The End of The Journey

Christmas Eve had finally arrived. While many people around me were excited for the following day, I was looking forward to 11pm Dec 24th, 2010. For you see, this is the time I was to take my very last dose of my medicine....EVER!

I was so excited to have finally reached this special day!

So, its Christmas Eve and I'm standing alone in my Kitchen. I'm having a staring contest with my pill case; knowing that this would be the last time to open it for this particular medicine, I wanted to savor the moment.

My glass of nice cold Root Beer is sitting in front of me, just waiting to wash down that final dose.

I slowly open the case, pick up the capsule, crack it open, and drop one teeny tiny bead onto the palm of my hand.

Commence staring contest with teeny tiny white bead.

As I'm taking in the moment, my thoughts begin to drift back to memories of the previous 12 months.

I start thinking about:

• All the pharmacists Mom and I talked to to make sure we were measuring my dosages just right
• The countless hours we spent counting out hundreds upon hundreds of the awful white beads
• How hard it was for me to figure out all the dosages on my own in the weeks following Mom's death

So many thoughts and memories were going through my head, and I will be honest, I started to cry.....actually, sob might be a more accurate description. It was the end of the journey that Mom had started with me, and she had never left my side on the path until her final day in August. And now, standing alone in the kitchen, I realized how empty the 'happiness' felt without her here.

I stare at this little white bead on my palm, knowing that this is it; I had to swallow it and close this chapter...with or without Mom. As I pick my glass up off the table with my right hand, I accidentally bump my left hand (the one holding the bead) and watch in horror as that teeny tiny white beads drops out of my hand, rolls across the counter, and *PLOPS* right over the edge onto our kitchen floor....which just so happens to be the same color as the medicine.

I stop mid-sob, not quite sure how that just happened. In that moment, my sobs turn to laughter, and I end up in one of my laughing fits that make me laugh so hard my stomach hurts!

Here I was being so serious about this last bead, and thinking of what I've lost since the beginning of this journey that I was forgetting how happy of an event it was. God reminded me of this when he sent that bead bouncing across my kitchen floor ;)

So, after wiping the tears from my eyes (this time they were tears from laughing so hard), I open up that pill case, drop another bead onto my hand, stick it on my tongue, and *gulp* down it went.

It was another one of the times when I could feel Mom standing there with me, talking to me, reminding me that she is where she wants to be, and giving me the courage to face another day.....another stage.....without her.

I'm now only taking my supplements for my adrenal glands!