Stories about hope

I love November. 

I also do not love November. 

November starts off well, the crisp fall air, the pumpkins everywhere. The changing leaves. 

My big brother’s birthday is first. I love celebrating my only brother. My mentor, my hero, my friend. So many good things to say about him. 

I have many good memories growing up as Bob’s Little sister. The Checker Cab, watching Star Wars for the first time in his 240z at a drive-in theater in the San Fernando Valley. Bells are ringing, chocolate milk, BBQ’s, sunburns, running, Dodger Games, church potlucks in the fellowship hall. Being immensely proud as he would stand in the front of our church and sing. I love his laughter, especially on roller coasters at Magic Mountain and Disneyland. That time he tried making homemade yogurt. Eating ice cream and loving Jesus. 

In sharing memories of our past, he has a different recollection. And it’s hard sometimes for him to believe he was a good brother. But that is another story for another time. 

Back to November.

The colors.

Thanksgiving.

The hope of Christmas right around the corner. 

Thanksgiving is my favorite of holidays. 

Thanksgivings were once a grand celebration in the Frost home. 

My mom was an excellent cook. She made a Thanksgiving feast like no one else. 

I loved the stuffing and gravy the best, and there was always cranberry sauce and black olives in abundance. 

My cousin Kenny Preslo and I would sit on the piano bench and put an olive on each finger. 

The Preslo’s were our family by adoption. 

Mom and Lilian met in High School when they lived in Connecticut.  

The Preslo’s lived in a cool house on the top of a hill in Downtown LA. We spent all Holidays with them. Swapping houses, Easter at their house, Thanksgiving at ours, Christmas at theirs, Easter at ours. 

Ken always got the cool gifts for Christmas, and I was always the one to either break them or take all the turns with the racetrack sets. I would also lose his kickballs over the fence to be eaten by the ferocious dog next door. 

Thanksgiving is the grand Holiday without the stress of gifts. 

And the theme of Thankfulness an added bonus. 

My mom’s birthday was November 24. She was an amazing mom.

And then for a long while she wasn’t.

I remember “Rock climbing” when it was cool enough. We would hike the local rock formations as a family. Up the rocks we would go. My Dad leading the way. Us kids scrambling up the path. My mom kept right on pace with us. And then suddenly her legs would turn to what she called “jelly” and my dad would often have to carry her down to the car. I don’t remember that part, that memory was filled in later while listening to my siblings share their memories.

I was the baby of the family. Maybe 5 or 6 at this time? I remember only the good stuff during those early years of my life.

She would also have double vision from time to time. Strange symptoms would pop up here and there. Then she would be right as rain again.

Something else I didn’t know as a young kid. 

My Dad was losing a ferocious battle. 

Melanoma. 

He was diagnosed with it right after I was born. Child number 5. There was to be child number 6 as my dad wanted a big family. Cancer changed that plan. 

I don’t remember the battle. I just remember that my dad, my vivacious, tall, strong dad started getting thin, he got ill a lot. But when he was feeling good life was good. 

Disneyland trips. Rocks to be “hounded” on camping trips to the desert. Hanging out in the above the ground pool. Barbecue’s, Rocky Road ice cream. Home grown vegetables. His rose garden. Amazing Fudge. Grand celebrations when he would come home from a long day as an engineer working in downtown LA for a large computer corporation and shouting “Wash your hands” when he entered the door. The Frost family was going out to dinner. We would be carried around the house on his shoulders, dragged across the floor on his size 13 feet.

November 17, 1971, I was 7 years old.

He was gone. 

My sister woke me up and told me to go downstairs. 

I found my aunt holding my sister Becky at the bottom of the stairs. Becky was sobbing. I was confused why my aunt was here and why my sister was crying. 

Into the kitchen I went. 

I found my mom sitting at the dining room table. She had been crying. Her face was blotchy, and her nose was red. 

One of the pastors from our church was sitting with her. 

She laughed at me when I walked in. 

I’m not sure why she laughed.  

Maybe I was having a really bad case of bed head. Maybe it was a response to her youngest daughter looking completely confused. 

She laughed and then she cried when she said, “Your father has died.” 

Her voice broken, “Go into the living room and tell him goodbye.”

