Mom's Obituary

 Affectionally known by family and friends as “Vee,” Evangeline Adele Steen DeLong, 89, was reunited with her beloved husband, Earl, with whom she shared 67 years of marriage, on Sunday, January 18, 2026. One of eight siblings raised in LeRoy, Vee leaves behind her firecracker of a sister, Sally (Bob) Bickford of Caledonia. Memories of their mother brought Vee great comfort throughout her life and the anticipation of hearing her voice again and feeling her embrace was something of which Vee eagerly anticipated.

Vee DeLong devoted her life to being a loving and productive partner to her husband Earl, a caring mother of their two children, Earl (Jen) Gregory DeLong of Batavia and Amy (Brad) Mosiman of Gainesville, a tirelessly involved grandmother who made more trips to the orthodontist than an NHL hockey player, and she enjoyed the blessings of having five great-grandchildren. 

Vee came from a different age; an age where the Avon Lady rang the doorbell and was invited in for coffee while sharing her samples. A time where you could send your child down the road on their bike to Douries in the village of Wyoming to pick up a grocery item and just sign your name on a sheet of lined paper. Vee’s family was her career and she flourished at her job…singing her kids awake, packing amazing lunches, and a hot meal was always on her table. Earl and Vee would share the duty of washing dishes after dinner, shoulder-to-shoulder. To afford extra-special Christmas presents, Vee and Earl would work the apple-picking season at Chamberlains, her five foot tall frame refusing to bend beneath the weight of the countless pecks she picked through Fall’s fickle and often frosty weather.

Known for her green thumb, Vee could patiently encourage the most reluctant blooms  to grow. Her family clamored for her mac salad, chocolate chip cookies, and the hot dog soup recipe inherited from Vee’s mother. Many a fight would break out at family gatherings over the cherry dispersal in Vee’s fruit salad. She elevated the giving of greeting cards to an art…each carefully selected message bearing special stickers of love and whimsy. She loved her little house, being productive and helpful, and playing cards. Vee always put the needs of her husband and family ahead of herself. And so great was Earl’s love for Vee that he proudly proclaimed it to the world by painting the house they built together pink.

There will be no calling hours. A celebration of life will be conducted at the Gilmartin Funeral Home, 329-333 West Main Street, Batavia, New York on Saturday January 24, 2026 at 1:00pm. She will be laid to rest in Machpelah Cemetery, in Leroy NY.  In  lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Crossroads comfort care home in Batavia, NY. 

Evangeline Adele DeLong was a gentle soul with a sweet smile and a kind heart. She will be missed by her loving family and friends including her many grandchildren:  Fallanne (Colby) Jones, Haley (Joey) Snyder, Calob DeLong, Savannah (Lisa) Evangeline Mosiman, Sydney (Douglas) Mosiman-Davies, Alexis DeLong, Alea DeLong, and Talon DeLong. Go with God, Lady.

My mom's eulogy

 Hello, everyone and thank you for coming. My name is Amy Mosiman and, like you, I have many

identities. I am, foremost and above all things, a girl who loves Jesus and the daughter of the

one true King. I am Brad Mosiman’s wife. Savannah and Sydney’s mother. I am a teacher. A

writer. I try to be a good friend. I adore my little dog. And I love my mama, Evangeline Adele Steen

DeLong whom most of you knew as Vee.

Unlike us, my mother did not have a litany of identities to proclaim on her resume. 

She was a wife. Mother. Grandmother & Great-Grandmother. 

Singularly, she devoted her life to the noblest of pursuits: Taking care of her family. 

And it was only later that I realized that my mother had selflessly allowed us to eclipse her. I discovered this over the past few years as I frantically attempted to surround her with comfort items. The blonde Oreos that were a signature in her cookie jar? Dad’s favorite. Daisies? Her mom’s favorite. The food she routinely ate favored my father’s palate, her go-to shirt was a twin to his, her favorite Christmas carol, “Silent Night” was her mother’s. Somehow, my mother had gotten lost in the shadow of her family.

And then Dad, the singular celestial body upon whom my mother orbited, fell and Vee DeLong, our shining star, became brightly visible. 

We all know the sadly romantic story associated with swans. They mate for life and, when one dies, the other follows of a broken heart. No one actually said it out loud, but there were a lot of us speculation, that, when Dad passed, Mom wouldn’t be far behind. Turns out, my mama is made of stronger stuff. It was a week ago today where she endured 18 hours, awake and without complaint, in a chaotic emergency room, took 4 staples to the back of her head without a beat, all the time, encouraging me to go home, assuring me that she would be fine. Vee DeLong is a rock star.

I shouldn’t have been surprised …this was the woman had who sat bedside, next to her husband whose body was practically levitating off the bed in pain and calmly held his hand for over five hours. I watched as her poor arthritic hands were crushed in his grasp as she soothed him. My mother was his medicine.

