A week ago today, my mother died and within a few hours, my home was filled with family. They stayed for a week. Ordinarily, I can only tolerate hosting 48 to 50 hours of a few people who mostly look and sound a lot like me, visiting my home, but this week I welcomed them. This week, they needed me, too. It was good to have them here since we had to deal with Mother’s loss and the damned business end of death. But they’re gone now. They all left this morning and the house is quiet. Have you ever noticed how a house sounds, how still it feels after a big event? Loud and bustling 20 minutes ago, then suddenly silent. You can actually hear silence, in a way. Circumstances make it either welcomed or your worst enemy. That’s why I dread tonight. Especially the wee hours of the morning when the silence and loneliness are amplified. And there’s no one to call, and even 12 hours later with this parent of the world fee ing with upright and conscious people,, no one wants to hear from a woman who’s one week into mourning her mother. It’s awkward on all parties involved.
My nephew, the Executor of her will, will return in a few days. But right now, I need a respite from it all, even as the reality of her death ebbs snd flows at the oddest times.
But we all need a break. Her estate is complex and we’re sorting through that with finely honed skewers. Like trying to find tiny sugar ants in a box of sugar-ant colored sugar. In addition to that, there was the service to plan. And yes, it ended up being a typical overdone Kendrick production with audio, video and heart tugging visual aids, held in the private room of a lovely restaurant within stumbling distance of my home.
She planned her funeral in 1995 and in those files, which she kept in a piano bench, we knew she’d wanted it to be a more grandiose affair in the Methodist church but due to Covid restrictions and the fact that most of the participants for which she’d assigned positions are dead, incapacitated or moved on, so we had to punt. You see, Mother was strict Methodist. Hard core. We always supposed that was because my sisters and I were born pre-Vatican ll reforms which meant she had to literally sign a contract with the Church that stated if she married my father, she’d have to relinquish religious rights and he’d have to raise us as Catholics, which he did…for a while.
But Mother took her role as a congregant very seriously. In fact, she would only conduct business with other Methodists: her lawyer, her CPA, her broker, her car dealer, her nursing home facility and hospice caregivers were all connected to the church. Do you know how hard it is to find a Methodist haberdasher in Boerne, Texas???????
Her service was casual and comfortable—-grief we learned, pairs well Veal Prince Orloff, and fonts of Cabernet. We donned elasticize waistbands, tunic tops and oversized shirts which made the pomp and circumstance “pop” in its own special way. It was secular with aspects of ecclesiastical content, but mostly poems and tear-filled shared memories of a woman we knew as mother, grandmother and great grandmother.
My sisters and I cleaned out her home in late January. At her request, we donated everything other than what meant something to us personally. We sorted through papers, old bills, tossed spoiled food, recycled old newspapers, collected photos, clothes, shoes, make up, cleaning products, towels, her journals, which I’m not yet ready to read….I might not ever be ready to read them. Even so, you get to know a lot about a person when you go though their affects. We walked in there just as she lived it, as she left it, months after she was transported by ambulance Code 3 and taken to a hospital in San Antonio; the Methodist Hospital as a matter of fact. No surprise there.
It was eerie to walk into her home. Covid kept me out of it for most of 2020 so I’d almost forgotten what it looked like. And it was weird because we saw it as she did her last day there. It still smelled like her, it still contained her style, it was familiar yet, strange. Her water bottle, half-full, was on her table, her magazines were still earmarked, a cross word puzzle lacked completion of 46 across, a walker and a cane were leaning against her favorite chair. On a nearby table sat a well-read book, “How To Avoid Living In a Nursing Home”.
That was a punch in the gut. But we knew her destiny had been drastically altered. Her fate sealed by a stroke. We had hoped and prayed she could get to the point with rehab, that she could live in Assisted Living at the same facility. But she couldn’t pass the physical or psych tests required to move into that part of the building. In fact, her condition was worsening each week.
It was up to me to tell her what she never wanted to hear. What we never wanted to tell her.
The nursing staff called and told me it was a good cognitive day and I should tell her about Assisted Living decision during my visit that afternoon. They also handed me other information upon my arrival…and that needed to be conveyed to her as well.
I read a report zi’d been given, sighed, and steeled myself. I girded my emotional loins and walked into her room and after some small talk, gingerly told her not only had she been denied moving to Assisted Living, her situation was so grave she needed to be placed in Hospice Care. I had to tell my mother she was going to die. I conveyed this to her stoically but softly, a touching her arm as I delivered the news. She stared at me briefly, absorbing my words, then she slowly turned her head and started to cry…quietly, but with alligator tears….the big ones that sting as gravity forces them down your cheeks.
I’ve only seen my mother cry a handful of times in my entire life. I’ll be 62 in less than a month and seeing her emote has been rare. She loathed crying, doing it or witnessing it. She considered it a weakness. Growing up, we could get grounded for crying. The reason be damned. She believed it to be something of a character flaw. It never stopped us though. Bedtime allowed us to make up for loss time. Pillows muffle the sound of everything
Knowing this, I did the only thing I could do to respect her grief and save my sanity. I gently squeezed her hand. Her 90 year old skin was still soft, though paper thin, wrinkled, sagging, and addled with liver spots and bruises. I let go….as she was doing, I suppose….and I left the room and practically ran to my car.
Alligator tears also make driving damned near impossible.
*****
I really miss my mom.
