Gather Your Tribe

By Kathy Mosby

Kathy Mosbys life was fairly routine until 2014. In the beginning of that year, it was as though three bombs dropped in the middle of her life. In January, her mom passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. In February, her neighbors dead tree fell on her house during a storm. Then in March, she was diagnosed with lymphoma. The journey that followed is Gather Your Tribe.

When Kathy was first diagnosed, one of her doctors said, I know youre used to being the mom and taking care of everything, but now its time to gather your tribe and accept the help. So Kathy did indeed gather her tribe through deeply candid emails to her friends and family, which she wrote throughout her journey.

Gather Your Tribe is both painful and uplifting. Kathy hopes that by sharing her story, which includes the emails to her tribe, she will inspire others to face their biggest fears and challenges head-on. Amazing things can happen when you do, like receiving a call from the White House!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546209997

Kathy Mosby

This is Kathy Mosby’s first novel. Although she has always loved to write, she never felt she had a true story to share as a writer until now. Most of her career has been in the hospitality industry. Married and divorced at a young age, her main focus has always been on being a Mom. She describes being a Mom as the “best part of her life” and “the one thing she is certain she was meant to be.” After living in the North Lake Tahoe area for 32 years, Kathy recently took the plunge! She sold her Tahoe Cabin and purchased a new home in Reno, NV. She is thoroughly enjoying this new chapter in her life and has semi-retired in order to focus on her writing. Kathy treasures family, friends, nature, creativity and delving into the fascinating spiritual side of the human experience.

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© 2017 Kathy Mosby. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/21/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-1000-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-0999-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

EPILOGUE

ANOTHER EPILOGUE!

CHAPTER 1

I f I had to describe my life in one word, at that time I would have chosen the word fine. My life was fine. Not great, not bad, but fine. It was fairly routine and sometimes even a bit boring, quite truthfully. Oh, how I’ve longed for those fine days several times in the recent months. When you have three big bombs land in your life during three consecutive months, you suddenly realize that the fine times need to be cherished.

It was January 8, 2014, when the first bomb dropped. I received a call at work from my sister-in-law, Lisa. She told me that my mom had fallen and was found unconscious in her home in Modesto, California. Apparently, her vital signs were weak and things didn’t look good. I knew right away that my mom had not just fallen. She was seventy-seven years old (due to turn seventy-eight on the twenty-fourth of that month), and other than some hearing and memory issues, she was in very good health. She had slowed down some of course, but she was still pretty active and agile, always working in her garden and doing projects around the house. In fact, my mom had always been so healthy that my brother, Mike, and I used to joke that she would probably outlive us both. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. She was truly that healthy! So to receive a call like that was absolutely shocking.

Mike, Lisa, and my niece, Jessica, lived in Truckee, California. My daughter, Julie, and her boyfriend, Dan, also lived in Truckee. My son, Phil, lived in Reno, Nevada. I lived in North Lake Tahoe. So we all lived in close proximity of one another, but Modesto was about three hours away. We quickly spread the word about Mom/Grandma and pulled ourselves together to go see her in the hospital.

My brother was the first to arrive and hear the full story. It turned out that Mom had suffered a brain aneurism and would not survive. Mike had to break the news to me on the phone. It took my breath away and broke my heart. My sweet mom … how could this be happening!?

I had spoken to her the day before. She had been totally fine. In fact, I had gently confessed to her that I had not been feeling well during our conversation. I always hated to worry my mom and hadn’t wanted her to know that truly I hadn’t been feeling quite right for months—in retrospect, maybe even years. I really don’t know for sure how long it had been. I didn’t have much energy and every time I ate I became very bloated and gassy. Occasionally, I also experienced a deep abdominal pain and became slightly feverish. Of course, I assumed it was stress. Also, since I was thoroughly in the depths of menopause, I pretty much attributed all of my symptoms to that.