Although my purpose today is to proclaim that my mother was the strongest person in the world, we also have to remember that this is also the love story of Earl and Vee DeLong. I watched it play out my whole life but didn’t really appreciate it until failing health separated them and I was there during one of my dad’s evening phone calls. He’d discovered that figure skating was on TV so he called my mother to direct her to the channel so they could watch it together. My parents, miles apart, watched ice skating and I watched my mother, phone to her ear, eyes glued to the screen as skaters spun, twirled and jumped and I listened as she responded to my father’s observations about costumes and skills.

How grateful I was for my mother’s inability to throw away greetings cards and letters as I was able to compile many of Dad’s beautiful tributes to his beloved Vee.

DAD’s LETTERS

Unknowingly, I have been training for this next part over the last few years as my poor mama’s memory failed and I desperately tried to fill in some of the blanks for her.

My mother came from a large family led by my hard-working grandmother whom my mother idolized. My mom and Aunt Sally were the last two remaining of the Steens and I will refrain from telling you what they called their n’ere-do-well father…don’t say it, Aunt Sally…but a story with him offers insight into the hidden strength of my mother. As she told it, my grandfather, who delivered milk for a living, had parked the truck, with my young mother, outside a bar and gone in without properly setting the brake. In his absence, the truck began to roll down hill. My mother got out, watched its descent, shrugged and walked home.

I love my Aunt Sally. My brother and I grew up visiting her and Uncle Bob’s farm, playing endlessly with our cousins, Sandy and Todd. Our games were punctuated with the raucous laughter of the adults playing cards. The vernacular of these games delighted us; using words and phrases that had evolved from their time to mean something entirely different in our’s:  Hearing my mother say that her hand had been a “boner” would send us into squeals of immature giggling. One of the greatest compliments of my life was when my mother, in these last few years, would confuse me for Sally…so easy to do…we look so similar. I think it was because we could both make her laugh…we were her dandies. Thank you, Aunt Sally, for advocating, protecting, and loving my mother like only you could do. 

As my mom’s memory would ebb and flow, surprising moments would pop up. On our many trips to see Dad in LeRoy, we would drive over a bridge and my mother would inevitably brighten and tell me that she’d often swam in the Oatka River that flowed through that small city. My mother’s childhood would come to me in other ways, as well. Her friend, Marlene, who had introduced a teen-aged

Evangeline to the good-looking attendant at the gas station (my dad), recently sent me a letter which included a picture of my mom with the origins of her familiar elegant script, speaking of a young man who was NOT my father! Gasp! Is it possible that my mother was a real person?

When my mother would eventually marry that handsome young gas attendant, he would walk home to her every pay-day Friday and stop at a little store to buy her a set of three tiny animal figurines: A papa, mama, and baby. My mother’s curio cabinet was filled with them.

So…along came Earl and there was a papa, a mama, and a baby.

LETTER

And then…Amy.

And a pink house in Wyoming.

I was mad when her memory robbed her of her pink house.

And mornings where she got up insanely early to see my dad off to work. The dark kitchen with the soft light over the stove on. Radio gently playing. Making him breakfast. Putting coffee in his tall thermos. Filling his big metal lunch pail.

To do it again later with Earl and I. Occasionally she would buy Carnation Instant breakfast drink mix, letting us dump our favorite flavor into a tall glass of milk and use the hand-crank mixer to make it frothy. Earl and I would walk down the hill of our driveway to wait for the bus and Mom would stand at the picture window, waving and blowing kisses until we left.

She had worked so hard. She kept a large garden. Could grow any flower imaginable. Canned peaches and pears. Stacked wood with my father. Spent every Fall picking apples for extra Christmas money.  She made staying home sick from school a pleasure as we lay, tucked in on the couch with the plastic TV tray  next to us, loaded down with a box of kleenex and a translucent plastic Kool-aid Guy cup of 7-Up with a flexi-straw and Bob Barker would join us at 11 so we could watch excited people spin the Big Wheel.

Her first grand-daughter arrived, Fallanne Rae, and my mother was enchanted with that little girl. When Fallanne precipitously, at a very young age, cut her hair, my mother simply declared that the style accentuated Fal’s beautiful eyes. When moving my mother’s belongings to her apartment, it was Fallanne’s orchid with which we took the greatest care. Fal…I always knew when you visited…especially with your boys because Mom would always comment on how good they were…how hard it is for boys to be cooped up in that small room and what good parents you and Colby are. Alexis…I always knew when that guitar showed up too. I played Mom’s music angel over twenty times for her on her last day and I was so pleased when Jen sent me this video. God is good.

VIDEO OF SILENT NIGHT

Five foot tall on her best day, my mother was the measuring stick upon which every grandchild aspired to beat. Standing back-to-back with my tiny mom, the grandkids would grin proudly when they inevitably grew taller.  My son-in-law, Douglas stole my heart when, visiting my Mom and gathering for a family picture, my mom lamented that she was the littlest one. Without missing a beat, Douglas dropped to his knees beside her. I was grateful too, whenever we visited Aunt Sally, my cousin Todd would interrupt the eternal toil that comes from being a farmer to pop in and see Mom, immediately taking a knee next to her. My mother never realized that we all looked up to her.

