Finding More New Relatives on the Paternal Side of My Family

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Brophy_helen_edward-sr-jr  Helen_Pennea_baby-ed

Photos: (1) Helen C. Pennea, Edward Brophy Sr, Edward Brophy Jr., (2) Helen C. Pennea, Baby Edward, my grandmother and father, (3) below, Helen C. Pennea and relative. Could be uncle, cousin? They look alike.The featured photos of Helen Pennea who’s family originated from Gibraltar, Spain. Her husband Edward Brophy’s family originated from Ireland.

Last week, I told you about having started an ancestry account and mentioned that I was in anticipation of an upcoming phone call with a new found 3rd cousin, Kathleen, from my father’s side. Well, a phone call it was and it was fascinating. Two hours later, I was a lot more knowledgeable about my long lost family on my father’s side. I wonder if they have dementia in that side of the family…hmmmmm

We made a plan for me to call her at 3:00 pm my time and I found myself watching the clock all afternoon in anticipation. Well, 3pm came, I made the call and we got acquainted and seemed to have hit it off straight away. Apparently, she has been doing her family tree for about 14 years now and seemed very knowledgeable about how to navigate it and about everyone on her tree. She showed me some of the how-to-dos on the ancestry site, which I was grateful for. I had a few people listed twice which she said, could cause problems later on in my search. I will learn a lot just by looking at her tree, regarding to births and deaths. Somewhere in her journey, she found a relative and was able to make a phone call who gave her another number of a relative who knew a lot of information on the family. She gave my new cousin Kathleen information and photos, which she has posted on her tree for all to see.

Helen_Pennea

We are all related to a common link, our great-great grandfather Francis Pennea, making us 3rd cousins. I believe, if I remember correctly, he was a Sandy Hook Pilot who ended up being lost at sea in the late 1800’s. It would be fascinating to find out more about that incident in history, if indeed it was even recorded in the books. I’ve been told that I can go to Staten Island where they have a place where I can find out more information and possibly find a list of Sandy Hook pilots. Might be able to find documentation on our ancestor, which would be neat info to have. I will think about going when the weather gets warm again…in the spring or summer.

At one point, she had me connect to Facebook and send a friend invite, which I did. From there we went into her friend list and she pointed out how many of us there are. She briefed me on who they are and about what they do. After our two hour conversation, she made a beautiful post on Facebook introducing me to the family and one by one I have been getting messages and friend requests. I am so happy to have found them and looking forward to getting to know them better moving forward. 

They seem like a fun bunch of people and I can hardly believe that I am related to them.

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Looking Back at Past Generations and the Possibility of Dementia

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mom-dad-boat mom-greenwoodlake

Photos: (1) Eleanor and Edward Brophy, (2) Group shot with Edward Brophy, Eleanor (Mom, holding me), maternal grandparents, friends and Marion and Ray Corso, cousins.

This fall has definitely been a time of reflection for me. I can be doing any given thing during the day and a memory of my mother will come across me, leading to a whole string of past memories and thoughts. It makes me feel like she is right there with me. It’s also been a time of thinking of my father’s side of the family, who I basically know nothing about. I barely knew him actually, when I stop to think about it. I have found myself on a quest of researching the past generations in my family history to see what I can learn. Who were they, did they have dementia, diabetes, leukemia, Parkingson’s disease? Who are we as a family?

Last weekend, I started on Ancestry to start my family tree. It’s only been a week and I’ve already learned so much in having found up to 4 past generations. I learned that my paternal great grandfather came from Gibraltor, Spain. His wife was from Ireland.To go further, I will have to sign on for a world search, which of course, I am curious enough to follow through. Out of chance, one of the searches that I had done, pulled up my paternal grandmother in someone else’s family tree. It took me by surprise and I felt excited that it was a good find. Not really knowing yet how to work on this site, I chose to write a message to the owner of the tree to inquire. I was beyond happy when I found that she had replied. What I learned from her reply was that she is my 3rd cousin and lives on the other side of the US. She told me that she has met several cousins on this site who have shared family photos, stories and history. She mentioned that my paternal grandmother had a very rich history. I am in absolute anticipation right now since we will speak by phone today, and she will share with me all of that information on our family from my father’s side. Very exciting stuff.