Anyway, before we hung up, my mom told me she hoped I’d be feeling better soon in that lovely, reassuring way that only a mother can do. Little did I know, that would be the last time I would hear her say that. I would desperately long to hear her say something like that in the future. They kept my mom alive long enough for us to get to Modesto to say goodbye to her in the ICU. She died officially on January 9, 2014, shortly after midnight. I believe that on some level she knew we were all there with her—because we love her so much. My uncle (my mom’s brother) and his lovely wife were there also, so she was surrounded by love and family.

After that, it was a whirlwind of activity. We had to go through everything in Mom’s house in order to get it ready to sell, chat with her neighbors, and plan the Celebration of Life. One of my mom’s neighbors, Linda, who lived across the street with her son, Nicholas, had become quite close to my mom. She really was a godsend. We had worried about Mom living by herself after my wonderful dad passed away in 2008 from colon cancer, but we couldn’t convince her to move up to the Truckee/Tahoe area. Linda was like an angel. She really watched over her and became like family with my mom. She was the one who alerted the police when she hadn’t heard from Mom that day. She just knew something was wrong.

During the whole process of cleaning out Mom’s house, I continued to feel crummy. My stomach pain after eating became much worse. I thought surely it was stress, probably an ulcer. I tried only eating bland foods, small amounts, things like that. It may have helped a little, but not really. But through it all, I just kept plugging along, pushing forward. I call it the single parent syndrome. When you’re a single parent, you just get used to handling everything all the time. No matter how crappy you feel or how tired you are, you know that it’s all up to you, so you just keep pushing through it. After many years, it becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.

I married at nineteen. I had Julie at twenty and Phillip at twenty-two. In retrospect, I see now that I was just barely an adult raising two children. My ex-husband and I were already separated when I was pregnant with Phil, so before long I was on my own with my two babies. Fortunately, I had tremendous support from family, most especially my parents. They graciously let us move into the family vacation home—an old cabin in Tahoe—and I’ve lived there for thirty years. My parents bought the house outright for $15,000 when I was around eight years old. Isn’t that incredible? I inherited the house officially when my dear mom passed away. I am well aware that I am incredibly fortunate and blessed in this area of my life. In fact, I am downright spoiled, but I never take it for granted! I am so very grateful. I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and love into my little cabin. My parents always said they liked having me live there and they appreciated the improvements I had made to the property.

Although I didn’t have a house payment, raising my children on my own and living paycheck to paycheck most of my life was tough. Unfortunately, I racked up a very large amount of credit card debt, which I didn’t tell my family about because I felt so ashamed. My parents and my brother were always so smart with money. I can’t say the same for myself. I was always diligent about making my credit card payments on time, but talk about a huge burden! It was as if I did have a mortgage payment. It was like carrying around a heavy backpack all the time.

Of course, my kids knew. We are incredibly open and honest with each other. We’re so amazingly close. It’s kind of like we grew up together since I had them at such a young age. I’m so proud of the phenomenal adults they have become. There’s no way I could have a less than honest relationship with them. What would be the point of that? We’ve been through so much together and I cherish them beyond words.

In addition to my financial life, I’ve also never had any success in the romantic relationship area. After repeatedly choosing the wrong men and having one too many heartbreaks, I finally just gave up. Everyone says that when you truly give up, that’s when the right one will come along. Not in my case! I’ve felt mostly invisible to men my whole life. Obviously, I’ve had some interest here and there, but mostly not. I’m just not one of those natural beauties. I’ve been described as cute, which is nice, but truthfully I just don’t know how to attract men. Honestly, I sometimes feel like I wasn’t given the romantic relationship card when I was born. I feel like I missed out on that secret advice or that particular gene—or something like that. Also, it is not uncommon for me to go for literally years without even meeting a man my age who is unattached. There are lots of single young men in Tahoe, but not men my age and older. In fact, almost all of my friends are married, or at least hooked up, and have been for many years. I hardly ever meet single people in general. So I decided to just put my energy into being a good mom, friend, and employee. I did my best to create a lovely home and to work on my spiritual growth as a human being. That was mostly enough for me for many years. In fact, I haven’t had a man in my life in about twenty years. I’m actually very embarrassed to admit that. It makes me feel like a freak and an outsider to the rest of the world. Mostly, I’ve just accepted it and made the best of things, but there have been a few times throughout the years when I’ve sort of longed for a man in my life, especially recently. I realize more and more that the decisions we make when we’re younger can come back to bite us as we get older. I should have put more energy into trying to find someone to share my life with. In the same vein, I have friends who decided not to have children in their youth and now feel quite a void. I guess we all do the best we can at the time, but … if I had it to do over again, I would have paid more attention to the potential repercussions of my youthful decisions. I would have tried to imagine what it might be like to be fifty-five years old and still single. For me, at this age, something shifted. It now seems like it might be a really lovely thing to have a companion in life. A pain in the ass sometimes also, I’m sure, but nevertheless kind of lovely.

