Blooming Women
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  • About Blooming Women
  • About Being a Contributor
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  • Happy Birthday, Blooming Women! One Year Today!
  • Blog—Maniacal Musings—Becky Lyn Rickman, Managing Editor
  • Blog—Jessica's Journey—Jessica VanVactor, Guest Contributor
  • Blog—My Armenia—Carol Rickman's Blog
  • Dealing with miscarriage
  • My Story
  • Circles
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being Single
  • 5 Stages of divorce recovery
  • The Circus is in Town
  • (You're covered with) The Fingerprints of God
  • Thunder Roared and Love Soared
  • A Period Piece
  • A sneak preview of the Gertie sequel!
  • Six Steps to Cultivate your Femininity in the Business World
  • Chore Zoning or Don't try this at home!
  • The 50 with Meredith Morse—Opera Singer
  • The 50 with Jessica VanVactor
  • Memorizing Joy
  • AT LAST! My interview with Shan White, Life Coach for women in transition
  • Questions and statements we don't care if we never, ever get asked or told again (am I right, girls?)
  • The Date
  • Moonshadow's Spirit
  • Broken Writer + Hypnotherapy = Amazing Trips
  • The "R" Word
  • The 50 with Carol Shepherd Rickman
  • Triumph During Transitions
  • A Kentucky Afternoon
  • Mothers
  • 10 things chemo taught me
  • What if . . .
  • Forgiveness—A poem
  • Mantegories (n. from the Latin; man+categories)
  • Insomnia 101
  • Blooming Bud Interview: Sierra
  • Masterful Mindsets
  • It's in the bag!
  • Important lessons for children: Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can
  • Nursery rhymes, and times, and slimes, and grimes, and crimes
  • Things I learned as a single mom
  • Sadie's Soapbox: Dating
  • The Dress
  • 8 Things That Have Surprised Me About Having a Large Family
  • The gift of longing
  • The Semicolon Project
  • Most embarrassing moments—culinary edition
  • MilitaReality—a brat's perspective
  • About those elusive wisps of thought
  • Being there
  • The Giving Mom
  • How I still haven't learned to keep my smart mouth shut!
  • If you give a mom a cookie . . .
  • Cacti and Geraniums
  • The Three Gardeners
  • Beauty is as beauty does
  • Words for Sabra
  • Arm scratching in Baltimore
  • Pornography didn't kill our love and friendship . . . I did . . . and how we got it back
  • Hardening off our little bloomers
  • The Wonderful, Magical Women of Blooming Television
  • Shake it like a Polaroid picture!
  • 25 Date Nights (that aren't dinner and a movie)
  • Hills Like White Elephants
  • Maryland Beaten Biscuits
  • The night we thought the house was exploding
  • A mysterious case of goosebumps or "What is that on the wall?"
  • Militareality—Real stories of military wives
  • Finding my metal in wood
  • Another blooming bud interview
  • Chariot of Fire
  • Secret gifts of love
  • The best prank I ever pulled was . . .
  • Connie
  • Dating and other hazards
  • Favorite childhood memories
  • When God speaks . . .
  • Zanie gets into another sticky situation
  • No-see-ums: A little useful information
  • I love my kids, but . . .
  • Meg's poem
  • Another blooming bud interview
  • Some of my favorite herbal recipes are . . .
  • I love my cat, but . . .
  • I love all creatures, but . . .
  • The thing all girls and women must see and know . . .
  • The Great Chicken Debacle
  • The Powerful Influence of Brothers
  • How I feel about blooming is . . .
  • Sometimes grandma is up—other times she is simply upside-down
  • Anyone out there as anxious as I am?
  • Some of my funniest childhood memories are . . .
  • You might be addicted to Harry Potter if . . .
  • This month's survey:
  • Another Blooming Bud interview
  • The most valuable life lesson I've learned is . . .
  • The greatest blessing to come out of the most painful thing I ever experienced was . . .
  • The most powerful influence on my life is . . .
  • The thing that could have broken our family, but didn't was . . .
  • The funniest thing that ever happened to me was . . .
  • The time my dad really surprised me was when . . .
  • NEW FEATURE: Interviews with Blooming Buds
  • ANOTHER NEW FEATURE: A survey
  • The most valuable life lesson I've ever learned is . . .
  • My most embarrassing moment was when . . .
  • What really puzzles me is . . .
  • One of the most fun days I ever had was . . .
  • The most scared I've ever been was when . . .
  • The people who have been the biggest influence on me are . . .
  • I like to relax by . . .
  • The best way to do . . .
  • My most embarrassing moment was when . . .
  • The most fun I ever had was when . . .
  • When I grow up, I want to be . . .
  • What really puzzles me is . . .
  • The most amazing bargain I ever found was . . .
  • Those annoying things kids do and what they mean
  • My shameless self-promotion
  • The thing about getting older is . . .

Being there

By Becky Lyn Rickman
One of the perks of being a woman is the privilege of being there when life begins and being there when it ends.
One of my fondest memories surrounds the long-term illness of my grandmother-in-law, Rosetta Williams. It was, as Dickens stated, the best of times and the worst of times. 

I was living in New York at the time with my then husband, Bruce, and our children. We were going through horrendous trials as a couple and I was fairly certain divorce was in the future. I had agreed, however, to help care for his grandmother, who the children called Gram from North Rose. It was my privilege to do so, out of my great love and respect for the life she had led.

She had Parkinson's Disease, one of those horribly cruel diseases—the kind that drag on, leaving a wake of debilitation in their path and rob their victims of any sort of human dignity as they progress. 

At first, caring for her meant taking her to medical appointments and making a few meals when she was tired. As the involuntary tremors and muscle constriction in her hands worsened, it meant doing housekeeping, errand running, and physical therapy with her. 

