My Mary Etta

{This Was sent to me to post by Debra Turner}

Today is Mary Etta’s birthday…it’s been a long week. Allen’s birthday was the 23rd. Everyone tried to make him have a good birthday, but we all knew that it wasn’t going to be. It was like we were all just waiting for her to walk in late as usual. I continuously look over the year 2005, it was a year filled with good and bad memories. Mary Etta spent 45 days in the hospital during the months of June and July. During this time we all shared a lot. We would stay up all night talking and then sleep all day. We watched every Lifetime movie there was, more than once, and we could always tell each other what was going to happen. Then when she came home, I would go eat lunch with her everyday and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would spend the whole day with her. On these days, I would always end up asleep on the couch and I would tell her to wake me up if she needed me and of course she wouldn’t wake me up until it was time for Trent to get off the bus.

Mary Etta, Sara, and I shared a lot throughout the year. The funniest thing would have to have been when me, Mary Etta, and Sara all rode fourwheelers, now that was a sight to see! Also, one day we all went and got barbeque sandwiches and went and ate them under the tree at Ms. Letha’s and then we went shopping at TJ Maxx. Sara and I knew that she probably didn’t feel up to the trip, but she wouldn’t let us know that, she never wanted anyone to know how much pain she was in, especially Johnny and Momma. That’s how she was though, even when she was sick she worried about everyone else, instead of herself. She loved everybody, especially her family.
I keep looking back on New Year’s Eve night…the whole family circled around her in the hospital and we all watched the ball drop and that’s how she would have wanted it, for everyone to be together. When we were all in Duke, we would joke about how Mary Etta would love to be in that hotel in the middle of everyone, but the only problem would be that she wouldn’t be able to figure out which room to stay in, so she probably would have set an alarm clock and spent the same amount of time in each room.

This past time in Duke right before she went in for surgery she told me to “be good” and I really have tried to do a lot better because of her. Mary Etta was just a good-natured person and I can see many of her ways in Johnny. We all have a heart full of memories that will always be with us. The other night I was talking to Sara and she said that she thought you could die from a broken heart, but I hope that’s not the case because there are a lot of us with broken hearts.

Today should have been a happy day, we should have been having cake and ice cream, but instead we had to go to the cemetery to wish my sister happy birthday. They say all things happen for a reason, but I just haven’t figured this one out yet. My only regret is that I wished I would have just rubbed her back a little more and just spent more time with her.

The night that I went to Duke to see mom I started writing down some of my thoughts. The first paragrah that follows is what came from that weekend.

33 years ago my mother entered the hospital on Dec. 10, 1972 with a large swollen belly ready to give birth to a little boy . Tonight That little boy sits with his mother in a Durham North Carolina hospital room her belly large and swollen. But this time her belly is swollen with pain and sorrow . My mother has been fighting Ovarian Cancer for a little over a year and a half now fighting something that sprang from the very place where that gave me life.

This is the last thing my mother would have ever wanted was for us to have to spend this day in a hospital. She arranged for my uncle Allen to meet me on my way up so that he could give me a birthday cake that she had made for me. She wanted for that day to continue to be special for me. I’m not sure how much more special it could have been I got the chance to spend another day by her side. Even now looking back on that night and more importantly that weekend. My mother would give me the greatest gift I could of ever receive.

That weekend we laid beside each other and spoke of things we would never discuss at any other time. Given the trials that would present themselves in the following two weeks It just may have saved my sanity and gave me a chance to continue on.

My cousin Nicole Mills sent me a card with a poem in it I would like to share this with all of you.

Loving Her Was Easy
We Do It Everyday

Missing her is a Heartache
That Never Goes Away.

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Mom always had a fear of tall bridges. I remember when we went to Charleston to see the USS Yorktown. When we started going up to the bridge over the Cooper River, Mom said that we could stop to let her out and we could pick her up on the way back over – but she put her head down into a pillow we had in the car and went over. Mom Always went above and beyond the call of duty for me.

Later while I was attending the Savannah College of Art and Design we rode over the Talmadge Memorial Bridge together. She liked it much better than any of the others she had been across in the past. She came to see me once and intentionally took Hwy. 17 into town. She thought she could try to go over driving. The story she told me was that she sat on the other side building herself up for the attempt. She completed that trip at my front door with a giant smile on her face and one more bridge behind her. She brought this same drive to achieve to everything she did.

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Originally uploaded by athelm.

Photo of moms 30th birthday party, or at least I think thats what she would have said.

{This Was sent to me to post by Amanda Turner Thank You Amanda!!!}
It’s Tuesday and I can’t help but think that at the end of this week my aunt would have been 53 and she’s not here to celebrate her birthday. You know it seems like just yesterday we were having her surprise 50th birthday party…its funny how time flies by. She never wanted to get old, but why did it have to end like this? It has always been said that the worst things happen to the best people and she was definitely the best. I hate that I’m away from my family, but yet at the same time I’m glad I’m in Charleston because I can kind of block out the fact that my Uncle Jackie is in that big house all by his self, but then again no one here understands. Sometimes it just hits me like tonight when I hung up the phone with Uncle Jackie and looked at my computer screen of which the background is a picture of me and Uh. Then when I go out to eat, go somewhere new, do something exciting, or come up with new weird names for my unborn children I think of Uh because she was the first person I would call to tell about it, and nobody else appreciated those things the way she did…and it’s so hard now not to do those things. And when I go home the first place I would go after I dropped my stuff off was to Uh’s and Uncle Jackie’s and I would run up the steps and before I opened the door she would know who I was and then we’d watch a movie or either I would go get us a supreme pizza, but you know I just can’t bring myself to eat one without her, I just don’t think it would taste the same. You know, she never ever complained…and she had all the reason too. She was so strong and tough she would go on when others would have not been able to. I just can’t fathom the fact that she’s gone….when school first started it was a whole month before I got to see her and it seems so unreal that it’s going to be a lot longer than that before I see her again. They say time heals all wounds, it’s going to take a long time to heal my wounds….and a lot of adjusting. Uh left a legacy she made a difference in a lot of people’s lives and her memory will live forever in all of her family, friends, and even those who merely met her. She was so thoughtful and creative and I miss her more than words could ever say.

It’s 2:07 in the morning and I sit unable to sleep – something I know all too well these days. I’m watching a program on the history channel on Thomas Edison. My mind keeps running the life story of my mother. She didn’t invent anything, but the lives she touched on a daily basis is staggering.

My mother was a nurse for long as I can remember. She leaves behind her a list of people who will remember and how gentle her touch was. People would request that she be the one to give shots if they had to have them. People looked forward to seeing her smiling face in the office.

She understood pain and would do everything in her power to keep it to a minimum. I had many cuts during my childhood many probably would have required stiches but she would bind them up with butterfly strips because she knew how the thought of that would upset me. She sat with me all night when I had a fever and held a cold cloth to my forhead.

I will miss all the love and protection she gave to me and I know I will not be the only one.

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Originally uploaded by athelm.

My mother passed away from ovarian cancer at the begining of the year. So I decided to start this blog to help me cope with my grief and to share with the world all the special memories I have of my mother.

I hope you will be able to see at lease a glimpse of how beautiful she really was.