Recovering from Norma Jo

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Chapter 15
The last 2 years.
After my Uncle Gene died mothers health began to deteriorate rapidly. She was weak and couldn't do for herself very well. After 40 years of smoking she was tied to an oxygen machine. Anytime she left her oxygen off she would de-sat rapidly. Meaning she would have to have help with activities of daily living or (ADL's)

Aunt Pete summoned me and I went. Mother was there and I felt like I was about to be set up.
Norma Jo needed ME .
For the first time ever my mother NEEDED me.

She didn't want to go to a nursing home so she had a home nurse coming 3x a week. After I had gone by the house several times to check on her I noticed that EVERY time I went to mom's house and the nurse was there. The nurse would be sitting in mom's chair on the phone. I asked mom what does she do when she's there. Mom told me if it was on a day mother took her bath the nurse would help her in and out of the tub. That's it... the extent of her nursing care. She didn't even separate mother's medications. I called and fired the nursing service.
After the home health fiasco I bit the bullet and moved in with her to keep her out of the nursing home. Even though she did horrendous things to me I stilled LOVED MY MOTHER. I didn't want to see her go into a nursing home because with her personality she would've been one of the ones who they would dope up and tie her to a railing.

It was no easy task taking care of Norma Jo.
She had STANDARDS! Lol
She hated when the lights were left on in the house. She was constantly screaming at me and the boys about turning off the damn lights because "we don't own no stock in the electric company". That was one of her favorite sayings that I heard throughout my lifetime.
I checked the mail one day. Walked into the the house with a very serious look on my face. She immediately asked what was wrong.
I started in. " I am done with the lies mother!"
The look on her face was priceless. She spoke after a second of stunned silence. "What have I lied to you about?" She asks.
I said "All my dang life you've told me we don't own no stock in the electric company"
I held up her stockholders package FROM THE ELECTRIC COMPANY!
In the silence of the moment I busted out laughing and she did too. That was a rare thing to share laughter with her and it felt good!

In the coolness of the mornings she would sit on the couch wrapped up in a blanket. Gregory would get out of bed and go to the living room mother would open her blanket like a mother hen lifting her wing so her babies would feel protected. He would sit there with her wrapped in that blanket watching the public broadcast station. Her favorite PBS series was about a mother chimpanzee who had 2 babies . Her name was Faustina and her babies were named Ferdinand and Fredrico. She called my boys Ferdinand and Fredrico. She didn't see anything wrong with calling them that... lol.
Gregory still has that old fuzzy blanket and still sleeps with it and mother has been gone 26 years.
We took mother to Carlsbad caverns. She had to be pushed in a wheelchair. She was grouchy on the day we went to the caverns. The boys weren't pushing her to her liking so I took over the pushing... we rounded a corner and we're on a downhill slope. She said something ugly and I told her if she didn't behave I would let her chair go on that slope. It hurt her feelings and I did not intend for it to. I was just joking. She didn't talk to me for a month afterwards.
It was kinda peaceful.

I cooked Thanksgiving that year and cooked a feast. It was absolutely delicious and mother told me she was proud of me because she didn't know I could cook like that. She probably thought that because she never tried to teach me to cook. I picked that up when I moved to Nashville. Johnny's aunt liked me and she taught me how to cook southern style. And I blossomed... I was and still am a good cook.
Then Christmas rolled around and believe it when I say my mother loved Christmas time. She always did. So we decorated everything and I cooked another big feast and we had Christmas at her house. When ever everyone was gone and we were sitting in the livingroom alone she told me "baby I believe this is the best Christmas I've ever had. Thank you" she would be gone less than 2 weeks later.
I had NEVER felt a mother daughter bond with her until the last 6 months of her life.
She would keep candy beside her on the couch. The boys being typical boys would raid her stash. She had a box of caramel pecan turtles. She gave each one of the boys a piece of candy and she was intent on saving the rest.
She hid the box under the couch.
As we were sitting one evening one of the boys asked her for a piece of the turtle candy. She told them she was out of the turtle candy. After they made their selection from her candy dish they went along their merry way. She reached under the couch and brought out the turtle candy. She had 2 pieces left. She got up and made her way to where I was sitting. She pressed that piece of turtle candy in my hand like you would press money into a soldiers hand as they go off to war. She told me she had saved those 2 candies so I could have one because she knew I liked them. When she did that our eyes met and for the first time in my life at 33 years old I felt a connection. A connection I LONGED for, for 33 years.
I knew when she pressed that piece of candy into my hand, that she didn't have much longer to live.