After cleaning out Mom’s house, we headed back to the Tahoe area. I now had a kitty cat named Tabitha in tow! I already had a pet bunny named Molly, and honestly I wasn’t looking for another pet, but Tabby has turned out to be a lovely addition to my family. There was talk of taking her to a shelter or trying to find her a home. For me, that would have been such a betrayal to my mom. There’s just no way I would have ever done that. She loved Tabby so much! After Dad passed away, Tabby became my mom’s best friend. In fact, Mom spoiled her pretty religiously! Mom and Dad had another cat before Tabby, named Tiger. When Tiger was still around, Mom had specifically asked me if I would take Tiger if, God forbid, anything ever happened to her and Dad. I assured her I would, so I felt that agreement between us transferred to Tabby as well. It would have broken my heart to give her to strangers. As frightening as it must have been, I’m glad Tabby saw Mom lying unconscious on the floor. It’s my belief that she totally understood that Mom was gone and that I would take care of her. The transition was a little challenging sometimes, but she is such a sweet, loving kitty. She has adjusted to her new life with me and Molly quite nicely.

Next, we had to deal with the paperwork that is always required after someone passes away. Fortunately, there was a living trust that my parents had created, so it wasn’t too awful, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. During the process, there were a few tense points for my brother and me to go through, but the one thing I knew for sure is that I never wanted to be one of those families who ruin their relationships because of money. I think that is tragically sad. So we both stayed fair and calm, and I think we’re mostly okay. My brother is really and truly one of the good guys. I am so grateful. Although we’ve had our ups and downs as most siblings do, at the core of it all we are very good friends. In the months to follow, we actually became even closer. Mike is the only other person on the planet who truly knows my history. I feel that siblings share a bond that is unlike any other. I love my brother so deeply. In fact, I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to say that I truly cherish and enjoy my entire family. Our family get-togethers have always been very special to me. They are generally filled with lots of rousing conversation, laughter, food, drink and games. We love to play games together and laugh for hours on end!

So rifling through legal documents and money issues was admittedly uncomfortable for both of us. Although it had never once come up in the past, Mike finally admitted that he did feel some resentment that I had received more financial help from Mom and Dad by living in the Tahoe cabin. Quite frankly, that made me feel lower than pond scum. I told him that I felt so much guilt about it that I sometimes didn’t even feel I deserved to be here—meaning on this Earth. I started to cry. He hugged me and tried to make me feel better. He wrote me an email later that day saying that he would hate it if I was not here.

We all have our issues. Between my financial failures and relationship failures, my self-esteem needed some help for sure. In some areas of my life, I’m so confident! In other areas, not so much. I’m working on it though.

Throughout the paperwork process and all that it entailed, I continued to feel really lousy. It was getting to the point where I had a great deal of abdominal pain anytime I ate anything at all. I would have bet money that I had an ulcer. Somehow, I kept plugging along. We had a lovely Celebration of Life for my mom and, fortunately, I was able to eat that day and I felt okay. I’m sure Mom must have been watching over me. It was a very special day that I will always treasure. I do remember being extremely tired though. When I drove home that night from the Modesto area with my fabulous niece Jessica, who was fifteen at the time, we had some awesome conversations and I felt okay … until I ate one or two bites of chicken from a fast food place. After that, I started feeling