My mom excelled at being a grandmother. She was down on that big braided rug in the living
room, assembling block towers, cities, and highways (I hope someone still has those blocks), dragging out the Fisher Price barn, art supplies, playing endless board and card games. She had so much Pepsi and Mountain Dew in her house that you would have thought she owned stock. Every grandchild here can quote “The Land Before Time.” What does Duckie say? She attended soccer games, volleyball and swim. Listened to concerts. Witnessed more than her share of graduations. Provided physical, emotional, and financial support whenever needed. Drove kids to appointments and was in Pennsylvania so many times that the state offered her resident status. Birthdays were never missed accompanied by special greeting cards emblazoned with dozens of stickers. Seating charts were employed at every holiday and each child’s place setting had a special decoration with their name. Remember the nutcrackers?

Only Earl and I remain to remember the special way she commemorated birthdays: By blowing up balloons, rubbing them on a nearby head, and sticking them to our kitchen wall. Our families thoughts, when remembering my mom, will go to the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, onions diced up minutely for the tuna sandwiches cut in triangles, Christmas cookie shapes that included a map of the United States and Abe Lincoln’s head, fruit salad in a heavy yellow nesting bowl.

My mother was creative and meticulously artistic. She and Aunt Sally would go to ceramics and one year, my mother, laboriously painted music box dolls for each girl in the family. Earl and I both had hand-painted lamps in our bedrooms. Earl’s was a glossy black and white pinto horse sprinting and I was so jealous because I was horse crazy. Mine was a gowned girl with blue eyes and brown hair holding a little dog. I treasure it to this day. I wouldn’t end up getting a horse, but Mom knew I’d get the dog.

VIDEO OF JOY

My mother helped in small ways that turned out to be huge. 

I had just given birth to my eldest daughter, Savannah Evangeline. So tired. The nurse was filling out the paperwork and needed the spelling of her name. I managed “Savannah” but stumbled on her middle name. “Get my father,” I told my husband. My dad was the best speller I knew. But then I heard the softest voice in the world as my mom quietly spelled out her own name for the nurse. 

My mother. Over-looked. Under-estimated. 

My mother. Who lived at home until she was 17 and then married the love of her life…living happily with him for 67 years. My mother, moving into an apartment, alone…like a kid going off to college and chugging stubbornly along for over three years. A survivor.

When I was a teenager, my mom, dad and I stopped for ice cream at Davis’s in Pavilion. My dad got a large twist cone but my mom and I indulged in fresh peach sundaes slathered in peach juice…we let the vanilla ice cream melt a bit and stirred the juice right into it. So good. So many years later, I would try, again and again, to find food that my mom liked…stumbling on a peach cake with fresh peaches at Wegmans. I grabbed plates and utensils for a little picnic and we sat in the shade of a little porch off to the side of her apartment building. She took the first bite, her eyes widening, and said, “Ohhhh. So good.” I felt like I had won the lottery. A week ago, after that long day in the ER, someone handed me a little plastic container of peaches. As she reclined on the stretcher, I fed her the first one and smiled as her eyes widened and she said, “Ohhhh…good.” God is good.

Mom wondered to me once, what would come next and I laughed as I described how she would open her eyes one day to see a good-looking red haired man with one lock falling down over his forehead, leaning against the large rounded hood of an old car, sliding off quickly at the sight of her, his long legs racing to her side. She would hear the sweet sound of her mother’s voice and feel her mama’s arms wrap around her again. “But how do you know?” she fretted and I laughed again. Because I know Jesus. And Jesus loves my mother.

I was given the incredible gift of holding my mama’s hand as she slid from this world and returned home. My parents, when they were dating and in the sweet early years of their marriage, frequented a dance hall and their song was “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” I was playing it for her on my phone and one moment, she was me in a quiet, peaceful room and before I could catch my breath, she was in the arms of my father, dancing to their song. Her poor hands, cruelly bent by arthritis, slid, slender into my Dad’s as he swept her into his embrace. Her vision cleared. Her pain disappeared. The veil of dementia was lifted. My mom went home.

An open apology to the ER

I am a little country mouse and my experience with hospital emergency rooms had, until this point, been limited to broken bones, a scraped eye, and allergic reactions at our small rural facility and several dedicated seasons of ER and Grey's Anatomy viewing. I was woefully unprepared and, at the same time, both physically and emotionally exposed, during our recent stay at a bustling city hospital's ER and, apologetically, did not conduct myself with the good grace, dignity, and manners of which I had been raised.

I arrived with Mom at 2 am, armed only with my phone, the charger cord hanging out of my pocket like a prehensile tail, and a bra hastily tucked away in another compartment. My white t-shirt proudly proclaimed that "God is my plus one" in red glitter letters. My days of even hoping to be in contention for a wet t-shirt contest were long behind me so I kept my business tucked, not-as-firmly-as-I-would-like, behind the protective layer of my polar coat, good for 20 below. Dog-fur lined sweatpants tucked into calf-covering rain boots finished the look. 

