Last One, I Promise

Hi everyone.

It happened. Saturday night at 1:30 in the a.m. our phone rang-one time, then it stopped. I woke up right away, probably because I've been half listening for a middle of the night phone call for almost two weeks. I shook Mr. C awake and was telling him to go check his cell when it rang again. He picked it up and it was 9's uncle, letting us know that Michelle had passed. He was on his way over to come get 9.

So this is how he told Mr. C it happened: In the last couple of days, he and Michelle's parents were staying with her all night. Her mom would sleep on the bed with her, and he and his dad would sleep on either side on the floor. Saturday night he got up to check on his mom and she told him that "it was happening." His father, himself, and her mom surrounded Michelle as she took 3 deep breaths in, exhaled once, and then was gone. He called us immediately after.

9 is doing okay. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He really needs them.

I'm glad that the four of them were there together as a family at the end. When Mr. C relayed to me what Chris said, I thought of that scene in Steel Magnolias when they're in the cemetery and Sally Field's character is giving this heart wrenching speech. She's half out of her mind with grief, but she speaks of how lucky she felt to be a woman who was there when her daughter came into the world and how precious it was that she got to be there when her daughter left it. That part always gets me.

Anyway, writing this feels slightly exploitative because it's such private stuff about another family. And I would never want them to read the above paragraph because I'd hate it if they thought that I would blithely compare their real-life sadness to a scene in a Hollywood Chick-Flick. I'm writing about it because I started it with my Stepmom post a couple of weeks ago, and I feel like I need to finish it here. And it feels too big to keep in my head.

So there it is. That's the very last depressing post I'll write for a while ( I hope). We got a ways to go before we can even begin to start working towards a new normal, but I know we'll bumble along. I'm hoping the new normal (once we get there) will be a good place to be and that Mr. C and I don't make too many mistakes for our family along the way.

Okay, moving on- next post will probably be about dog poop. Now that Princess G is six, she got a new chore that she's none too happy about. I did what all kind, loving, mothers do when their child is unhappy and followed her around with a camera and Flip to document every grossed-out minute. In the words of my girl Amy B., poop is always good for a laugh.

Have a good night!