I’m amazed at how I could have lived this long on the planet and not have known that side of the family, but knowing my father and how reclusive and private he was, I really shouldn’t feel so surprised. But after all, I’m not a stranger and I am a part of that family line genetically, even if he couldn’t deal with them in his life. I live in a town now where I have been asked numerous times if I was related to this Brophy or that Brophy who live here and I would always say no. There seems to be a lot of Brophy’s in this town. Now, I am not so sure since I very well could be related to them. Apparently, my paternal grandfather had 4 brothers and a sister. Who knew…and my father certainly didn’t share, which doesn’t seem very fair. Everybody has the right to know who they are in life through the past generations if only for self identity and health history.

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Mom’s Death Inspires A New Journey of Making a Family Tree…Who The Heck Are We Really?

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wedding-2  mom-connnie

Photos are: from right to left (1) Lillian Sarter (Mom’s Mother), Eleanore Sarter, Bruno Sarter (Mom’s Father), Edward Brophy (my Father), Lillian Sarter (Mom’s Sister), Tess Heinke, Paul Heinke (Dad’s Aunt and Uncle), (2) Mom on right, Connie Heinke (Dad’s cousin) on left.

Since Mom’s death from the dreaded dementia, I’ve been thinking a lot about family, who is left and who we are as a group in this world. I mean, who ARE we as individuals, as family members and members of society that have made us who we are today. What type of people did I come from? The person from England who comes here and marries a girl and going on to have children, as in the case of Mom’s grandparents…or the man from Spain who marries a girl from Ireland and creates a family, as in the case of Dad’s grandparents…and so on and so on. Without just one of those people making those particular choices, any one of us in this family might not be here today. It’s a crazy thought, but true. One of the links missing would change history.

In the past years, I have been interested in this subject and had asked my mother lots of questions over the years, but it was mostly with her family, not my father’s. In not knowing a lot about my distant relatives, I’ve been inspired to find out who we are and where we came from genealogically and geographically. Did any of them have Diabetes, Dementia, OCD, Parkinson’s Disease or Leukemia? Did they do anything special in the world to add to society in this country or others? Who are they? Were they good people, bad people, famous people, smart or shallow people? Since I had lived most of my young life with my mother and her parents, I of course, know more about that side of the family. I seem to know a lot about her father Bruno and his family, as there is a family tree in Germany of his lineage dating way back with names and dates as I had mentioned in my last post. Her mother Lillian, my grandmother, is a different story however. I have photos of her mother and father but that was where the trail stopped. I know her father was born in England and her mother was born here. They had 2 daughters, Lillian, my grandmother and her sister Adlaide, who I knew. Anything else regarding her family is a mystery to me. I had always thought while growing up that we were a very small family when in fact, there were more than likely plenty of us.

Eleanor_lillian_adlaide  mom-dad-gg

Photos are: (3) Lillian, Aunt Adlaide, Eleanor (Mom), (4) My Grandmother, Grandfather, Uncle Sam, Dad and Mom

I really know nothing about my father’s family. I didn’t know his mother or father, my other grandparents. I know his mother had issues and his father died the year before I was born. My father lived with one of her sisters when he was growing up and as an adult he would never speak about his parents. Matter of fact, he was like a closed clam…what was he hiding? What’s in the past that kept him so silent all of those years? Very curious. After moving to Commack, many, many people asked me if I was related to this Brophy or that Brophy. Apparently, there are a lot of Brophy’s in Commack. Who’s to say that they aren’t in my family line somehow, someway? That’s what I want to know about…I went to school with a kid named Jimmy Brophy…Who knows…maybe. Stranger things have happened.

So, this weekend, I started an ancestry.com family tree. I’ve added a few names that I know of and will add more as I go through paperwork that I have from the past that have been recovered after my parents and grandparents passed away. These documents are a wealth of information and I am hoping that it will be very interesting in the end on what I uncover. Who knows…maybe something great, maybe not…regardless, it will be our family history either way, good or bad and I will feel connected to a lot of people, some of them might still be alive. As of this minute, I feel as if my mother is the last of the Mohicans…but I may just be surprised at what I find.

