Last month a mother I know died. She had stage IV breast cancer. She discovered this when her daugher Nella, who goes to Henry's school, was 9 months old and she was still nursing. Her oldest daughter is in the 4-5 year old class and Nella is in the 2-3 year old class, so Henry knows them both. We went to her birthday party 2 weekends ago--her mom died on Sept 20th. I was sitting next to Nella when she blew out her candles and I got choked up because I was so sad her mom was missing it. I also wanted to scoop her up and cuddle with her because if I died and left babies behind I would want some other mother to love on my kids.
As soon as I found out Adelea died I could not stop saying over and over, "But I just saw her." I JUST saw her. She would often drop off her kids (late) at the same time I did, and we would chat in the breezeway, joking about what slacker-moms we were, always being late. I remember her telling me about living in Germany and I remember her telling me about her part time job that paid nothing but maintained her sanity (sounded familiar). She had huge dimples and the bluest eyes I've ever seen and she was always smiling. I know people do that when someone dies--they bring up these amazing things about the person and they go on and on about it, but I would have said those things before her death. I didn't even know she was dying. She looked so good. Tan, carefree, YOUNG. She was only 32. Her death must have come very quickly b/c she was still dropping off her kids the week or so beforehand. She was bald, but I figured she was just cool like that. Her hair was always shaved very short so I thought nothing off it when it was suddenly bald--(it's Austin).
I wanted to attend her funeral but I couldn't do it. I had Eleanor with me and I would have been a sobbing mess. The family requested donations be made in her honor to Henry's school. They are building a separate playground for the 2 year olds and dedicating it to Adelea. Right now the dad and children are being surrounded by love and support. I plan to make myself useful at some point to this family who does not really know me and in the interim, I will steal looks at those two beautiful babies flanking Henry's classroom and hope they are doing alright.
this is so sad. thanks for sharing. life is too damn fragile and unfair. it will be so nice if you are able to do something helpful for her family.
ReplyDeleteThat is just heart breaking. I can remember when the kids were young praying that I would not die before my kids were raised. That is just too much for a young child to have to deal with.
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