Home again

When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I intended to share the joys, the triumphs, even the pratfalls. Light and entertaining was my goal.
What I hadn't considered was sharing the sorrows.
But my heart is breaking. And most of my life is bound up in that right now. How can I say nothing about it.
As some of you know, I've been gone for most of the last week. I flew home to Kansas to say goodbye to my mother.
To say goodbye to my mother.
By the time they found the cancer that was consuming her, it was too late.
She's always been tough. She's always been ready to fight, ready to make a plan and act on it.
What she couldn't do is fight through the pain when there was no hope.
We brought her home, to be in her own place, with her loved ones around her.
Family members have been arriving and departing for the last week. Children. Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren.
She mostly sleeps. We try to make her comfortable, with pain meds and endless re-arranging of pillows. She drifts in and out. She smiles sometimes, and our hearts melt.
There is always at least one with her, holding her hand, saying "I love you." People step into the room to check on her, to talk to her, to talk to each other. We hope some part of her is listening to the love, listening to the memories. Listening as we thank her for our own lives.
She gave us all she had, so we could be who we are.
We gather on the porch, in the house, in the yard. We play "Remember the time..." We hug. We laugh and we cry.
Letting go is so hard, but we know it's cruel to try to keep her. We don't beg her not to leave us.
We just tell her we love her.
But my heart is breaking.