For the Love of Mom

As long as I can remember,Ive enjoyed cutting crafts with scissors. As a young teenager,I would make my own scrapbooks and Fiscars was a trusted name to keep its blade and hold up through my sweat and tears.

As I grew older,got married, and had a son...Fiscars became his first scissors to bring out his own creativity. Those little hands holding tightly to cut painlessly unto construction paper, I knew he would enjoy crafting as I do.Little scissors were always in his arts tool box and they were always Fiscars.

Today I am 63 yrs old.. and in Nov 19,I started Quilling. This craft requires strips of colored paper stripped to long thin edges from card stock paper. . I use a Fiscars cutting board and Fiscars scissors to make my own strips.

I would show my mom the different flowers or designs I would glue onto cardboard.She started to learn as well.

She had stage 4 dementia, I felt this would ease her anxiety issues,plus help her create beautiful art.

The rubber grips on the scissors helped her hands, she also had arthritis.

She started losing balance and forgetful. But she enjoyed seeing colorful arts and crafts anyone would make for her.

Came 2020...her dementia grew worse. She would be depressed early mornings, I would go by as often as I could every few days & thank god I took an early retirement. She and my father were in their 80's and being the oldest of their twelve kids,I was the only one who could offer unlimited caregiver svcs for the two.

In late Feb.,what we thought was the stroke from 2017 would return, ...instead, a hard fall from her front steps laid her up in the hospital that week. Tests and cat scans,there was some hope.

Drs said she would be okay. They kept her for observation. She was in the trauma center hospital near my house.I was there day and night and fortunately, patients were still allowed to have families stay overnight as well.

My mother fell into a concussion type symptons late Thurs night. By Fri evening,she was in migraine type headaches. There was bleeding from the lumbard by the brain. By Sat evening, all hope was lost.

She was on life support and we still had to wait for my twin sister to arrive from AZ. By SUnday afternoon, all twelve of us surrounded her bed, holding her hand and the plug was pulled.

Our mother has always been a courageous woman,she still held on about twelve minutes, a slight tear fell from one of her eyes and my father sat there frozen, losing his best freind of sixty three yrs.This doesnt count the yrs he knew her since 8 yrs old.

There was talk about a virus that was hitting the US.I had read about it in Nov and Dec of 2019. Came Jan and Feb. more talk on the news and we were even joking in the hospital "that would be cool if schools and jobs shut down for a week till this virus is over..."

Our mother was worried, telling us to please be careful,what if she caught the virus and thats why she kept getting fevers. We assured her she didnt catch any virus.

We were able to have her funeral of over 200 attendees.She was so loved and had so many freinds and family in all their yrs of living in Chgo.

A week after the funeral, the state started shutting down for lockdown.

I volunteered to be the one and spend 3-4 days at our father's house(two brs also lived there) & not only were we going to deal with our loss...but an unexplainable virus that had no end or explanation.

I remember how empty the streets were.My husband driving me there, the emptiness of the world was just as black in my heart.

The mask mandate still didnt exist. Other siblings going by the door to say hello to our dad,the hands crushing the glass pane as our father cried wanting his kids to go inside.

We assured him,soon...the virus would be over soon and we had to keep him safe.

I would sanitize his house every day, my brs making sure they also kept the house clean and sanitized.

We stocked up on groceries and household items for our father . He was lost in his own world missing our mom, saying she wouldnt had survived the lonliness of not being able to go out nor have her adult children or grandchildren over.

She loved life. Happy always and never complaining. God was good to hear and only had her suffer two days while in the hospital.

Every time I came back to my house,I wanted to start a craft. Quilling always soothed me whenever I felt stressed or sad. Yet, I couldnt get back into my craft,any craft. Paper is my obessession. I have all sorts of paper that I cut and make cards, scrapbooking, quilling,patterns, anything to cut, cutting with scissors is a releif to my tension that will rise.

I couldnt think of my greive and missing my mother so much, but covid took over my pain.

I think I finally sat down around May and pulled out my craft tools. I started cutting and cutting,anything to just cut paper and strips.

I made this flower Bloom In Love picture from paper strips.It filled the terrible pain.

Ive been able to continue my craft since and made several projects. I miss my mom terribly, but she used to love watching me craft or seeing my projects.She left behind some Fiscar scissors as well and Ive requested from my father that I get them when heaven forbid he is gone.

My Fiscars paper cutter was given to me by my husband several yrs ago. I was always trying to cut straight edges for my paper cards. He knows me too well and the brands he too trusts.

Thank You