Mom was parallel parked, professionally, in a hallway, tucked between a man in such pain that he could only emit animal sounds, and a Spanish-speaking family with two kids sitting, cross-legged on the gurney, tucked alongside their crying mother. There was no discernible protocol that I could grasp...no big board with names and procedures, a doctor's name comfortingly attached to each one. I orbited my mother's side, drifting to her head or foot to allow for the passage of constantly moving stretchers filled with more manner of horror than I could have ever imagined. My vast familiarity with MASH equipped me with a working understanding of triage so I kind of understood that, in this hellscape we'd found ourselves, Mom's injury wasn't as critical as the tiny newborn, body stiff from an endless seizure, or the violent psychotic episode that went swearing by or the police-escorted man, feet shackled, bleeding from a bullet wound. Brad, my lifeline in the visitor's area, had his own challenges with drunken fights, loud law enforcement intervention, and a verbal threat of being slapped accompanied by racial slurs from an unhappy and uncooperative hospital visitor who eventually got dragged out of the building. Our text messages to one another as we were positioned rooms away but miles apart time-lined my frantic journey with my mother.

Testing would begin an hour after we arrived. 

And me without my Ticonderoga.

Blood drawn. "You just can't siphon it off the gash on the back of her head?" I wondered silently, anxious as they missed the vein in one arm before moving over to the other.

We joined the rush hour traffic and headed to get a cat scan...my Mom's second in a week. Three more on her stamp card and she'll get a free large coffee.

At 5 am, an IV was put in. Mom, recovering from the first fall and a fun bout of the flu, had, prior to this, been sleeping 55 minutes to the hour for days. She hadn't slept since she fell at 1 am. We had been expertly re-parked in our original spot and the man behind us was now screaming for meds. A remedy for ALL situations, I put Elvis on my phone to try to drown out the nightmare around us. A kind nurse gifted us a glass of cold water EACH with a flexi-straw. My Mom and I sighed with pleasure. Delicious.

A very tall doctor began the process of investigating the back of Mom's poor head shortly after that. I
appreciated his care of her hair, sifting through the matted stands as carefully as he could but they were so matted that I begged him to just cut it. "Give me the scissors," I snapped at one point as my mother sat, bent at the waist so they could inspect the back of her head, "I'll cut it." Still in my good-to-twenty-below polar suit, I held my mother in place, shaking and sweating as the medical staff meticulously sought out the source of her injury. Hydrogen peroxide was employed, a plastic rectangular bin was pressed into the back of Mom's neck to try and catch as much of the liquid as possible as the bubbling solution revealed the location as Mom winced and shook and I sweated and shook, holding her in place. There were four of us working at this point when another doctor took over, manning a staple gun. Each time he counted down from three, Mom and I, bearing down together, would blow out, lamaze-style. Four times. She never shed a tear. I cried like a baby in between singing the only song that would come to my mind, Barney the Dinosaur's "I Love You" song. 

I begged for pain medication.

Tylenol.

Brad had to leave a little after 6. I risked leaving Mom for a few minutes to see him, use the restroom, and wrestle a bra on so I could lose the polar suit. Returned to find out that she'd been agitated and fearful in my absence. I wouldn't leave her side again.

It was a gruesome Ground Hog's day...we were on repeat for hours. New people would appear and I would delight each time they'd ask Mom her name. "Evangeline," she'd say softly. They'd ask her why she was here and she'd have no clue. Lie that she wasn't in pain. Laugh when I loudly called her a liar. There was no clipboard of information to review before speaking to us. We began again each time.

Tests came back. 

We'd failed in epic fashion.

Heart and kidneys. 

Dangerously dehydrated.

Malnutrition. 

They wanted to admit her but could guarantee no bed.

 A Russian man, found in a run-off ditch, was brought in and parked ahead of Mom. Hospital staff fought to get him undressed but he was very uncooperative, shouting in Russian and tossing one nurse to the floor and another against the wall. The curtain separating him from Mom shook violently as I moved between the two stretchers. I believe they "offered" him medication. I don't think it was Tylenol.

I was now ready to sell my soul to get Mom to my small rural hospital.

A kind nurse named Emily who had the voice of a kindergarten teacher watched me unravel. "I want out," I told her, "I want to talk to a hospital administrator," I said, trying to summon some sort of dignity and adopt a semblance of professional decorum despite my weird white t-shirt, sweat pants, rain boots and crazed expression. Two doctors appeared relatively quickly. They were incredibly sympathetic. None of the options were ideal. I signed the dispatch papers. 

I wanted Mom transported to my little country hospital. 

They couldn't do that.

I was going to have to drive her there myself.

She couldn't stand. She was in pain.

I called my little hospital to tell them my plan but, because Mom had already had tests done, they couldn't guarantee admittance. 

My brain wouldn't work by this time. This could not be real.

I sobbed.

Snot-sobbed.

My poor mom was comforting me at this point.

Emily came and I cried, apologizing, begging for a chance to retain the rights to our parking spot. 

I was failing my mother.

The dispatch papers disappeared and my Mom resumed her peeking through the curtain I kept closing to try and give her some rest and privacy. But Vee DeLong was not having it...this was the most action she'd ever seen and she wasn't missing it. We saw a dismembered foot and had to ask each other if we'd actually seen what we just saw. 