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Lillian Sarter and Her Sister Eleanor, Uncovering a Lifetime of Photos

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lillian_babyThe featured photos are of: (1) Lillian Sarter in a beautiful colorized photo as a baby, (2) Lillian and Mom, Eleanor, with their great grandmother on the Sarter side, (3) Mom, Eleanor and Lillian with their great grandmother years later on the same stoop in Brooklyn

This past weekend, I spent my Sunday cleaning out a closet…a huge closet in my bedroom. Aside from the obvious things stored in a bedroom closet, like clothes, there are all the family photos and documents that I had inherited from my grandmother that dates way back, which I find invaluable for our Sarter family history. I like to keep them upstairs rather than the damp and dank basement, if only in hopes of preserving them as best I can. Also, I still have a lot of looking through to do because I am sure that I have things that I haven’t yet realized. Some people spend a lifetime of hours trying to find a history of their family tree. This one was given to me and hopefully I can do good by it.

So, in cleaning the closet, I came across the above beautiful photo of my Aunt Lillian, Mom’s sister, as a very little girl. It was professionally taken and obviously colorized, since back then they didn’t have color film. It was beautifully done so this photo was a real find. After finding it, I remember that my mother had sent it to me years before she came to join my in NY. In the box, with the framed photo of Aunt Lillian, were (2) 78 speed records that Lillian had recorded with her singing voice so many years before. I know there is a written story somewhere about these recordings and I know exactly I have been told the verbal story as well at some point, but it was so long ago, that I don’t recall. I do know that their Aunt Emily Sarter aspired to be an opera singer and also made recordings until she had gone deaf, which seems to run in the family from their father’s side of the family. Her inspiration to sing could have come from her Aunt Emily. Every time that I find something like this in the archive of my history, it sends me on a winding journey through deep thought for the rest of the day.

Lillian_eleanor_ggma_1931  gma_sarter

About 9 years ago, I came across the Birkenhoerdt Project, which includes a family tree of the Sarters, dating way back in history. It shows a very detailed tree of the Sarters from Germany and their spouses, children, births, deaths. I thought it was the most interesting thing that I have ever seen relating to our family history from the Sarter side. I started with my grandfather’s name and went on from there…it’s amazing. You can find it at: http://www.birkenhoerdt.net/search.php?mylastname=sarter&myfirstname=bruno&mybool=AND&search=Search

I would love to find an old photo of my mother like that, but I suspect it wasn’t done for the second child…as it usually happens. If there was one taken, maybe I will find it in the box of old papers and documents that I have from my grandparents that I still, to this day I have not finished going though….not for a lack of desire, but from lack of time. This going to work thing doesn’t seem to allow for personal interests, but since I need a roof over my head and food on the table, I do it which keeps me away from the house for 12 hours a day…not to mention getting up at 5 am in the morning….long day! Eventually, something has got to give…but till then, it will be… hi-ho, hiho, it’s off to work I go, only to work on my interests with stolen time!

Aunt Lillian was a very interesting person. From what my mother had told me, they were very close as children. I often wonder if Lilian wasn’t taken by leukemia so early on…would she have been afflicted with dementia like her father and sister? Maybe she would have been one of the lucky ones? She was the first to leave us and my mother the last, both with such different lives…goals…hopes and dreams. If my beliefs are correct, they left this earth because they had accomplished what they were here to do…Lillian, to create 4 beautiful children, Michael, David, Maggi and Sam, Eleanor, my Mom, bringing me into the world, working out her fears and disorders and having a successful career in NYC.

If my beliefs are correct, they left this earth because they had accomplished what they were here to do…Lillian, to create 4 beautiful children, Michael, David, Maggi and Sam, Eleanor, my Mom, bringing me into the world, working out her fears and disorders and having a successful career in NYC.

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Reconnecting with Family after Mom Lost Her Battle with Dementia and Acute Leukemia

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Maggi_1964 Sam_1971

Photos: (1) Maggi, April 1964, (2) Sam, December 1971 

This past weekend, I had a really nice and long overdue conversation with my first cousin, Maggi. We hadn’t spoken since she and her brother Sam and wife Charlotte had come for a quick dinner as they were passing through on their way back home to the northwest. Since Mom passed away, I’ve been feeling like I would very much like to be connected to the family that remain…all of my cousins. Maggi and her brothers are the last direct family that I know of and they are my first cousins and very much a part of my own history. We had a really nice conversation reconnecting and talking about the family and how Mom lost her battle with dementia and acute leukemia.

As a very young child, I used to spend time at their house while my mother was trying to figure out her life with the separation of my father and dealing with her OCD problem. I remember being there but they are distant memories since I was so young, but I have seen the photos from that time and had often wondered how my life would have turned out if my mother had taken them up on their offer to take me to live with them. Brothers and a sister, in a large family…in a house with a shot at a regular life…although it never happened, I can’t help but wonder, what if.

