A Mother's Heart--Takes a Lickin' But Keeps on Tickin'

On Friday around noon I receive this call from my sister in Beaumont. Her voice is all shaky and breathless when she answers my greeting and immediately my heart skips. When  she asks...."Where's Karra?" My heart almost stops. Fear is outrages. It quickly plunges you into all kinds of scenarios. I irrationally thought of all of the things that could have happened to Karra, but right in the next breath my sister disperses the fear of something happening to my daughter only to have me calling out to Jesus because it was believed my mom had a stroke and was being rushed to the hospital. I live too far away. Angela is the main crutch in the family. I know she gets tired. She is ill with Lupus, but handles things so well. There is always one in the family. Thank God it is her. I call her my mother's mom. She and Pansy are hospital people and I do the home stuff. Clean, organize (mom has the I need all bits of memories syndrome) that sort of thing. Keeps my hands busy, tears at bay and I can focus my mind on prayer. In the  hospital things are so constant, including fear.

Karra now lives in Beaumont with my mom. She was at school and my mom had been at her other home, bingo, when she had her attack. I thank God she goes to bingo with friends and she had her cell phone with her. This was how the people were able to get in touch with my sister.  I live too far away.

When I finally arrived in Beaumont and saw mom she was her usual self. This woman has lived through two quadruple bypasses, a couple of bypasses and numerous heart attacks. She is a tough old thing. She started having heart attacks at the age of 38 she is 77 now. I guess rearing 7 kids on her own tired the hell out of her. Not to mention everything else life can hand you.

The main thing I have taken away from this scare is how happy mom looked. You could swear she was at a family reunion. All of her children and grandchildren were there except the silly one who loves living in the BIG house. She even  told a nurse to wait on the tests because she wanted to spend sometime with her family because she doesn't see us all often. I think she is lonely. I had told myself when I moved to Houston that I would go and see her every other weekend. Doesn't happen. My car is broken and the girls don't really like going to Beaumont.

Anyway, Mom is fine. After she gets another CATscan we'll know more. They couldn't do an MRI because during on of her heart surgeries a few years ago a piece of the metal guide wire broke and they left it in her (another story)and now an MRI could burn the piece of metal. I told her to sue them back then, but I'm not her mom. Anyway she is still with us, yay and praise God!