It was Sunday September 7, 2014 and Spencer, Amelia, Lydia and I headed to Muncie in the early afternoon. The day before had been our sixth anniversary and Mom wanted to take us out to dinner. I texted her that we were aiming to get to her apartment about 1 PM. She texted back "~1:30 PM ;)". I laughed, she was right she knew I usually ran 30 minutes behind.
We got there and decided to go out to Johnny Carino's for lunch. She had coupons. She almost always had coupons. Mom had a big file folder of restaurant coupons and I enjoyed going through it and finding a good restaurant and a good deal. Going out to eat with my parents was always a special time for me. As my brothers grew older and moved out, going out to eat happened a lot more. Most certainly we would go out to eat on Friday night or order in and maybe even on Saturday too. My Dad would joke that even if I hadn't been around all day I always seemed to show up when it was time for food.
Dinner was good but a little hectic as is usual with little children. I believe both Mom and I both had the lobster ravioli. Lydia was half asleep in her infant seat which required rocking every so often. Amelia was sleepy and insisted on sitting in my lap and resting her head on my shoulder most of the meal. I ate with one hand. My Mom and I joked about my first Mother's Day when Amelia was less than 2 months old and required holding the entire meal. My Mom cut up my food for me. We left pretty quickly as both of the girls were getting restless. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home to get my Mom her carmel frappe.
We arrived back at her apartment and I tried to get her medications organized for the week. She took a lot these days and I had bought her a divider for morning, afternoon, evening, and bedtime. Every week I would put her pills out and type an updated list of all her medications. The list required updating at least once a week. Something was always being added or changed and something always needed refilled. I grew confused myself trying to organize her meds. It made me realize how unlikely it was many of my patients were taking their meds properly at home. I noticed she was missing most of her morning medications. She slept through them. I cut her long acting morphine down to twice a day since she was missing the morning dose anyway.
We were getting ready to leave and I told Amelia to tell Mams goodbye. My Mom was sitting in a chair and she ran up to her and gave her a big hug. Amelia is not always affectionate so this was a sweet moment. I tried to capture it on my phone camera but I was out of memory.
We left and I texted her when we got home that we made it there safely and she texted back that she had just finished talking on the phone to my brother Sean.
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To make this blog I have been reviewing a lot of texts between my Mom and I for information. I used to have to scroll and scroll and scroll, but today I only barely had to move the screen a little. It's surreal that I'm almost at the end of our text conversation. I have them saved all the way back to August 2013.
September 7, 2014 was the last meal I ever ate out with my mother. It was the last car ride I ever took with my Mom. And it was the last time I ever left her alone in her apartment. On Thursday September 11, 2014 I would be coming back to stay.
12 days left
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