As kids, they lived up in Muncie and then moved out to Washington’s State, which was almost as far away as they could possibly be and still be in the USA, so we really didn’t get a chance to see each other over the years very much, which was sad. Occasionally, they would come as a family to our grandparent’s house and since I spent most of my free time there, I was able to see and bond with them during those visits. Our grandparent’s house wasn’t very big so us kids got to sleep on a huge quilt on the floor in the living room. I just loved the excitement and the feeling that there were other kids in the family. I am an only child, so life with a single working mother was rather difficult at times…very lonely. After we all would settle in at bedtime, my Aunt Lillian would come in to read us a story. I just loved that part of it, as nobody ever read to me as a kid, so when they came to visit, it was a very big tug at what having a large family would feel like…and I liked it. It’s probably one of the reason’s why I have this very strange love for the old show The Waltons. I still watch it to this day having seen all episodes way too many times, never tiring of them!

Mornings would start early with all of the kids in the house smelling a traditional bacon and eggs breakfast cooking every morning. All I could think of is how different my life was during those visits and I wondered, is this what whole families really do every day? They have cooked breakfasts and eat together at the table? Yes, I loved their visits and always looked forward to the next one as I know our grandparents did.

Lynn_holding_David  At_beach_Ontario_1959

Photo: (3) Mike, Lynn holding David as a baby, (4) David, Maggi, Mike and Lillian, their mother at the beach

There were 4 of them, 3 boys, Michael, David and Sam and Maggi, their only girl. I was close in age with Michael but he was a very quiet and introverted boy, keeping to himself as I remember. David, on the other hand was my buddy. We seemed to have a lot in common and had similar temperaments. Maggi and Sam were born later on as they were the youngest, so most of the time I had spent with them back then during visits was while they were still babies. It wasn’t until many many years later, as adults that we got to know each other and it was worth the wait.

Bottom line, is…the only thing that really really matters in life in the end, is the love of family and good friends.

 Whether you realize that early on or later is not important…as long as you do get it eventually before it’s your time to move on.

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Feeling Like an Adult Orphan After the Last Living Parent is Gone, What Now?

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As the days and weeks are passing by after my mother’s death, I have been feeling more and more like an adult orphan. I keep thinking about all that’s happened with Mom and how her absence has affected the household and those of us within it. I know that all of us feel it…and I know that even Tonya the dog feels it, as she is left alone everyday while we are at work and appears to be depressed. With me, I find myself thinking about it over and over, just running through things in my head, re-playing it in my head like a video, hoping that I did everything right by her. I sometimes get stuck on the times when I didn’t have enough patience, but then I think that nobody on the planet could have had patience all the time in those intense situations with a dementia patient when they are at their worst and in the middle of an attack, so I am probably just normal. Then on the other hand, her life was so much better than it would have been if she were in a nursing home, and thinking about that makes me happy and proud. I really do feel, that aside from her obvious problems, that she was happy living in my home and feeling secure that she was surrounded by people who loved her, even in her worst dementia moments. Really, in the end, that’s all any of us want. I was glad that I was able to do that for her. But now what is my status in life…an adult who finds herself an adult orphan after her last living parent is gone.

mom-greenwoodlake  Eleanor_Lillian

The photos above are: (1) Top row, Dad’s friend, Raymond Corso, Mom’s mother and father, Marion Corso, second row, Dad’s friend’s wife, Dad..Edward Brophy, Baby Lynn and Mom…Eleanor Brophy, (2) a young Mom and sister Lillian Sarter, (3) below: Mom, Eleanor Van Meter holding me, with her whole life ahead of her.

Mom-babymeI’ve been reading a recommended book named “The Orphaned Adult” by Alexander Levy, which I am finding very interesting, relating to the very thing that I am going through right now since Mom’s death. I had never really given it any thought before, but that’s exactly how I am feeling, like an orphaned adult. Might sound silly to some, but don’t knock it until you’ve experienced it…think about it. It’s very real and almost everyone will go through it at one time or another, unless of course they die before their parents. Just think about it, this is the first time in your whole entire life that you are here on this planet without absolutely knowing that your creator is here on the planet with you…the one or two people that will always have your best interest at heart. The person or people who have worried about you since the day you were born…unconditionally. I don’t care if you had a good relationship or not, that’s not the point. It’s the knowing that there are only 2 people in the world that can hold that position in your life and somehow, whether you are in touch or not, close or not, living near each other or not, only they can fill that role…and now, suddenly, they are gone. You are here on the planet by yourself and deep down you just know, that you will never be able to count on anyone in the same way that you did your parents. When the last one is gone, it hits home big time, which is where I find myself right now. It’s a lot to think about..huge. It’s also a time where you realize that all the elders in your family are gone and you are the next in line. This is huge…a heavy weight and I feel that anyone that hasn’t gone through it, couldn’t possibly understand the feelings that come with it until they are in this same, very scary place.

