My Mom Died Today

I found out my Mom died yesterday.

I don't know anything what to do. I live about 1000 miles away, I can't get there. No one I've talked to knows anything - exactly how she died, what she died of, what we will do, if they need me.

I feel like I should be doing something or carrying on; but I'm kind of numb right now. Writing on a blog is kinda the best I can do. I started writing yesterday and finished up early this morning.

Here's the story: and I'm sure I'll tell it a hundred times in the next few weeks. Mom had multiple health problems, and to some extent, we knew she probably didn't have a lot of time left. Personally, I thought it would be a little more drawn out with multiple trips to the hospital and lots of pain.  Mom was 72.

Last night, my brother called, alarmed and worried because he had called (or she had - I'm not sure) and she didn't sound right. She sounded upset. She only talked for a few minutes - and Mom could talk on the phone for hours, usually about nothing. He asked me to call her. I did, and she picked up the phone pretty quickly. She sounded a little off, but there were several logical reasons she could sound this way.

The next day (this morning), she fell and Dad couldn't get her up. They called EMS to help and they got her back up. She did not go to the hospital then, since the fall was minor - Dad says she slid out of a chair.

The day proceeded as normal, according to Dad. She went to take her afternoon nap, which was her habit. When Dad went to wake her up, she didn't wake up. Dad called 911, but it was really too late.

I spoke with Dad later and I guess he's hanging in there as well as possible.

I'm scared. I'm worried. I don't know what it's going to be like without having Mom to talk on the phone to. She was the central figure of our family. Now who will keep the kin?

No, actually I do know how it will be. It's going to be sad and lonely and I'm going to have a big hole in my heart for a long while.

Community Garden - Weekly Update

My plot in the Overland Park Community Garden is planted!  Now we need a little help from God, a little tending from me, and we'll have a nice harvest come August or September.

The garden didn't work out quite as I had planned. It's late in the season here for planting and it was hard to find transplants for the veggies I wanted to grow.  So, I ended up planting:

• 2 green bell peppers
• 2 jalapeno peppers
• 4 sweet banana peppers
• 4 Italian parsley
• 4 green beans (blue lake, bush variety)
• 2 rows of mustard greens
• 4 green summer squash, called Cocozelle (very similar to zucchini)

I put in seeds for the mustard greens and squash. Hopefully they will grow fast and vigorously enough to make up for the lack of starter plants.

Everything went in on June 4, yesterday.

The mustard greens were a last minute substitution for a row of green beans. I could only find 2 pots with nice looking bush bean plants and each of those pots had 2 plants in them. I separated the two plants to make a row.  The greens are from seeds given to me by a friend who is Hmong. She called them "Hmong Mustard Greens." I don't know exactly what variety they are, but I planted some last year and they were very good.

I chose a variety of peppers because I could not find many green bell peppers. It'll be fun to see if I get some banana peppers. I haven't tried them yet.

Additionally, the plot turned out to be slightly larger than 10 feet long. I could fit in six rows, altogether.

The cocozelle squash was a substitution for official zucchini, mainly because it takes only 45 days to harvest, compared to the black beauty zucchini seeds I found at 50 days (or so). Every day counts when you are starting so late!! 

(By the way, I included the links so you could see what the plants look like. I don't have any relationship with these seed/plant vendors - I neither endorse or denounce them and I do not receive any compensation for linking to them.)