Emily upgraded our parking spot to closer to the nursing station (and the guard on duty) because (a) she realized she was dealing with an emotionally-unhinged lunatic and (b) Mom was getting feisty about staying in bed, rattling the bars of her bed like a little zoo animal.

The nursing shift changed and the evening shift brought large male nurses. 

I completely understood.

We'd now witnessed two drug overdoses and a boisterous exchange as hospital staff tried to discharge a homeless person who'd been there for 24 hours. 

Our exasperating routine began again. "What is your name?" Tylenol. Oh great...that'll do a lot. I considered having my own psychotic episode in hopes of scoring Mom something more substantial. They didn't know Mom couldn't suck from a straw without verbal cues. I flagged the nurse down to explain that we'd been there for sixteen hours and haven't had a meal. "You haven't been admitted to the hospital yet," he told me briskly but by now, I cried on a dime. "Let me check." "Let me be more clear," I gasped, "She can't eat a meal. We just want applesauce." Applesauce appeared in minutes and my heart soared as Mom reveled in it, savoring it in her mouth as I spooned it in, and letting the coolness stroke her throat as she swallowed. 

This poor guy had to deal with my idiocy an hour later as a beautiful dinner tray was delivered and, again, understanding dawned. There were no bedside tables to accompany hallway accommodations. ER patients don't get fed (except for the doctor who slipped me an Uncrustable...I fed Mom like a baby bird and her eyes widened at the taste of peanut butter and she sighed, "Ohhh...."). The tray sat, balanced on my knees. A chicken breast. Mashed potatoes. A salad. Peaches. Slice of cake. The entire night/day/night, I kept imagining if Mom were here alone. I looked at this beautiful tray of food, imagining it being delivered to my mom. She can't feed herself. I cried. The male nurse was confused. I had, obviously, gotten what I wanted. "My mom can't eat this," I tried to explain and he tried to help by encouraging me to eat it myself which, in retrospect, I should have. I hadn't eaten in days. I haven't used the restroom since 6 am. I had forgotten the airplane rule of putting my mask on first. How could I eat when my mother can't?

"She can eat the peaches," he said, removing the source of my tears. He caught me trying to rip the slices into tiny pieces with my fingers as he passed by and returned with a plastic knife. A naked woman weighing well over 500 pounds came in and distracted us with her salty language. Another man came in in restraints. The Bills were tied. I placed the first bite of peach into my mother's mouth and she sighed with pure pleasure. The automatic doors to the emergency room got stuck open so I stood at the end of my mother's bed, shielding her with my body. She eagerly ate six bites of peach, watched the hideous show going on around us, and kept telling me it was time to go. That she'd be fine.

Vee Delong hadn't slept except in odd five minute increments, here and there.

Hadn't shed a tear.

Hadn't complained.

Heartbreakingly, the Bills lost.

And finally, my mother slept.

My sister-in-law was nearing the building so I conceded defeat and gathered myself to leave her.

The nurse, seeing my intention, led me, dazed, through the confusing passages to the corridor that would take me outside, to where Brad Mosiman was waiting for me before returning to his job...his awful, thankless, miraculous job. 

My sincere apologies to the staff of the ER.

I didn't know.

You each deserve a million dollar salary and the gratitude of a nation.

Please forgive my rage, fear, tears, confusion, and tired stupidity.

Mom would get a satellite room in the ER a half hour later.

She would be transferred to a beautiful and peaceful room in Palliative Care in the morning. 

The ER would be the last time I would get to talk to my mother. Over sweet peaches.
 

My mother: Pure poetry

We held her hands,

Death and I,

lingering over the painfully angled ridges 

of each slender finger,

while behind his dusty frame,

my father glared,

telling me to let her go,

eager to have her in his arms again.

I read Emerson

as Death read the final rites.

He smiled gently at my futile metaphor

as I kept winding the pale angel

to softly fill the room: Silent Night.

My hands stubbornly kept her's warm

as I played their song: "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,"

and finally, she was dancing with Dad again

so I thanked Death and left.

Genesis 2:7-The breath of life

 Running on four bottles of Pepsi in a sixteen hour window, I texted my friend Katriel. "These last few days have shown me, painfully, that my mom needs a mom."

Mom had fallen a few days ago, conking herself pretty good on the head. I wish I could say this was the first time that this has happened. This particular fall required a CAT scan as a precaution and resulted in a scared daughter arranging a little slumber party at Mom's apartment. "I'm coming up later," I warned my mom on the phone, "And I'm bringing soup." "I want something sweet," my mom answered, shocking me. She never asks for anything and rarely eats anything substantial unless a family member is with her. "Something sweet?" I exclaimed happily, "What do you want?" "You," my mama said and my heart just melted.

My aunt Sally had visited Mom on Thursday and alerted Brad and I that Mom was not doing well at all. Alarmed, we rushed over to be greeted by staff who also shared Aunt Sally's concern. 

My heart sank when we walked into Mom's bedroom.

I am aware that every single day that I get with my mother is a gift. 

It was a long night.

She woke up every twenty minutes, her small body rigid as she coughed violently. We went through two small boxes of Kleenexes as I sat, bedside, no longer counting days but breaths, as she fought to inhale and shivered as I piled on blankets, sang her songs, and prayed my way to dawn. 

