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I've been away from the Club for a while. I surprisingly don't feel out of the loop. I guess it's because there is always a relatability between mothers and though our stories are different from each others', there is also an element of familiarity and that can make a frantic, stressed out, or overworked mom feel less alone and validated.

Our family had a wonderful Christmas. We even managed a journey to L.A. to see my pregnant sister in an 15-passenger van almost filled to capacity. The trip went off without a hitch. Merriment was had by all. We returned safely to the Sacramento area on the Sunday before Christmas Eve and prepared for another round of holiday festivities. Christmas Eve was spent at my other sister's house. Everyone was in great spirits, regardless of the fatigue we all felt from the trip. The only chaos was during presents and the clean-up afterward. Isn't that always the case?

The following day, we had our own private family Christmas morning experience and then we went to my mother-in-law's house. We saw other family members that we only see on Christmas morning. Even though her tiny living room was filled beyond capacity (I spent most of the time standing in the kitchen) my mother-in-law seemed happy (though exhausted from not sleeping the night before). After we did breakfast and presents at her house, we returned to our home to give our daughter a nap before going back over to my mother-in-law's house. When we arrived at my mother-in-law's, I could see on her face that she was in pain and didn't get the nap that she told us she'd get in our absence. No, instead she baked a cake and made fruit salad because she told us she would and she didn't want to let anyone down.

Her lethargy carried on throughout the rest of our visit and well into the next day when I called to check on her. I planned on calling her again the following day, to see if she fully recovered from the holiday yet, but before I got the chance, I was awoken early in the morning by my sobbing husband who had just returned from the ER where he found out his mother had passed away. Her heart was tired and just stopped beating. He was assured that her passing was painless, which was of some consolation.

The next week was filled with sickness throughout the house. I was the only one not sick. The sickness actually forced my husband to deal with his grief since there were very few distractions inside the confines our darkened room where he convalesced. When he wasn't sleeping, he was thinking.

Once our house was on the mend, we began to see the silver linings. That's a pretty way of saying, "Finding things that will allow us to go on without breaking down every five seconds and alleviate our guilt for carrying on with life." For one, her health was in rapid decline. She was going to become an invalid, which is something she absolutely refused to be. She wouldn't be a burden, she promised us. Not like we would have minded. I always reminded her that her kids owed her eighteen years in return for her child-rearing. She always laughed at the thought of ME cooking HER dinner every night. After all, SHE was the cook in the family. It was her greatest passion, aside from her children, her boyfriend, and of course, her two yapping Shitsus.

The other silver lining is that she always told us she wanted to die of a heart attack, just like her mother did. I always thought, why not wish to die in your sleep? She told me once that people don't really die like that. 

I wish she was here so I could rub that in her face.

I was really fortunate to have her in my life. I'd always heard evil mother-in-law stories from my friends and was surprised that my story was more of a fairytale than a grim one. I'm not saying we didn't have our moments. She was even more stubborn than me. She made me cry on more than one occassion. The only reason she could make me cry is because I loved her. I love her.