Thursday was just so busy. First it was the very long morning at the cemetery making arrangements.
On the way back from the cemetery, we picked the kids up from school. “Mommy, where did you go?” Abby asked. “We had some errands to run,” was how I answered her. If she only knew what that errand was…
About 30 minutes after the kids got home, the hospice social worker came to our house for some therapeutic art therapy. She is so good with the kids, and she really knows how to get them to think about their emotions without actually having them come out and say them. Abby just adores the heck out of her. Ethan is a bit more reserved, but he thoroughly enjoys the ‘projects’ that she gives them.
Once she left, it was a rush to do homework because our temple’s associate rabbi was coming over for a meet-and-greet.
Back in California, Daddy and I were pretty active in our local temple. We really enjoyed the social events and getting into the holidays with the kids. However, when we moved to Texas, the temple was just so small (just a few dozen families), and we never felt the connection. We have really wanted to get back into temple life, but we just never had the time or ability to do it.
After talking to the cemetery director about the chapel we wanted, we told her our desire to get back into the temple but the timing was wrong. She immediately texted the rabbi (they are close, it is a jewish funeral home), and the rabbi asked if he could come by our house later this evening to meet us, meet Hannah and the kids, and talk to us.
Abby’s homework was just barely done when at 7 pm, the rabbi knocked on the door. After he introduced himself to the kids, I sent them off to Ethan’s room to play (his room is the farthest away from the living room). Then “the talk” began. He was very honest, blunt, and didn’t candy coat things — he was perfect for us. It was a good conversation, and we felt very comfortable with having him involved in our situation.
Both Daddy and I felt that he was a bit uncomfortable at times. Hannah was really agitated and uncomfortable and was squirming in my arms. The problem, we couldn’t give her the chloral hydrate yet because it was too early. About 15 minutes into our conversation, we finally were able to give it to her. Unlike most times it takes 5 to 10 minutes to knock her out, it took over 40 minutes this time! So the entire conversation with him was me holding this beautiful little girl, clearly suffering and agitated, and us watching the clock like hawks until we could sedate her.
After the rabbi left, it was a quick dinner (thanks to our friends who had dinner for us) and off to bed for the kids.
Daddy crashed at 9 pm, and I was left to my night shift with Hannah.
Just emotionally and physically exhausted. Really emotionally worn out.
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