The Year That Wasn’t

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Reading about some of the tragedies that have occurred to people here on myLot, it got me to thinking about my own. Just being here to write about it all proves to me that the Lord has something more planned for me. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have survived 1996, the year I refer to as the “year that wasn’t.” In other words, I no longer dwell on any of it because afterward Martin and I still had many wonderful years together. When we arrived in Latvia in 1994 my mom was already 82 and it was time for her to return to her homeland. She did not have dementia or Alzheimer’s but what doctors in Latvia referred to as sclerosis on the brain. She was beginning to forget and confuse a lot of things. I first realized the difficulties of this situation during the Christmas of 1995. Martin and I spent that Christmas in our house but he had not moved in yet. His mom lived almost right around the corner in the house his parents had built and she was spending Christmas with her daughter-in-law, Martin’s brother’s wife, and her granddaughter. We were sitting in the living room with my mom having a drink when Martin went down to the basement to stoke up the heat for the furnaces. Luckily I had a drink in my hand when mom asked, “Where were you born?” right away I drank up and poured another much stiffer drink. I don’t know if I answered the question or not. Came January and things just got worse. By now mom thought I was the middle child and often asked where my younger and older sisters were. It was 1996 and I was working in the accounting department of Radisson SAS Daugava Hotel which was also on our side of the river so it was easy for me to get there. In March of that year, Martin and I found out I was expecting which as far as doctors in the US had told me was virtually impossible. I guess I had to meet my soul mate. We had to rush mom to the hospital and I thought the stress might just cause me to lose the baby. Mom died at the age of 84 and had had two years back in Riga, Latvia. I still had to go through the nightmare of getting her a coffin trimmed with emerald green material because that was her favorite color. Sometimes during times like this, our brains freeze up and once again thank God for Martin. The guy we were purchasing the coffin from was asking me questions. When he asked what my mom’s father’s name was, no reaction. Then I looked over at Martin and bam, it hit me, my grandfather, whom I never got to meet was also named Martin. We buried her in the countryside in Ranka, which was where my dad came from originally and where he was buried so his urn was put at the head of her coffin. My maternity leave was to start in June and I was due in August. Came Martin’s birthday on July 19 and after the party was done I lay down and just felt lousy figuring that I was just terribly tired. Two weeks later we went to the Birthing Hospital to check me out. I was sent to an emergency room where they had more complex equipment. The baby had come off of the umbilical cord and with induced labor, I gave birth to a stillborn girl. Martin insisted we name her and give her a proper funeral. So off to the country we went again and the only thing that got me through this was the Lord and Martin. Some weeks later Martin was rushed to the hospital with pancreatitis. This was the first time I spent alone in that house. My mom came to me dressed as I would know her in pajamas, slippers, and glasses low on her nose. She said she had called me from downstairs and since I did not answer she came upstairs. Then I knew she was telling me everything was going to be all right. Martin spent a month in the hospital and came home. That was my 1996. When I thought it was all right to go on with life a year later I had to have my gall bladder removed. We found out I was expecting again and this time because of the drugs and the operation I lost this one spontaneously. So it was good that Martin already had both a daughter and a son but of course, we never really lived together in one house. Mostly they lived with their mom and grandparents in the city of Jelgava but came often to visit. It was good that Martin saw his granddaughter having visited his son and family in the UK but never got to see his grandson who was born in 2019. Mom and me in Latvia visiting relatives back in 1991 before our move in 1994