I am at the beginning of this new and winding road…journey, not exactly sure where it’s taking me or the feelings that will surface as I travel my own unchartered path, but since it’s all new territory, I am hoping that I will learn from it, love and enjoy looking towards the future along the way.

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Life, Love, Friends and Career vs Dementia

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mom-moreyA-2   mom-moreyA-1

Now, reflecting back after Mom’s passing from dementia and leukemia, I had always known, that as she was growing up she wanted a career in the workplace. It was common knowledge and I remember her speaking about her childhood desires many times through the years as I was growing up. Although I can’t recall a lot, I do remember having to call her when I got home from school and her answering the phone with that very deep professional voice “Bozell and Jacobs” that almost sounded melodious. That voice of her answering the phone has been eternally burned into my mind. Bozell and Jacobs was a hi volume, high profile advertising agency where she had worked directly with one of the higher up executives. When her boss, Mr. Hoover, the Chairman of the Board moved on, she interviewed with Teddy Walkowitz, the head attorney in charge of the Rockefeller Family Foundation back at that time. This foundation handled the Rockefeller family fortune and was a very important position for her. As she had always hoped, her career had bloomed into something very professional and was something that she could be proud of.

The above photos: (A) A very young and pretty Mom sitting next to Morey Amsterdam at Bozell & Jacobs Xmas party in either 1958 or 1959, (2) Mom at party with Merv Griffin handing out envelops. He must have just called her name as she raises her hand. Below: (3) The love of Mom’s life, Dwight Van Meter

She held this position for many years to my knowledge. Along the way, I remember her speaking about other positions that she held, ABC, Forbes Magazine and Scientific Applications in CA, until she decided to retire to take care of her very ill husband whom she had met in Manhattan, back in the day. Somehow, she was in with the executives with different companies and met the love of her life, Dwight Van Meter. He became the most important thing in her life and with that she moved into Manhattan, leaving me in Jackson Heights with a girlfriend and her father. They went on to live together and then moving to Encinitas CA where her love of southern California developed. It was there that she worked at Scientific Applications after going through a routine of high security just in order to be hired.

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Van, as he was called, was about 20 years older than her and became ill at some point. After collapsing in his driveway, it was determined that he would come home for the remainder of his life, where my mother chose to retire and care for him. His death set forth many years of depression for her, diving even deeper into her OCD disorder. We would have our weekly chats on the phone on Sundays, just as her mother did with her and then as tradition would have it, she also did with me. While on the phone, everything sounded normal with her, always with the professional voice on the phone, but as I came to realize, everything was anything but normal. I didn’t realize how badly her condition had progressed until many years later when I traveled to CA to bring her to live with me six years ago.

Looking back on Mom’s life, yes, it was rather tragic with her OCD since the age of 15, but she had accomplished her most important life goals of being both successful and professional in her career in Manhattan. She had an excellence in everything she did in her professional life and was well liked and proud of her accomplishments…and so was I. She was very smart and sensible. Eleanor Brophy as she was known back then and later becoming Eleanor Van Meter, proved she was to be reckoned with in her lifetime. I am very grateful that she retired before her dementia set it as it would have destroyed all she considered dear in her life.

Her one living friend, Noreen Barsh had been with her since the early days in Manhattan and had been a faithful friend ever since, right until the end. After Mom’s death, Noreen, in several phone conversations from her home in Texas, had told me about how very classy Mom was at work. She told me about how much she was respected at work and how they relied on her. There were so many things about my mother that I hadn’t known before…especially about her professional life. The things that Noreen told me, made me proud of the person my mother was. Noreen is about 6 years younger than my mother and interviewed with Bozell & Jacobs back in the late fifties when Mom hired her. They went on to become great friends for the rest of her life. Noreen called her every weekend and sent her little things in the mail while Mom was living with me. Even though dementia inhibited the conversation, Noreen would just talk and talk to her, talking about the good ole’ days. Life with dementia wasn’t easy. God bless Noreen for that! It made my mother very happy when she called and was sometimes even able to sound normal and join in with the conversation. That is what’s called a lifelong friend!

