So with today being Mother's Day I thought a lot about my Mom and how much I miss her and wish she were still alive. I've been thinking about her a lot during the last week when I found out about my sister-in-law's friend that was pregnant and unexpectedly passed away leaving 3 little kids along with her husband. Her husband wrote in detail about the events that happened the day she died and how he felt. I read it and felt so much pain for them because I had been through what they are currently dealing with. What he wrote about his wife was incredible. I wish I would have been so detailed like he was when my Mom passed away. Because of him and his words and allowing the whole world to read his thoughts, it made me want to write down what happened during the last few days of my Mom's life. Stories like this touch so many lives and I hope it will touch yours as well.
A week before Mom died...
I was raised in Brea, California (Orange County) and when I turned 19 I decided to move to Utah to go to school. I thought this would be good for me. I am the youngest of 5 kids and was the only one not married during this time, so moving away from home seemed like a good experience for me even though I knew I would miss my family. The last week in June 2009 I decided that I wanted to go home to see my family and it was going to be the perfect timing since we wanted to take family pictures that weekend. I didn't have much money so flying wasn't an option, but my friend told me he wanted to drive down there too, so we made arrangements to drive together. Unfortunately a day before we were supposed to leave I find out he can't go anymore, which devastated me because I so badly wanted to see my family. Thankfully I have a sister-in-law that's a pilot and she gave me a buddy pass to use. It all worked out. That Saturday which was exactly one week before the 4th of July we took our family pictures. We went to JC Penny's in the mall and I remember it being so difficult to get everyone to smile and look at the camera and when I say all I mostly mean all of my nieces and nephew. At that time a lot of them were babies so it was a struggle to make it so they didn't cry. It was a great weekend.
The week Mom died...
That next day I flew back to Utah and the rest of my family flew in that Wednesday night. We were going to have our first immediate Pyper family reunion. We decided to have it at my sister Mindy's condo in Park City. She has a condo that's at a resort at the Canyons in PC, so we thought it would be perfect to have our reunion there. I got to Park City on Thursday night and was able to spend time with Mom and the nephew and nieces. Mom and I got on the pull out bed with them and colored in the coloring books and took pictures. The next morning (July 3rd) Mom was sooo excited to go water skiing, mostly because she was the one that planned the day doing water sports. She got her brother, Alan to let us borrow his boat so we could go to Jordanelle, which wasn't too far from the resort. I was bummed I couldn't go because I had to be at work at 3. As I sat on the floor in the living room playing with my baby niece, Ashton Mom told me to grab her and come outside to the balcony as she took a couple of pictures of us. What we didn't realize is these would be the very last pictures she would ever take. After taking pictures, Mom changed into her bathing suit, which she hated trying on bathing suits let me just add, mostly because she could never seem to find one that she liked since she was very picky and she hated how one pieces fit so she would always try on bikinis or tankinis. It was hard for her to find something that also would hide her huge scar from the 4 c-sections she had with us kids. Mindy found a cute tankini for her, which is what she wore that day. It was orange and white. As I was sitting on the ground in the living room she was about to leave and she bent down and kissed me on the cheek saying, “I love you Muff, I'll see you soon.” Of course at that moment something like that was normal for me because that's what my family does...we say I love you and give kisses on the cheek and hugs when leaving to go somewhere. Little did I know those were going to be her last words to me. Once she left, I helped watch the kids with my sister's Chels and Min and my Dad. Everyone else went to Jordanelle. I started getting ready for work and as soon as I finished curling my hair I went into the living room and said, “Well I better go to work....” and through mid sentence I could tell something was wrong, so I said, “What happened?” My Dad looked at me and said, “I don't know if you heard but Mom had a seizure in the water.” My heart sank to my stomach and I said, “What do you mean? What exactly happened?” My Dad informed me that Mom was water skiing and ended up having a seizure and was in an ambulance on her way to the University of Utah Medical Center. Mom suffered from seizures and she took medication for it, so we thought maybe she just forgot to take her pill and had one. I told my Dad that I can take off work and he told me not to worry and that he's sure everything is going to be okay and for me to go to work and they will keep me updated. As I drove away from the resort I kept thinking something's terribly wrong. Mom had seizures before but only once she had to go to the hospital for it which is when she had her very first one which was in the Salt Lake Temple when she was 19 yrs old. Right when I got onto the freeway I burst into tears and called my roommate, Cristina and told her what happened. I remember telling her, “I don't know what is going to happen, but please please pray for my Mom.” I got back to my apt in Provo about 35 mins after leaving Park City which seemed like I was driving sooo fast due to thinking about my Mom and being scared. As I walk into my apt and open the door I see no one is there and I get a phone call and it's my sister, Natalie. I pick up the phone and she says with tears, “Muff, have you asked for work off today? You need to and you need to get to