The mind numbing sound of the oxygen machine was enough to drive you crazy.. There was no getting away from it in the house. She would always go to bed before I did and there were some times that I would listen to the constant drone of that machine. Willing her to take another breath. Some nights her apnea was scary. I would listen to that machine and pray that she would be ok. Her breaths became shorter as her COPD and emphysema continued to worsen. She would cough up big sticky blobs of mucus that were almost black in color.
We had discussed what she wanted done for her funeral. She already had a funeral plan and she left a detailed message,including that if we waited around until a Saturday to bury her it would cost more and she definitely wouldn't be there to pay it.
I payed to have the grave opened and closed, everything else was paid for.

Before she passed I came in from work and there was strange car in the driveway. It was a guy from a competing funeral home. Trying to get her to buy a plot in the same Cemetery her brothers were buried in.
She wanted to be planted beside my daddy.
I wasn't in the livingroom with them but I was within ear shot. This man was badgering my mother (something that she wouldn't have allowed in her younger days).
I emerged from the bedroom and told this man he needed to pick up his satchel and all his reading material and get out. I had heard her tell him several times that she wasn't intrested. He asked me who I was. I told him it wasn't his business who I was but if he didn't get the hell out of the house I would introduce him to the SCARY BITCH part of me. He left hastily.
I told mother not let anymore salesmen or STRANGERS into the house.

One morning about 3am JJ came amd woke me up. He had come downstairs and saw mother on the couch struggling to breathe. I went to her and asked if she needed to go to the hospital and she shook her head yes.
I asked if i needed to call an ambulance and she shook her head yes. At that point I knew she was in big trouble because she never wanted to call an ambulance because "that's a thousand dollar bill" The ambulance came and these 2 very nice EMT's did everything possible to make her comfortable. They took off with her and i followed behind. When we got to the Er one of the emt"s stopped me in the hall. he told me that her heart rate was way high and her blood pressure was astronomical. When our bodies prepare die the thyroid does something called a hormonal dump. The dump is done to save the vital organs. The body tries to protect itself. I asked if she had stroked out and he told me no but they were worried about that so they took protocol and gave her stroke treatment. From the ER they took her to her room. After having been at the hospital for about 3 days one of the nurses suggested I go home and get some rest before I was in the bed beside my mother.
I went home and started cleaning... at about 2am the nurse called me and told me that mother was hearing church bell's. I Knew then the end was near.. I went back to the hospital. She had moved from hearing church bells to talking to the Angels. She did recognize me when I came in. I sat beside the bed and held her hand. She clung to my hand as if it were a life jacket. I cried as I watched my mother slip away.
At the end when she was talking to the angels she called out to my uncle Gene. Then she said her bosses name. Then it was like she saw someone she'd been waiting to see. Her voice caught and she said my daddy's name. She said Charles. She always told me she couldn't wait to see him again. When her voice caught and she said his name I knew he was there helping her cross over. After she said my daddy's name she lifted her head and reached out with her hand as if she was grasping something with total awe and wonderment she spoke His name. My mother who had been horrible to people most of her life reached up and grabbed the robe of Jesus and spoke His name. She was in Heaven.
Earlier in the day when she was still coherent she had a male nurse. Here comes the male nurse with the little wash tub, soap, washcloths and towels. She looked him and down then asked him "what are you gonna do with that?"
"Well Mrs. Cox I need to bathe you. She sat straight up in bed and said "young man I have gone 72 years without a man giving me a bath and im Not gonna start now!" LOL
He however told her that it was his responsibility to bathe her and that's what they were gonna do. Knowing my mother I knew his protest fell on deaf ears. I told him to leave everything and we would handle it. Which we did. The fallowing day she was to be transferred to a family hospice room. As we're sitting there here comes same little male nurse with his wash tub and soap.
I looked him straight in the eye and asked him almost the same words mother asked him "What do you think you're gonna do with all that."
He said "she has to have a bath before she goes to hospice care"

I told him that she would come back and haunt me for letting a man bathe her and I wasn't gonna chance it.
I gave her, her last bath. With tears rolling down my face I forgave her for all the pain she had caused me in my lifetime. And I apologized for doing the same.. I also told her if she was hanging on because of me and the boys that we were gonna be alright. That she built me tough and stronger than I should've been. We would be ok. When we were done with her bath I stepped outside of the curtain to take the towels to the hamper. The bed next to mother was now occupied by a lady who looked be mothers same age. She had tears her eyes. She was trying to hold back the tears but they flowed like a stream down this little ladies face. She said " Hun you don't know me from Adam but what you just did with your momma touched my heart. I'm sure she is proud of you for the way you're handling all this." She didn't know that I was barely hanging on at that point and what she said helped my heart in so many ways.
Mother had a DNR in place and I had to sign off on it. I had to go home and shower. My Phone rang and it was Josie. She said they had come in to evaluate mother before moving to a hospice family room, they needed mothers medical power of attorney person there to sign off on all the paperwork. When I returned to the hospital I signed the papers and she was taken to the Hospice wing. Everyone there except Peyton. He had left for liberal KS that morning we had to call and have them turn him around for home. While waiting for him mother became restless. She was unconscious but moving around in the bed.. When Peyton got there she settled down. He said his goodbyes. Him and josie left the room with the Lathams to go get coffee. I went to the chapel. As I sat praying for her last moments on this earth not to be painful to let her go easily into that long goodnight.. The chapel doors opened and Kimberly told me that mother passed as soon as all 3 of us were gone. I felt her leave while sitting in that chapel.