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Dementia Patients and Who They Leave Behind, the Grieving Process

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Mom-babyme     1946-graduate

It’s been a week since Mom passed away of her diseases and the house is feeling very empty. I’ve paid a lot of attention in my earlier posts to the struggles of both the afflicted and the caretaker. Now, I am learning about the dementia patient and who they leave behind, in this case me. It’s been a long week and I am feeling like it will also be a long journey to work through the grieving process.

If someone would have told me 10 years ago that I would have had my mother with dementia living with me, I would have laughed at them. Now here I sit after having her in this house for 6 years while taking care of her needs, wondering how I will ever get used to the void she’s left behind. In her older years, she didn’t live a huge life, but she filled a very special space in this house which will be forever missed. Even with Vladimir here, along with all the commotion that surrounds him, the void is obvious, hitting me in the face the minute I walk in at the end of the day.

m0m-b0at-profile   Mom-Tonya

The above photos are of: (1) Mom holding me, (2) Mom’s graduation photo, (3) Mom on a boat on the left looking very young and at peace on the water, (4) Mom and Tonya in August 2014, one month before her death.

We have found Tonya the dog, laying at the end of where her bed had been, leaving me to believe that she is very depressed as well. I put one of my mother’s blankets and a piece of her clothing down for her to lay on until she works her way through it. I rescued Tonya about a year and a half ago and they hit it off nicely. Tonya had grown to love her and my mother loved her back. That in itself was unique since my mother wasn’t a dog person. In the past few years she had forgotten that she had OCD, so having a dog became a non-issue. She loved having company in the house and Tonya used to follow her all over the house during the day while she was still able to walk around. Tonya almost seemed to protect her…knowing her routine and would instinctively know when she was off course.

Mom was cremated yesterday and the process felt very long although is was only 6 days. I will be leaving work early tomorrow to go and pick her up. Even though I am not Russian, it’s Vladimir’s tradition to have a little private ceremony honoring the person on the 9th day, which is tomorrow. We will do that, displaying a few photos and sit to talk about the fun times that we have spent with her. According to tradition, we will do that once again on the 40th day. It is believed that she is still in the house for 40 days before she goes on to her journey.

From my experience, this first week after is filled with sadness and denial…the do you thinks and the I wishes thought pattern going around and around. Along the journey, I sense that there will be a lot of reflection and deep thinking which will bring up a lot of emotion. Let’s see how it progresses.

Hopefully my path will help someone else in their grieving process.

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RIP Mom, Free from Dementia and Finally With Your Mother…

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sexy-mom family-trip   mom-now1

Pictured above: (1) Mom looking very young and attractive with her whole life ahead of her…career girl, (2) Mom with her Mom, Dad and Sister Lillian on a family trip…always a mama’s girl, (3) Mom a week ago looking happy and healthy.

I can hardly believe or accept the natural progression of life…doesn’t seem fair somehow.

Well, it’s a new day and one that I wasn’t looking forward to. Mom passed away this past Sunday, September 28th. She is finally with her Mother, having a clear head with no suffering. No more dementia, no more Parkinson’s disease and no more leukemia. Finally free.

I hadn’t been posting in the past month because there just wasn’t any time to do so with the stresses of the situation, so I did post an update earlier today so there was natural progression of what was happening. That being said…

Last week was her final week and it was a hard one. The Friday before was the last day that she could stand or walk…she was too weak by Monday and was totally bed ridden, although she wasn’t aware of not being able to walk or stand. She would try to get up all night, every night, scooting down to the end of the full bed rails where there is a space to get out of bed. One night I actually slept at the end of the bed so she couldn’t do that. Vladimir spent the rest of the nights, holding her hand until Wednesday when she went into a semi-asleep stage. She no longer appeared awake or speaking. She hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink in days. When her mind was awake, her eyes were still closed, but she could definitely hear what you were saying. While awake, her hand would flail around from the Parkinson’s disease, and would be still while sleeping.

After my alarm went off Friday morning at 5am, I just had this nagging feeling, like I shouldn’t go to work that day…but me being me, of course I went as to not rock the boat. I wasn’t there 2 hours when I got a text from Cardine that her breathing was heavy. That was it…I was out of there within 5 minutes…like a blur.

