was seaworthy!

Henry's school also had a Christmas program. He had a hard time finding us and got really sad.

Shortly after this picture he sat down and would not get back up.

I took Henry with me to hang out at nana and papa's house as mom was starting to get weaker.

We moved up our family Christmas party so that she would be able to participate more.

Mom had two seizures Tuesday morning, and right after the second one, we were talking with mom and dad told her, "I'll always love you" which he had inscribed on her wedding band (which she has not taken off since the day they were married 40 years ago) and that he has signed to every card he has ever given her. She looked at him and smiled. And we all bawled.

Kari, Lindsey, and I moved in with mom and dad to help care for mom and to spend as much time with her as we could. We relied on friends and family to watch our children and help with meals and cleaning.

I left for a bit to go see Stella's class Christmas program

and came back to find Henry had moved his nap spot from the bedroom to under the play doh table.

Mom and dad watching Hallmark movies.

My friend Robyn Anne took care of Henry for me one day and also picked up the girls from school. It was nice to have others care for us as we were caring for mom.

We did a lot of crying on mom, she didn't seem to mind.

She continued to comfort us as we took care of her.

Mom's goal was to make it to Christmas, and we always celebrated our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, so she made it.

She passed away peacefully on Christmas Eve morning surrounded with love.

Kari, Lindsey, and I each took turns going home to tell our children in person, then went back to dad's house to sleep for the first night.

Christmas morning Jer made his first specialty drink with his new Ninja Coffee Bar.

I put nail polish in the girls' stockings, and Jer was good enough to do the their nails while I was still at dad's.

It was jarring to go from the sorrow of death to the joy of Christmas, but life has a way of doing things like that.

We celebrated with Jer's side the next day.

We actually had all of the kids' cousins home from out of state and were able to get a good picture of the family.

Uncle Rod and Aunt Kari showed the kids a great time - decorating "ugly sweater" cookies

and playing at the gym at Rod's school.

Mom's visitation, burial, and funeral were a time of intense community with family and friends. It was very good to hear stories about mom. We were supported in prayer, in service, and fellowship. I really appreciate all that everyone has done for us.

My sisters and I wanted to honor our mom with a eulogy and I volunteered to speak as I was the only one who thought I had a chance of getting through it. I asked my sisters to stand by me and we planned to pass the paper around if I couldn't make it. It was very difficult not to tear up and my voice went up a few times, but as long as I looked at my paper and not at any of the faces of those who mom loved and who loved her, I was able to finish.

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We are so thankful to our parents for giving us such a wonderful example of a loving marriage. We are grateful to have always felt secure in their love for us and for each other. We would always groan when they would kiss in front of us. They had a tradition – every time they were on an elevator, as soon as the doors shut, they would smooch – as loudly as they could.

Mom was meant to be a nana. She had endless patience and love for our children. She loved to spoil the kids with candy, juice, chocolate milk, and fruit snacks as well as adventures to Dutch Village, garage sales, and Crazy Bounce. We will make sure that they remember her, we only wish that they could have had more time.

One thing you may not have known about mom is she was a little bit of a rule breaker. She had her own sense of what is right and as long as it fit into her "it's not going to hurt anybody" code, she went right ahead. Giving pop and coffee to grand kids fell into this category. She broke into the Habitat house behind their backyard when it was being built to see what the new neighbors would be able to see of her house through their windows. Mom, dad, and another couple broke into a cabin in the woods once when it was raining to stay dry and played cards to wait out the storm. We thought it was so cool that mom would drive crazy on our street when we were little. She would swerve between lanes back and forth the whole last block (probably going 15 mph, but still).

We spent many days at the beach during the summers growing up. Mom would never go under the water because she did not want to get her hair wet, but she made up for it by digging the biggest holes in the sand. She made sand castles with us and taught us how to make drippy doos. She or dad would throw us into the deep water while we screamed with delight. She always made sure we had at least SPF 4 or 8 sun block on.

Our family is a card playing family. We were taught young and it has always been something we did when we get together. The running joke is that mom couldn’t play an entire hand of cards without doing a load of laundry or something else that totally disrupted the game.

Mom always had a servant heart. We saw all the times she baked goodies for people, brought meals, or just spent time with people who needed it. She served as an elder in her church and was a caring nurse. She was superwoman. She managed to fit so many things into her day. She was always cleaning, baking, cooking, working, shopping, and doing whatever needed to be done. She was an outstanding role model for us as we have become mothers ourselves. Mom was a whirlwind of love. Thank you mom. We love you.

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New Year's Eve we went to the run downtown - Luke, Jenna, and Jer all ran this year.