TodaysMama

Obituary

To read Heather's Obituary click here

Heather's Funeral

Heather passed away on Saturday afternoon.  Will post more about that soon - for now, here are the details of her funeral:

Viewing:
Murray Memorial Mortuary
5850 So. 900 E., Murray, Utah
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
September 30, 2008

Funeral Services:
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Holladay 8th Ward
5450 So. Holladay Blvd., Holladay, Utah
Pre-viewing 11:00-11:45 a.m.
Service 12:00 p.m.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers.

Attached is the funeral program we got back today. 

Download for_heather2.pdf

Cancer

How do you blog about this, but how do you not blog about this?  My little sister has cancer.  I'm sitting in her hospital room right now watching her breathe.  

She is the type of person who has had to fight her whole life to live - she came into her life fighting.  As a matter of fact, I laugh, because when I look at her baby pictures - she looks a little in dismay to have been delivered here.  She had holes in her heart and hip dysplaysia (I think that's what you call it?).  By the time she was 4 she was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and by the time she was 8 she had a heart transplant.  She's battled mental illness and depression, she's down a spleen and a gall bladder, and now at the age of 24 she has a very rare kind of lymphoma, stage 4 cancer.  

For the last few weeks I've thought about how it's like adding insult to injury for things to go like this.  For her to be in so much pain.  But what I've realized is that when someone has had to fight so hard to live all of their life, their will is simply too strong to submit to just any pain or suffering.  I sadly, am one of those people who'd ask to be beamed up by day 2 of her ordeals.  

In the meantime you can't help but feel helpless and useless to relieve any of her suffering.  So we sit -- we watch -- we wait.   And prayers get shorter. They go from lists of things you wish could be helped or changed, to simple submissions of will.  

Wall-Eeeeeee

Tech Nerd Gun Fight

OK, this is a dream that I am confidant very few of my friends will appreciate or remotely find amusing.  

Many of you know that with pregnancy comes crazy dreams.  The kind that keep you up all night.  We went to Laguna Beach this summer and I took along some light summer reading: Sarah Lacy's "Once Your Lucky, Twice Your Good: The Rise of Web 2.0 in SIlicon Valley".  So while any of my relatives with estrogen and everyone else on the beach was devouring the new Stephenie Meyer vampire novel Breaking Dawn - I was devouring a book about tech rock stars.  (I have, as a side note, now caught up with the rest of the world and read Breaking Dawn)

Here is what I typed into my laptop on that vacation last month:

It’s 3:52 in the morning and I just woke up after having a dream that I was in a gun fight with Ben Trott (Typepad co-founder) , Max Levchin of PayPal (currently at Slide) and Kevin Bacon - but the mean and crazy Kevin Bacon from the Whitewater movie.  

They were trying to steal my “intellectual property” and somewhere in there Mark Andreesson (Ning and Netscape) sailed in (all in black) and was a good guy helping me protect it all. I think it's because he is tall and has a shaved head.  We had machine guns and things that I would probably call glocks and we prevailed.  I have to be honest -- my shooting was awesome!

This is where you know, that I have lost it!  See pictures below -- these are the guys showing up in my vacatio dreams!

No more Tech on vacation.

And then after waking up all I could think about was how the BlogHer convention starts in just a few waking hours in the Bay Area, and I’m on vacation in Laguna.  And that’s a bad thing?

I’ve got serious issues.

   

First Day of Kindergarten

And I cried the entire time.  Give me a break!  I thought I would be fine.  We've all ready had a kindergarten picnic, a carnival, met the teacher, done the pre-testing etc. etc.  I've been to the parent meeting, sat in the classroom, read everything they've given me.  I was ready.

We pulled up to the school and my son said "Ok, see you later guys!" And my husband and I were like "Wait!  We're coming with you to drop you off!" And he laughed and said "I was just kidding!"

So we walked him to the playground where his class was lining up and before I knew it the teacher told the kids to give their parents a thumbs up and they marched off into class.  It was like ripping a band aid off really fast, but not in a good way. 

I was on the playground about to sob (well let's face it, I was falling apart), like the ugly kind of sob and I kept having to hide my face and pretend to be taking pictures on my phone.  Other moms tried to talk to me and I was like "I'm pregnant and hormonal . . . I have to leave . . .".

It is an understatement to say that it was pathetic.  I dropped him off an hour ago and I have cried several more times.  The kind of cry that swells up your eyes and runs snot down your nose. 

I made my husband take me to lunch and I just put some cookies in the oven.  The first day of kindergarten was tougher than I imagined . . . at least I can blame it in part on "the nugget" for causing my INSANE spike of emotions.  (at least that's what I'd like to think for now)

Maternity leave? All ready?

Well, not really, but that's what I'll blame my blogging absence on this summer.  Between incubating, vacationing, working, and all of the various things that go along with life as I know it - I have disappeared from the blogosphere. 

I'm back . . . I think.  ;)  And due February 8th with our third.  A girl! Here is a picture of "the nugget" as we all affectionately call her. 

Ultrasound pictures only make me think of Stephanie Meyer's latest book Breaking Dawn and the mutant baby that was ready to claw and gnaw it's way out of Bella's body . . .