Mid-way through, I shared with my mom that my being there might have been the answer to someone else's prayer. In the middle of the night, I could hear someone calling for help. I zeroed in on the sound, trying to determine if it was a neighboring television but was soon sprinting down the hall to knock on a door. A resident, Miss Rachel, had fallen. I hurriedly covered her with a blanket, pressed the emergency button and waited with her, holding her hand, until help arrived. I was incredulous that this situation would be repeated two hours later. I'm not sure how much comfort that my presence was bringing my mother but I was grateful to expedite assistance and provide comfort for a frightened, helpless Miss Rachel.

Dawn finally did arrive and imagine my delight and amazement when I returned to Mom that afternoon and she was able to talk and laugh and snuggle my little puppy, Joy. The cough was still there but not as bad...drier.

But still...one more night wouldn't hurt to make sure that we were headed in the right direction.

That second night, I succumbed to sleep and then paid for it when I heard a strange scurrying around at 2 am. Staring out in the darkness, I held my breath as I tried to make sense of what was happening. My mom, frail and unbalanced, was standing at her dresser, rearranging each item before she made her way slowly out to the other rooms, touching things on the counters and tables. This went on for a good thirty minutes. 

Just days ago, Brad and I had been watching one of those wildlife programs where the narrator stressed the importance of not interfering in outcomes. As I lay there, I realized that my mother, so often alone, engaged in these scenarios...moving about her little habitat and re-familiarizing herself with her surroundings. Comfort? Curiosity? Not wanting to startle her with my sudden appearance in the middle of the night, I decided to wait her out to see how this little production ended. 

When it had been quiet in the other room for quite awhile, I crept out to peek at my mother who had secured herself a towel as a blanket and was curled awkwardly in her chair, shivering. I knocked on the wall, calling out, "Mom? Where are you? It's Amy." She croaked out a sound and I knelt by her chair. I tried to coax her back to bed but she had no wish to be dislodged from her perch. I grabbed blankets from her bed to wrap around her, reclined her chair back for her, and wedged myself in the chair next to her.

Again, my mother slept fitfully and I, not at all as I counted each inhale and exhale...matching my breaths with her's. I prayed...struggling to genuinely ask for God's will and not my own...consumed with guilt that my mother has had to fight this battle over the last few years, mostly by herself...alone. Rather than partnering with her, I made cameo appearances. It turns out that the monster that lurks under my bed is named Failure and he delights in tripping my mother.

It's been a long day as my mind frantically grasps for solutions.

Mom slept most of the day.

Plagued with triple vision, she started "seeing" things today. Reaching out into space to pluck something that I couldn't see from the air. Fighting her way out of her chair to stroke the television screen. 

It wasn't until tonight that I realized that I was the one who was helpless. 

I will finish typing the end of this blog submission, so grateful that Amy Mosiman's mother is sleeping in the other room. I will crawl on top of the air mattress that Brad Mosiman bought for me a few hours ago and inflated because he can't stand the thought of another night of me trying to sleep in a chair. I will lay two feet away from my mother and count her breaths and be grateful for every one. Thank you, God, for this night.

Having people visit makes me anxious: You would have never guest

I am not a gifted or gracious hostess. I am not confident in my culinary or housekeeping skills. I am awkward when it comes to small talk. 

Hospitality is an important part of my Christian faith ("For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in..." Matthew 25: 34-36) but I am TERRIBLE at it. Uncomfortable. Anxious.

But...new year so back up on the hostessing horse I go.

"What are you doing?" my daughter yelled on speaker phone as I balanced on a dining room chair, delicately unscrewing a blown-out light bulb. "Are you putting in the company light bulb?" she shouted accusingly. "Two bulbs don't illuminate the room enough," I said defensively. "You let me sit in a dark room over Thanksgiving just fine," Savannah snarled, "but the minute Katriel comes over...Let there be light!"

The light bulb was the least of my problems.

"I don't know what to make for dessert," I lamented to Brad. He paused...aware that this seemingly small matter (to him) was nearing crisis territory for me. "We like chocolate pudding..." he suggested carefully. I brightened. I had pretty dessert glasses. 

Jello had recently sent me into a tailspin by changing their packaging. Heaven forbid we stay with tried-and-
true.

The ridiculous purple packaging pulled one more punch:  It was instant. "I can't serve instant pudding to our guests," I cried, "Take it away." Brad stoically carried it outside and dumped the pot's still steaming contents in the field ("You littered?!?" our from-Toronto-visitor gasped when he heard the story recounted later. The three Wyoming County residents sitting at the table stared at him while my husband slowly asked, "We littered by dumping pudding on cow manure?").

Now there was no dessert.

Brad escaped my next melt-down by plowing the driveway.

When he returned, he complimented the stacked plate of Rice Krispie treats. "Yeah," I scoffed, "great if we were hosting ten-year-olds."

A few minutes later, he came racing back into the kitchen at my next cry of dismay.

"What?!? What's wrong?" he asked, scanning the room for the source of my distress. "Look at this," I wailed, brandishing a stalk of celery like a sword. Brad skillfully blocked my Shomen Uchi strike to see what could possibly be wrong with the sturdiest member of the parsley family. 