Chapter 14
NJ&JC

My intent was never to bash my mother or my sister. This is a story of the things that I've lived through. The story of ME. I set out to right some wrongs and tell the truth of the matter no matter the emotional cost to myself.
This journey has been a long one and when I go out of this life I will have no regrets. I have had fun. I have had some amazing love stories. (And still room for more) I've had my heart broken by people who didn't even know I was dying inside because of the vitriol and viciousness of their words and actions.
I've been on adventures I had only dreamed about.
I've stood on the edge of the abyss,alone, staring at the blackness of it all, contemplating the fall.

It does not escape me that my my brother and sister had a totally different childhood than I did. It also does not escape me that Josie was probably resentful of me because mother put a LOT on her at an early age. A lot of the things my mother should've been doing were put on Josie. I understand the resentment she must of felt. She cooked, cleaned and watched me until mother would get home from work. She was robbed of her childhood too. At 10 yrs old she was taking care of a 1yr old because Norma Jo basically checked out when daddy got killed.

I did not realize what was wrong with my mother until I went to nursing school.

When daddy was killed it was in a construction accident. He was an inspector for the state of Texas and he was going to inspect an area along I-40. They were building the curve coming out south from downtown to 40 west bound.
They were putting the berm in. There was a road grader on top of the berm and one running on the side of the berm. There was a cable stretched between the 2 road graders so the one on the side wouldn't roll down the berm. There were no flags or warning devices to warn of the cable stretched between the 2 graders. My dad was driving west on the berm. It was in the evening time and he was driving into the sun. He never saw the cable and ran through it shearing off the top of the truck my dad was driving. The cable came through the cab starting at the bottom of the windshield, it cut through the dash the steering wheel and eventually it cut through my dad at about the clavicle and essentially decapitated him.
The Texas dept of transportation still uses the pictures and videos of my dad's accident in their training program.

When the police officers came to the house to get mother they told her that he had been in an accident and she needed to get to the hospital asap. She had no time to call anyone to go with her. Even though she kept asking the officer would not tell her what happened. Up until the moment she walked into the room where he laid she thought he had just been in an accident, they didn't tell her he was already dead.
My mother walked into the room where he laid on a table, unaccompanied she saw that my father was dead. They had not covered him and his injuries were visible. I can NOT fathom what she must have felt at that moment. She was permanently damaged from that point on.
I'm sure she had PTSD from that.
I know she had major depression, manic depressive and bi polar.
I remember she had heavy drapes in the house that blocked out the light. She would sit in her chair in the dark for hours and cry. I learned early when she was like that to NOT BOTHER her.

She was that way until she took her last breath.

There were lots of times that if you made her mad she would just stop talking to you. It really didn't matter who it was. She didnt talk to her oldest brother up until the time he took his last breath.
There were times when she shunned uncle Carrol and even her youngest brother uncle Gene and he was her favorite.. She would ghost you without notice or pre-warning. She was vicious when she was mad and she would say mean hurtful things.
She would do mean hurtful things too. Like trying to pay one of my brothers ex wives NOT to marry him. She would go out of her way to make people feel miserable.
She had bought T&T their pigs for 4-h (something she wouldn't let me participate in even though I begged).
I asked her if she bought Peyton Ross a pig too? Nope! Sure didn't because PR has a daddy that can buy his pig. I had to remind her that T&T had a daddy also who was more than capable to buy pigs.
She did for T&T and didn't do for the other grandchildren. When her and Josie had their falling out before she died T&T also stopped communicating with her as well. However Todd did bring one of his girlfriends over to meet her. Mother made a beautiful baby quilt for Todd but never gave it to him but he never came back. When she passed I MADE SURE he got the baby quilt when Janelle had Abby.
She also made a beautiful purple and pink quilt for Sharon when she was married to my bro. Sharon left the quilt in his possession because his mother made it. It took a journey to someone's home (because he didn't really have a place to put it up).
He asked for it back before he died because he wanted HIS granddaughter to have it. He died still with unanswered text and calls for it to be brought back to give to his grandchild.
Greediness is a hateful beast and so is jealousy and envy...