Eleanor

Photo that Tom took of his mom several weeks ago

 We hadn't planned to spend Easter in NJ because I was supposed to teach Sunday School and we planned to go the following weekend.  But Saturday afternoon, Marie called and said that Eleanor's condition had changed, so we threw our stuff together, arranged for a substitute teacher and raced to NJ.

 We went straight to the rest home. Eleanor was on oxygen and her breathing was irregular and rattled. Her eyes were closed and she was unresponsive though we tried to wake her to tell her we were there. We were there a while by ourselves then Marie came back from dinner and their brother Dennis came by.  Joey and Karen were in the process of moving the boat from Charleston to New Bern, NC.  They had gotten held up in bad weather so there was no way for him to get there.  Marie had held her phone up so Joe could talk to mom and the same with Eleanor's brother, Bill.

There was a definite change in her, but nobody said to us that death was imminent.  I guess I was expecting better communication with the family and hospice but when I asked that night before we left about it, Marie said that the nurse on duty was in communication with hospice and they would call us if anything changed.  The nurse did say we could stay through the night and asked if she had a rosary which, as we look back on it should have been hints that it was close, but it just didn't register.  When grandma was nearing death, hospice was very clear with us that the end was near so we were with her the whole time.

Easter morning we got up, looked through the booklet that hospice had given us that had the list of things to watch for that would indicate death was near. Most of them applied to Eleanor except the surge of energy which clearly wasn't going to happen.  Tom and I left Marie's to go to El's house to see if we could find her rosary and we were going to meet Marie at the rest home.  We couldn't find the rosary so we had just pulled in to a store to buy her one when Marie called and said the nurse had just contacted her that Eleanor had passed.  We raced over there and were the first to arrive.  We must have missed it by minutes because she was still warm.  Even though we had all talked to her night before, expressing love and letting her know it was okay to go.....we were all still sick that she was by herself when she actually passed.

Marie, Dennis and his son Denny all arrived and we stayed with her awhile.  The woman from hospice came and said that Eleanor had apparently had her surge of energy Thursday night when she was sitting up and eating.....but no one had mentioned it to the family.  I just wish there had been better communication between them all.  However, Eleanor has been ready to go for quite a while and when I think of her being reunited with all of her friends and family who have been gone for a long, long time, I am really happy that she has transitioned into her new life.

I love this photo of her.  She was a great cook and she looks so happy!