Then, the dementia hit and it was now time to move her into our home.

At this point, our marriage was really on the skids and this was a welcome diversion for my heartache. She quickly became a 24-hour a day chore and blessing. For months, I bathed, fed, laughed with and medicated her. I got her affairs in order. 

She began to get paralysis in her throat, which caused her to choke. I had to thicken all her liquids and pulverize all her food. Twice she got aspiration pneumonia, and the doctor comforted me by telling me that it would likely be the cause of her death. He said it was the most merciful way to go and I trusted him. 

There was one incident when she began to lash out at my children exactly 20 minutes after she took one particular blood pressure pill. I spoke with the doctor about it and he said that could not possibly be a side effect of the pill, but told me to cut it in half and give her a half dose and see how it went. When I did so, I quickly found out it was an extended release pill and by cutting it, she got the whole dose and once and nearly had a stroke. I only  mention this because I believe you should always trust your instincts and the evidence before you. Just because there were no diagnosed cases of this side effect did not mean she wasn't experiencing it.

That little episode landed her in the hospital for a couple of days and while she was there, I went in to feed her her meals. One evening, I lifted her from the bed to put her in the chair to feed her, and she tooted. Broke wind. Fluffed. Farted. It was rather loud and without skipping a beat and in a glorious moment of lucidity, she looked me deadpan in the face and said, "Becky! Shame on you!" We both chuckled. I lived for those moments. They were becoming more and more rare and the rest of the time I would have to fake going out to gather the pigs in the yard, admonish her children who were long grown and had children and grandchildren of their own, and a lot of other play acting to placate her.

Prior to her getting so bad, she had fallen on a tombstone and broken her shoulder, so she had hardware in that shoulder. Her surgeon told me he wanted to operate and remove it. Now, I understand the careless greed in that decision. She was now within months of dying and he wanted to operate to remove nuts and bolts and rods that would go into the garbage. It was a way to milk the insurance and one reason why it is so outlandishly high. At the time, I asked her and she believed in him wholeheartedly so we went through with it. If I had it to do over, I would have denied it and reported him. I say this because I think we should always get second opinions and carefully decide before rushing into procedures that can cost us or a loved one their life.

The end was drawing near and the doctor told me exactly what to look for. He said her respiration would become quite rapid and then, eventually, become so slow you wouldn't know from minute to minute whether she was still actually there.

One Sunday morning, I drug myself out of bed reluctantly. I was exhausted. I hadn't been out of the house in months. The night before was filled with changing linens due to incontinence and comforting her through her shame over it. I am awfully good at that. But this particular morning, I was worn thin. I went to her to try to convince her to skip the morning sponge bath because we were both so exhausted. She grabbed my hand and said, "No, I have to be clean. I'm gong home today." 

At first, I thought she was having some dementia, but she added, "I have to be clean when I meet Jesus." 

I smiled and was constrained from shrugging it off and saying something like, "Oh, you've got time left. Don't talk that way." I knew the time was here. I knew today was the day and I knew my job was to give her the comfort and support she needed to get through that next great door.

I took my time bathing her. I did not insist that she eat. We smiled at one another, sharing a secret we weren't ready to share with anyone else. At one point, she grabbed my arm again and looked me in the eye and mouthed the words, "Thank you." I fought back tears, but knew without a doubt I had taken better are of her than anyone else would have. 

I dressed her and asked her what she wanted next. She said she wanted to sit in the recliner. I lifted her and called her children and grandchildren and begged them to come visit and say goodbye. They declined the offer, having not been the least bit involved in her final journey. I called my own children in to sit with her and we all just sat and remembered her part in our lives. I told them what to watch for. We all silently celebrated as her respiration reached epic speed, around 60 or 70 per minute. Then, just as the doctor had warned, we watched it slow to 5 per minute, then 4 . . . 

I lifted her frail 68-pound frame and carried her to the sofa so I could hold her. This was a precious moment. I knew where she was going and I knew she would be surrounded by those who had gone before her. I held her and talked to her, recounting favorite memories, including the toot, until she drew her last breath. She died in my arms, where she belonged.

I called the ambulance and she was gone, but not forgotten. I was given a special epiphany. We, as women, get to feel the first moments of life, that quickening that reassures us there really is a human renting a womb from us. And, if we are truly blessed, we have the opportunity of ushering someone we love back where they came from, to a home more glorious and magnificent than it is possible to imagine. 

Her funeral and interment did not go well for me. I was asked to go to another room so the absentee family could be there with her. I was left standing on the sidewalk when they drove away to the cemetery. I had to walk 2 miles to her home to prepare food for the thoughtless horde. But I have something no one else has. Sweet memories of a lovely woman I can't wait to see again and the knowledge that I did the work of angels. The reason I know this is that I was sustained through a violent, horrible marriage, tending my own 4 children, and caring for Rosetta. I felt safe and watched over. Though I wasn't able to attend church for those long months, I felt the spirit closer than ever before. I was equal to a task that should have overwhelmed me. Caring for God's children carries its own rewards and they are immediate and long-lasting.


Like Becky Lyn Rickman's story? Here's more by her:
MilitaReality—a brat's perspective
How I still haven't learn to keep my smart mouth shut!
Cacti and Geraniums
Some mysterious goosebumps or "What is that on the wall?"
Finding my metal in wood
Some of my favorite herbal recipes are . . .
I love my cat, but . . . 
I love all creatures, but . . .
You might be addicted to Harry Potter if . . .
My shot at the big time
A cautionary tale
Why I do it
How I chill
How to clean up an egg and other helpful hints
Most embarrassing moments—automotive edition
The thing about getting older is . . .
Copyright © 2015 by Rent's Due Publications

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