Long Dark Nights

 Those last few nights when mom was fighting cancer were long dark nights. Us girls and dad would take turns sitting up with her and giving her her medicine. We didn't want her in pain so we watched it very closely. She had such a hard time swallowing so we would have to squirt the medicine in through a syringe around her gums to just be absorbed. She also had such shallow breathing that she would scare us sometimes. She was VERY fidgetty and was constantly pulling at her clothes and her face. She would lift her arm to scratch her face, but wasn't strong enough to hold the weight of it, so it would come crashing down on her face. We would have to hold her hands to try and keep her from pulling and tugging at everything. They told us all of this was normal as people pass, but it was still so hard to watch. Dad and the boys gave her a blessing one night and then the boys turned and gave dad a blessing as well. So many tender, tender moments as we watched her work through her final stages of life.