"Ewww..." he said, looking at the black sludged paste coating the end of the vegetable before walking it out to join the pudding. "My salad is ruined," I ruminated. At this point, we would be serving stale cereal. 

Our guests arrived and it was immediately clear that they were here for the people...not a gourmet presentation. Stale cereal, steak, spaghetti, or scrambled eggs...Katriel and Dan just wanted to hang out with us. The evening wasn't about culinary dishes...it was about conversation. We had self-consciously rolled out the welcome mat and they could care less if the rug had a few stains.

Except for my losing EVERY game of euchre, we had a lovely evening. 

We should have taken the meal and the cards as a win but no...

"How about we light a few sparklers?" I suggested, wanting a memorable ending to our visit.

Brad glanced at me...wondering if I had factored in the darkness, deep snow, wind, and cold...before
sighing, of course I hadn't.

We gamely waded through knee-high drifts, past the pudding and celery sludge, and set up our little sparklers well away from trees and the house.  Shivering, Katriel and I watched as Brad and Dan lit our little display. Let's just say, they blew us away.

Not surprisingly, Dan and Katriel left, more or less intact, pretty quickly after that.

"Well," said Brad as we watched our guests drive rapidly away, "I thought that went pretty well. You must be feeling pretty good." He paused, watching me vigorously wiping the bottom of my boot in the snow. Apparently, I had walked through sludge. "Not nece-celery," I answered.

Lord knows I tried.

 

This Advent was a little strained

Hard to believe, but on rare occasions, my ideas may sometimes be a tad irrational, unrealistic, outlandish, or improbable.

*Silence as the reader comes to grips with this shocking revelation*

"Don't worry," colleagues once assured each other, "there's no way she can arrange for an actual airplane for our four-minute vocabulary video."

"Who floats an over-ripe watermelon down a river to film it exploding over a waterfall?" a friend wondered dubiously.

"She did NOT help convince the entire elementary staff to film a choreographed Zumba video  based on one dumb remark muttered during a professional development seminar!"

"Wait. She was dressed as a...what?!?! (insert infinite possibilities here:  An owl. Marilyn Monroe. A lion. A twerking bumblebee. Elvis. A roll of toilet paper)"

I was hurt, devastated, outraged and a little impressed to learn that my grade level team had gone underground to rein in or even try to thwart the inevitable and unreasonable workload and emotional cost that accompanies my enthusiastic creative outbursts.

But there are times, when the only person I really hurt is myself.

I never did Advent calendars...either growing up or while my girls were growing up. But when they moved away (Some contend that they ran away), I stumbled onto Advent calendars as a way to connect us during the days leading us to Christmas. Little tchotchkes that my daughters could receive over the course of 24 days, reminding them that their parents love them and were thinking of them. Sweet.

But, we're Mosimans. So it somehow became competitive.

And I'm Amy Mosiman. So it became time-consuming and ridiculous.

It started with bible trivia. Sprinkled in some Hanukkah with the arrival of Lisa. Ventured into holiday music and movies. Added games and puzzles. 

"What are you going to do for Advent this year?" a family member asked and I spiraled. I couldn't do it. I had nothing left. 

But then I stumbled onto an Advent Escape Room BOOK!

This was AMAZING!

It would harken back to the days where I spent HOURS reading to my children. Savannah, still a fan of Survivor, would immediately rise to the puzzled challenge following each chapter. Like Douglas's fantasy football, it would bond us further as a family.

I bought a copy of the book for each family.

I presented the idea to my daughters when they came home for Thanksgiving.

Let's just say that someone forgot to attend the pre-Mom meeting.

"A book?" They looked at it like it was going to bite them.

"We have to read a book for Advent?" It wasn't A Tale of Two Cities, for goodness sake. And this was certainly NOT turning out like the best of times. And did they miss the part where I was going to read it TO them?

My idea was not being received well so I did what any stable, rational person would do:  I threw the book away. I'm really not one to over-react.

"Remember when we were fighting over our clothes and you destroyed our underwear in a bonfire?"

"Remember when you were afraid that you were reading too many romances so you ran over your Kindle with the truck...twice?"

I am still not sure what the problem was...I was doing all the work.

"Wait...I'm going to have to film all of these?!?" my husband cut in (after digging the book out of the trash and calling an emergency secret "Mom" meeting). Seriously...three-to-four minutes each day TOPS of pointing the camera at me?!? I punished him by only letting him actually film about six of them.

"It was torture," he admitted.

No. Torture was editing. Torture was factoring in three time zones. Torture was realizing that I was too stupid to figure out a lot of the puzzles. 

Every day, I filmed a segment. Created a trailer. Solved each puzzle myself and presented a short-cut for my not-so-enthusiastic-but-pretending-to-be participants either as a still photograph or another video. Only a few days in, I hit a wall. A puzzle about electric fuses that I couldn't figure out despite the answer key. I went to my friend Eric for help. 

Yeah. "Help."

Eric patiently described the solution to me in detail.

I still didn't get it.