the emergency room right now....one of Mom's aneurysms burst.” Right when I heard those words that her aneurysm had burst I knew she was gone. I fell to the floor with tears streaming down my face and screaming like I was in so much pain. I ran into my bedroom and got my duffel bag and threw whatever clothes I could see into my bag. I ran to my car and fell again on the asphalt crying. With mascara all over my face and hardly being able to see I knew I couldn't drive myself back to Salt Lake. I called my roommate and my friend and he drove us to the medical center. I struggled breathing because of the thought that I had lost my Mother. I looked at my phone and thought of one person to call and that was my friend, Scott from back home. I called him and told him what happened and told him that my Mom was going to die. He tried comforting me and told me to keep him updated. My friend, Chris who drove me to the hospital dropped me off at the Emergency Room entrance and I ran in hoping my family members would be there for me to hug. The person that first gave me a hug was my Aunt Pauline followed by my oldest sister Natalie. I looked at all of my family members and didn't see Mindy or Dad. They had been the first ones there since Mindy is a nurse and Dad is the spouse. While Mindy and Dad were driving to the hospital Mindy spoke with the doctors and these were the words my Dad heard from her mouth, “Are you sure? So there's nothing you can do?” A social worker came out to the emergency room and took us to a waiting area near the Nero ICU where Mom was. Dad and Min walked in shortly after we got there and my Dad, us kids and the in-laws went into Mom's room, which was directly across from the nurses station. I was the first to walk into the room and I stood in the entry way staring at Mom while my siblings and their spouses and Dad walked into the room. I walked a few more steps into the room and looked at my Dad and burst into more tears and said over and over again, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry....” Mom was facing the entrance and I went to the left side of her next to my Dad and hugged him so tightly. Looking at Mom with several tubes coming out of her I was informed she was on life support. There was nothing that could be done to save her life. I was afraid to touch her, in fear that I might hurt her even more or cause damage to one of the tubes coming out of her mouth or one of the IVs in her hands. I held her right hand the whole time we were in the room. Dad said that we all needed to decide whether or not to donate her organs. Mom loved serving people so donating her internal organs would be something she would want to do. We all took turns saying goodbye to Mom and Dad kissed her all over her face and had their wedding rings in a plastic bag and was showing them to her reminding her of their temple covenants and telling her we would all be together again. As we said our goodbyes Dad told us to talk to her in her right ear because it seemed like she could hear us better through that ear and when you talked to her you could see tears coming out of left eye. I thought it was a special experience since she wasn't breathing on her own but to see she was there though and was hearing what we were saying. Once we left the room we had to speak to someone about donating Mom's organs. They had to ask us several questions. I remember one of them was so funny. The lady asked whether or not Mom had been out of the country and my sister Chelsea said without thinking, “Well yeah she's been to Hawaii.” That was the humorous part of the day, which we all needed. I remember waiting outside of the Nero department and Dad kept coming up to me and hugging me tightly saying, “It seems like this is a dream, it's unreal.” I wish it were. I am the baby and the closest to my parents, so it was the hardest on me. Since we decided to donate Mom's organs the doctors would have to wait until she was completely 100% brain dead to take her off life support. Once they would remove the life support, then it took about 24-36 hrs to test the organs to see which ones could be donated and to see who they could be given to. Out of the 5 organs usually only 2-3 are able to be donated, but Mom was able to donate all but her heart, which was amazing. As we left the hospital all of us had migraines from crying so much. We had been at the hospital from 1-7pm, so when we got back to the resort we ate dinner. That night was a difficult one. No one could sleep and the next morning we woke up and Dad was gone. He was gone all morning and we found out he went for a 4 hr walk. This was the morning of the 4th of July. The doctors pulled the plug at around 9am. That day we tried to do everything we could to celebrate the 4th, but it was very difficult and that weekend of the reunion was the time to celebrate Mom's birthday since she was going to turn 50 two days later on July 6th. On the 4th of July we had already gotten her a cake so we ended up celebrating her life and we had pictures taken of us kids blowing out the candles and then we had all of the grand kids bite into the cake. It is a family tradition that whenever it is your birthday you have to take a bite into your dessert without using your hands. :) The next day which was Sunday was the day my family left and I was alone in Utah. Everyone went to California to help get the funeral arrangements together and since Mom grew up in Utah her Dad wanted to have a viewing in Salt Lake so that all of her siblings could see her since most weren't able to go to the funeral. I was the only child to be at the viewing in Salt Lake so I had to be the one to represent my family. It was held that Tuesday, the 7th. Mom had a favorite kind of nail polish and Mindy had borrowed it and for some reason brought it with her to our reunion so it was perfect to have it to paint Mom's nails for the viewing. I drove up to the mortuary wearing Mom's favorite dress and as I walked into the room I saw her laying in the casket. As I walked toward her I was