Called the hospice nurse to come and was hoping that she would be there before I got home. She wasn’t, so we waited…when she got there, she noticed that we had her dressed in layers and was completely overheated. We had been told by the doctor that she was extremely anemic and should be kept warm. What nobody told us, was that when the body is at the end of life, it sweats profusely, which was the case with Mom.

She instructed us to take off the layers, cut a t-shirt as if it was a hospital gown, take off the blanket and just use a sheet. Open the windows and put on a fan, which of course we did. She cooled off after a sponge bath and all seemed to be well…all except that she still no longer was 100% conscious. The nurse took her vitals and told me that her pulse was extremely high and her body was working very hard to sustain her. She told me that she though it would only be a couple of days. The thought of that scared me to death.

That night while sitting in the room with Cardine, Mom all of a sudden started calling clear as a bell, Mom…Mom…very slowly but very clear. Cardine and I both looked at each other knowing exactly what was happening….her Mom had finally come to get her just as she had with Mom’s father, my grandfather.

Saturday came and everything seemed status quo…but still there was that awful black cloud hanging overhead that something could happen at any time. I stayed close to home even though Ashley, the Saturday aide came. I wanted to see her through to the end and was very grateful that I wasn’t at work. Not sure that I would ever feel the same about working if I was there when it happened.

Got through Saturday like a champ and hoped that we could go on for a few more days. Sunday came and  I noticed that her skin was appearing yellow and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. Her liver had stopped cleaning the toxins in her body. I sat with her doing little things like looking through old photos for this blog, etc. The whole time I was searching through the old photos, I was talking with her about her younger life, working in Manhattan at all the important positions that she held, which I know was a very happy and important part of her life. I spoke about the places that we have lived and the things that occurred back in the day…the good things! Told her that I loved her…

At 2:30 pm the hospice aide came…first time, as I am usually alone with her on Sunday. I now wish I could have been alone with her this day…but they sent someone and that was it. She wasn’t there 30 minutes and Mom went into a very heavy breathing pattern accompanied by a moaning sound…almost sounding like Mom…Mom…Mom. By 3:20 I watched her take her last breadth. It was the saddest day of my life. For her, she was finally no longer suffering and with her Mother once again. The Mother who she has been searching for over the past few years. 

Rest in Peace Mom. I love you!

Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease and Acute Leukemia…What Next?

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mom-me-boat mom-sister-trip2

Pictured above (1)  A young Mom with a very young me. (2) Older sister Lillian and very young Mom looking very cute with her blonde hair!
Makes you wonder how a person can from there to where we are now.

It’s been a month since I posted last. It’s been a very active month for us after the out-of-left-field, ambush diagnosis of acute leukemia and I’m actually still processing and adjusting to the inevitable. After the diagnosis, things seemed status quo while Shad was visiting. I began to feel that they must have mis-diagnosed her. She was still walking around and looking out the window during the day, still eating her 3 meals a day with in-between snacks, still stubborn, still interested in life.

Then, little by little her mobility started declining. She was getting up less during the day, not as interested in what was going on outside the house or around her, her appetite was dwindling off and was having problems swallowing. It was very obvious that something was happening. She was agitated more than usual, started to feel frightened, especially at night. She also started getting night sweats and became very panicked and scared in the night time hours. One night I slept at the end of her bed so that she couldn’t get up and wander around the house in fear of her falling.

All this happened little by little, but here we are at the end of September and she can no longer stand up or get out of bed. Some days she eats nothing at all. She is still taking fluids although it’s not much to speak about. She sleeps rarely, like she is in a complete manic phase which effects everyone in the house. I’m not at all sure what meds she’s taking now are working for her. I actually think that one of the new meds are having an opposite effect on her.

She’s afraid to be alone and has stated very clearly that she is dying but when asked, she can’t explain why she feels that way…she just senses it, I guess. She said she has seen people and we all know what that means. They are waiting for her on the other side. I can only imagine how frightened that she must be. With the effects of dementia and Parkinson’s disease which makes her not in her right head anyway, and the speed of which she is losing the other abilities in her life due to acute leukemia, she must feel horrified of what is to come next…

and there is nothing that we can do other than to be with her, hold her hand and comfort her until the end.

What else can anyone do at a time like this? We all do the best we can.

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