So, my "guest star" segments began.

My friend Katriel sensed something was up and soon became my camera-person AND possibly the only person involved in this ridiculous fiasco who actually enjoyed the puzzles. She earned a spot as a reoccurring guest star (Anyone out there remember Charo from The Love Boat?) because I would just get flummoxed with some of those darn challenges. Katriel would just curl up like a kitten in one of my classroom chairs and happily solve away.

At one point, I stomped up to the second floor to garner the assistance of my high school bff Tom who pretends to not want to be involved in any of my nonsense but secretly loves it. "What will it take to get you out of my classroom?" he growled unhappily as I chased after him, flapping my book. I gave him unnecessarily complicated stage directions (The man was born for the theater.) and we filmed a flawlessly perfect scene. "Great," he said curtly, "Get out."

"Uh-oh."

Tom glared at me. He had some sort of chemistry activity to set up...I think it was BINGO. "What?"

I chuckled. "Silly me. I forgot to hit record. No worries. We'll just consider that first one a rehearsal." 

As Providence would have it, our friend Jeff walked in (presumably, to rescue Tom). Unlike my high school bestie, Jeff is kind, patient and accommodating. He is also truthful so he couldn't lie on the witness stand when the judge asked whether Tom was the one who killed me. Jeff scored a cameo in the second video which, again, was executed flawlessly. 

Speaking of besties, one of Savannah's dear friends from high school had recently started working in my building so I snagged her as a surprise guest. Imagine Savannah's surprise when Brittney called her the next day to ask how she liked it and Savannah had NO IDEA what she was talking about...confirming what I had suspected ALL ALONG. NO ONE WAS WATCHING THESE STUPID VIDEOS!!!!

"Of course they're watching them," my husband assured me, "How else could they be solving the puzzles?"

"They're CHEATING," I told him bluntly.

"I watched you rip out the answer keys from their books," he protested.

"There is a QR code at the end of each chapter that provides hints and answers," I explained.

"No!" he gasped, "Savannah said it just gave hints."

"She is a LIAR," I bellowed.

"I'm polar-bearing the next chapter," I told Brad.

"No, don't do it," he begged, "It'll tear the family apart."

Polar-bearing was a well-known and devious tradition during Savannah's high school days where students would insert a random paragraph about polar bears in the middle of an assigned essay because everyone knew that that particular teacher never read them.

So, in the middle of the next chapter, I veered seamlessly into The Three Billy Goats Gruff. "Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge?" roared the Troll. "Oh, it is only I, wee little Billy Goat Gruff, wondering why no one is appreciating that their mother is expending a lot of time, energy, and effort to make this Advent special and you all are a bunch of poos."

Of course, a secret, emergency-Mom meeting had been called to thwart my diabolical plan.

This had been a terrible mistake.

What a stupid idea.

I limped to the end. Chapter 24. Christmas Eve. 

That landed us with my mother.

We had filmed several with her, explaining each time that it was for her granddaughters for Christmas. My sweet mom...burdened by bad eyesight, balance, and betrayed by her memory...would sit agreeably while we filmed, not understanding what I read (to be fair, NONE of us understood the convoluted plot) but enjoying the experience. 

But Chapter 24. On Christmas Eve...I sat on the floor, book-ended between Brad and Mom in their recliners. I hit record. Brad started clowning around in a very un-Brad-Mosiman-like way, tossing tickle fingers my way, waving at the camera, bunny ears...getting Mom to giggle and join in. I pretended to be exasperated which delighted my Mom all the more. We reached the end of the chapter, all three of us pausing to wave at the camera while I said "I love you," my Mom echoing my words. 

Merry Christmas, Amy. 

My gift arrived on the final day of Advent. Not gold, frankincense and myrrh. God granted me my mom's smile...soft and gentle. Her sweet laughter...a rare and treasured sound. He found a way to include my Mom as an active, productive, and meaningful member of our silly little scenario. At 89, tucked away alone in her small apartment, surrounded by strangers, my Mom might sometimes feel that she's been forcibly retired from the stage that was her life...relegated to watching a foreign film where she doesn't understand the language and can't follow the plot. But this night...Mom owned the spotlight. She was the star.

So in the end, because we implemented my Dad's ridiculous "for all the marbles" tradition, Douglas won. To be fair, he was the ONLY participant who had refrained from complaining directly to me AND rose to impressive heights of competitive game-play...Douglas wasn't going to half-ass this Half Dome of Advent Escape Rooms...the boy came equipped to play. And like any good math teacher, also showed his work. 

If the goal was togetherness, we achieved it. Together, we dreaded (almost) every single chapter and together, we waited, with bated breath, for this Advent to be over.  "Advent" in the Christian sense means "Arrival." To look at the word, you might think of "adventure." That worked for us this year. Not all adventures are good. Ever seen "Deliverance?" "Advent" could also resemble "adversity." Yup. And how about "adverse?" 

The best I can say is that the Mosimans survived Advent this year. There is a lot to be said for those little cardboard calendars with the little windows. I guess I could step up my game a little and give everyone a spaghetti strainer on December 1st. Nothing's easier than an Advent colander.