hoping nobody would come up to me and bother me as I was focused on just Mom and wanting to talk to her in private. Of course that didn't happen. Everyone started coming at me giving hugs but I was able to hold Mom's hand and kiss her cheek. Grandpa got the whole family in a big circle and had each of Mom's siblings say their thoughts and things they will miss about her. After the siblings spoke Grandpa asked me if I wanted to say anything. As I started to say one word tears came out as I was standing right in front Mom. Everyone got into a huge line and took turns hugging me and telling me how sorry they were. The next day I flew to California and luckily for us Mom had told my Dad the details of her funeral. She wanted the coffin to be white with flowers on it and she didn't want us getting flowers from a florist. I remember it being so funny every time we would go to a wedding or funeral she would look at the florist flowers and say she could arrange flowers so much better than they could, which she was right. She would always arrange flowers for our friends weddings for no charge and would often drop off flowers on peoples doorsteps without saying they were from her just so she could light up someone's day. She was just that kind of person. She had wanted me and Mindy to sing a duet, which we thought was crazy, but we did it anyway. Do you know how hard it is to find a plot? Oh my heck, I thought it was going to be plain and simple, but of course it wasn't. Mom wanted to be buried in the cemetery right next to our house and we thought it was kind of comical that the person in charge of the plots wasn't sure exactly where people were buried. We ended up decided to bury Mom right between two of our dear friends that had passed away a couple of years earlier who were close friends of Mom's. Mom had said she wanted a picture of the Ogden temple on the tombstone along with the names of her kids. So we designed it so that my parents shared the tombstone and the side above Mom's name had a picture of a Mom dancing with her kids and the other side above Dad's name has the Ogden temple and underneath it there's intials...MTYLTT which stands for: More than yesterday less than tomorrow. That has been my parent's thing for a very long time and is even engraved inside of Dad's wedding ring. At the very bottom of the stone it has all of the kids names. I struggled for a long time with Mom's death. I cried daily and couldn't understand why God would do this to our family and let someone die so young. The hardest thing for me was knowing that she wouldn't physically be at my wedding. Didn't I deserve for her to be there? As days and weeks and months have passed without her I have realized that everything happens for a reason and it was her time to leave this life. She is in a better place now and is in no more pain. She lived a faithful life and there's no doubt in my mind that she's going to the celestial kingdom.
You never know when it'll be your turn to leave this life. That is why we all need to live life to the fullest and try our best because if we don't before we know it, it will be too late. My Mom's death might have been a tragedy but it was also a blessing for my family. It was a blessing that she died when all of us were together. It was a miracle especially since we all live in 4 different states. It was also a blessing that exactly one week before she died we took family pictures. Those things aren't just coincidental. God is very much aware of each of us. God knew it was important for my family to be together during that time. I did get married a year after my Mom died and it was hard not to have her body there, but her spirit was and it was powerful. Sometimes I tell my husband, “I wish you would have known my Mom.” He always responds saying, “I do know her because of you.” God doesn't allow things to happen unless they are supposed to and he will never give us a challenge that will be too difficult for us to handle. Mom blessed so many peoples lives and she gave people life by donating her organs.
Some of you might be thinking, did we know she had an aneurysm in her brain? Did we know the health problems she faced? When did this first start occurring? The answer to all of those questions is Yes!!! Like I mentioned before Mom had her first seizure when she was in the temple at age 19. When she was rushed to the hospital the doctors noticed she had an AV-malformation in her brain which is a basically a clump of blood vessels. Because of that she had to start taking medication daily. Over time she developed fiber myalgia which is a form of severe arthritis along with other health problems that people might develop with age. About 3 years before she passed away she was told by the doctor that she had 2 aneurysms in her brain that were going through her av-malformation. We were really worried that they would burst since one of our friends had died from one bursting in his brain which he wasn't aware of that he had. The doctors did assure us though that the blood vessels looked strong enough where she could live her whole life without worrying about them bursting. Unfortunately the doctor was wrong and it was the reason for her death.
Things I will miss about Mom....
My Mom will continue to be missed by everyone that knew her. She had such great love for people and loved giving service as I have already mentioned. I will miss her calls and her lifting me up when I'm sad. I will miss writing poems with her and having her amazing home cooked meals. I will miss her not being able to help me when I have my own kids. I will miss watching movies with her and going shopping together, especially going to the mall and getting blizzards...that was our thing. I will miss her creativity and artwork as she was an amazing artist. I will mostly miss her soft voice.
Please remember to tell your loved ones how grateful you are for them and tell them how much you love them. Tell them daily!!! You never know when your last day will be!!!
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