I went to the living room and stared at my dad lying in the hospital bed. He looked like he was sleeping. I couldn’t comprehend anything that was going on. 

November 24, My mom’s birthday. 

Can you imagine being a mom to 5 kids, having been widowed a week earlier and facing your birthday which happens to fall on Thanksgiving every few years? 

Can you imagine facing Christmas in a few short weeks and the love of your life, the light of your children’s lives is gone? 

I know many families have faced that very thing. It is impossible to think about. 

My mom started to drop things; she started struggling to walk. She would fall down the stairs, black eyes were a regular thing.  

She went to the Doctor for her diagnosis. She, being a registered nurse had it down to a brain tumor or multiple sclerosis. It was the later. 

She battled depression, her symptoms exacerbated by stress, working nights, and wine. 

She was angry a lot. She yelled a lot. She tried to take her life a few times. She was miserable. We all were. 

I tried to be the peacemaker. I tried to carry the cares of the house. I was the grocery shopper, house cleaner, gardener, and babysitter. School became the least of my concerns. My grades suffered. 

Moms’ bedroom was upstairs and she often needed help at the end of her night shift as a labor and delivery nurse lifting her feet high enough to push down on the next step. It took all the strength she had. Me lifting each foot, praying that if she fell backward I could somehow manage to stop both of us from tumbling down the stairs. It was a difficult time for all of us.

She moved her bedroom downstairs.

She transitioned from cane to walker to wheelchair. It got to point she needed help with everything. 

When she would be driving the big Ford LTD station wagon I was always terrified that she could not move her foot from the gas pedal to the brake fast enough to stop in time. I was so glad that she started to let me drive. Even as a 14-year-old girl I somehow felt we had better odds with me behind the wheel. My siblings were busy starting their families, creating their lives and they took various turns moving home to help.

When I went to college, our home in the San Fernando valley was sold and she moved to live with my eldest sister in Spokane. Two siblings already lived there so it seemed the best place to go. After a few years however, all her savings were gone, and the Spokane house needed to be sold.

My Brother and his wife moved her to their home near Seattle. 

Jobs changed and a move was made back to Southern California. I had just graduated from Azusa Pacific University and was working in Rosemead for a large electric company. Mom moved into the Townhome I shared with my 5 roommates for a week and a half while my brother and sister moved into their new home in Orange. I would come home to my mom and their little dog Teddy. Both needing attention. It was a lot. 

Her conditioned became too much for any of us to care for her alone. She needed to have round the clock care. 

A nursing home was found. 

It was awful.

However, every Sunday, her CNA Olivia would dress her in her Sunday finest and Olivia and I would load her up in my brothers car and off to church we went. It was at church where my mom’s heart was healed. 

She gave everything to Jesus. Everything she had left. Which was all He wanted in the first place. She changed. She became my greatest cheerleader, a prayer warrior, and a joyful soul to be around. You would walk into her room and expect to cheer her up and walk out of her room full of love and joy. She loved to hear stories and adventures of my life. She loved when her kids and grandkids would visit. She was plagued with regret for the things she had said to us kids in the past. All of us worked hard to forgive. She was different. God had restored her. 

We continued to celebrate the grandest Thanksgivings possible. Often buying Dinner from Knott’s Berry Farm and setting up in her courtyard. The family would gather at her place. We would eat, and she would treat her grandkids to a day at Disneyland. Using all of her savings and thinking about the joy on her own children’s faces many years ago.

Novembers became special again.

She passed away in 2005. As the years have gone by, my sorrow is being replaced with sweet memories. What a difference. What a blessing. And whenever I have good news, my heart always tells her first. 

Yesterday, One of my dear friends mom went home to be with Jesus. She was 98. Thanksgiving will be hard for his family. 

My dad’s Heavenly birthday is approaching. Thursday, November 17.

This day will be hard for other people that I love. My son & daughter-in-law.

However, that is their story not mine.  

I will celebrate November with sweet memories of my family, 4 of the 7 Frosties are in heaven and 3 of us remain.

I will enter this busy season with joy in my heart. I will do my best to love my family and I will make it a point to be thankful. Even on the days when work is so busy that I hardly see my husband and kids. 

I will trust that God knows, He loves. I know He sees, and I know that when I pray, He listens. 

And for that. I am so thankful.