Working on a Tribute for Eleanor

Ack, where have I been you say? My kids might almost say the same thing. This last week things have taken a big turn for the worse. Last Sunday while people were prepping for the Superbowl, we were picking out a place in the cemetery for Eleanor and for Don when his time comes. I actually stayed with Eleanor while the guys did the difficult work of reconciling with this duty. The hospice nurse has given us strong hints that the end is very near. Her need for pain medication has gone from about 5 times a day to upwards of twice an hour now. The medication puts her in a pain free fog. Or at least I hope it is really pain free. Most of the time she looks like she is just sleeping, but sometimes she chimes in on the conversations. We talked about flowers on Wednesday. It amazes me that she can respond to that but cannot tell us when she is thirsty. It is getting more and more difficult for the kids to visit her. Ethan does not want to be the first person to enter the room anymore for fear that he will find that she has died. It is scary. The other night her breathing was erratic. Some breathes would be normal then there would be long periods where she looked like she was not breathing. We have made all of the difficult phone calls and put the out of town family members on alert.

Meanwhile I am working on my video tribute to her. I've been working my way through a life time of slides. Eleanor does not like to have her photograph taken so there are not that many to find. I pick a reel and look at each slide in the light. Put it back in place and look at another one. I had hoped to go through all of the reels, but that is just not happening. The kids tried to help me but they could not recognize her in the earlier photos. On Wednesday Don urged me to have it ready to show her by today, Friday. He is worried that she will not get an opportunity to see it. I think the opportunity may have already passed. However, each night after feeding the family I have been plugging away at this project. It has been hard, emotional and wonderful all at the same time. I was up until past 11:00 p.m. last night burning a version that I tried to show her this morning. I had a hard time picking good music. I started with "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" followed by "What a Wonderful World" and ended with "We'll Meet Again." Larr said that the music takes it too over the top. He asked me to turn the music off so he could watch the slides without it. He thinks I should put something more nondescript with it. I showed what I have done to Don. He was emotional too, but that is no surprise. He wants me to find someway to be able to stop it on some of the slides so that they can look at an image longer. I will have to research and see if you can do that. I am using ProShow Gold, a fabulous program. However, I don't know it very well so I don't know if that option exists. If not, I will simply make a file with the photos for him.

Don and my husband are dealing with this end very gracefully. It is down to sitting with her, holding her hand, giving her kisses. If you are lucky you might even get a kiss back. You can see the love they have in her face. In some ways I am thankful that we have this time to be very consciously appreciative for her in our lives. In other ways I worry that she is beginning to linger. She spends most of her time sleeping and does not seem to be able to be very conscious even when people are there to see her. We wonder if she is waiting for something or if she just does not want to go. We will simply be thankful for each day that we can hold her soft, warm hand, brush back her hair from her face and remember her love for us. The slide show is my way of remembering.