What happened to me…(big changes).

I've been thinking about what happens when someone dies, and the world begins to respond to this news.  I've also been thinking about what this particular loss (of two parents) means to me.  And I've been thinking a lot about not thinking (denial).  And then there's the part that I think, and think.

I see myself as a person who enjoys cherishing every experience.  I make sure to live, feel, breathe and reflect.  So, when I consider what it's like to experience other people's outreach to me after the loss of parent number two, it is with the great energy I give to taking that moment to share their feelings, thoughts, self.  Yeah, this is mumbo-jumbo, touchy-feely, but this is the deal: when I let people know that this thing has happened, and especially when I let them know that it's a big stinkin' deal to me, the mirror goes up.  Without fail, not only is the person trying to grasp what this means to me, they're also thinking about what it means to them (I remember my own loss, what happens when I lose my blank) and so forth.  So that's when I breathe, and listen, hug, and calculate how much we can stop in this moment and be.   Everyone plays their part.  This is the beauty of community.  Not one person's response to me has been the same as another.  All of these responses are simply perfect, because it's a member of my community, a living member, flaws and all, showing up when they are ready to show up.

My life, since January has been an absolute delight.  I say this only because I feel so fully alive and engaged and passionate that I'm grateful for my own company.  As low as I've felt, at times, I've never felt like a dull light dimming.  Early on, I felt the awful fear and terror of waking in the middle of the night to the scary memory that yes, it's true, this is over.  Even then, even amidst the hard stuff, I've been galvanized into action and good action.  I returned to a bitter humiliating winter that brought all of Chicagoland to its knees.  I breathed, drank my coffee, my wine, slept at night, and began the cathartic process of purging my entire home of objects that needed to be moved.  I pursued a level of organization and order and logical living but never to the extent of over-obsessiveness.  I knew that I would be useless in the out-there world, so I worked, day-by-day, at rebuilding the sanctuary of my own home, my own family, and a gathering place for my community.  As winter dragged on, my own home took on the look of my favorite place to be.

I've been saying that purging and organizing serve two purposes.  One, I'm expecting myself to be grown up, and in my family, order is a sign of maturity.  Second, I needed to find a way to move forward in all of our lives.  My parents dying, at an appropriately old age, is difficult because it is a sign that myself, my friends, my offspring, my hobbies, everything is getting old.  Every object adorning my house, all of my clothes, jewelry….when is the time right to say goodbye?  Tough times provide an opportunity to ask those questions.  

All I can add, for now, is the part about thinking and thinking and thinking, and still finding myself in solid denial.  Early on, I would lie in bed and remember conversations Mom and I had in the last few weeks.  I cataloged the food I prepared for her, I remembered her playing Charades on that last Friday before hospitalization.  I retraced days, meetings, and more.  I would lie in bed counting the nights that I tended her, and the nights that I double teamed with my siblings.  I recalculated when I made calls to which nurse and what happened next.  I saved four days of Newspapers, because there were only four days of the Register Guard left, in a pile, that she didn't read.   And then, when she did leave us, it was all very real.  We were there with her at home, we went about all of the work and letting go that seemed appropriate right then.  January kept us busy.

But, still, now that all of the time has passed, I still talk about Mom's likes, dislikes, attitudes in the present.  Her sense of humor, her sense of order.  As I moved steadily toward a place where I would accept and truly let go, I began the process of assuming possession of all sorts of things that would keep her near me.  Starting with this hundred-year old ceramic cat.  The same cat that she took from her own Mother's home, many years ago, in a similar rite of passage.

Thoughts on internalization, denial, time.

What happened to Mom?  I'm still working hard, trying to sort this out.  All through the months of January, February, March, and April, I've been saying that I'm in denial, waiting for the truth to sink in.  But, I guess this is the way it's going to be.  I refuse to internalize the information that someone as constantly present in my life, someone as reliable, responsible, intelligent, strong, willful and independent is now and forever gone.  That she has left us to fend for ourselves in this world is outside the reach of my emotional self to comprehend.  And if I continue to deny it's existence, perhaps I will be able to function as a strong, intelligent person myself.  Perhaps I'll be able to raise my own game, a tiny bit, so that I'm more organized, more on top of it, more mature, more adult, more Motherly.

Because there we were, in late 2013, doing the aging hospital patient dance. Anybody who has gone through this once, twice, or more times, knows what it's about.  Somebody goes to the hospital, and it's a familiar situation.  My mother, three years ago, had the same attending doc in a similar hospital stay.  When the patient goes in, we've been in and out so many times, dealt with the system so many times, it's nearly impossible not to make light. Here I am, taking photos of cars in the parking lot, relieved at the sun and blue sky of "not  Chicago." We're already fast forwarding to discharge and rehab and where next and how high functioning and what caregivers and what's covered by Medicare and private insurance and what am I gonna tell everybody?

This obsessive sock stopped midstream when Mom left. 

Armed with crossword puzzle book, coffee cup and a yarn project, I'm willing to sit the thing out.  Mix in game shows, local newscasts, and we've got a week's stay in the hospital. For Mom, I diligently brought the paper and heck if she didn't sit in that hospital bed and read the whole thing, and do the Jumble for good measure.  It wasn't a perfect reading, and the Debbie Macomber book that she's been working on since June, well, she held it and played at reading…. Let's just say that for a quiet week, Mom and I hung out in the hospital. Not saying a lot, enduring tests and respiratory therapists and family and meetings with docs...we were passing time, working on our respective projects.

And projects, what is it that builds an obsessive?  What makes it so impossible for me to believe that an eighty five year old woman with a history of respiratory illness would die so suddenly?  This greeting card, for one.  Mom, and her childhood friend, who, together, attended grammar school, college, pledged the same sorority, exchanged the Very. Same. Card. since 1963. Every October, both ways, without fail. Including 2013.  Each year the friends would add a note, a date, and send it back and forth, early and late in month. (Mom's birthday came second).  So we had the card nearby when Mom died and we were going through the contents of her desk (including the many holiday correspondences from 2013, yes, she managed to send Christmas cards).

The card is a testament to my Mom's sense of order, humor, intellect, loyalty, good taste, and eternity.  She was a materialist in the very best sense of the word.  She spoke through actions and things, but never placed the value of things beyond their obvious worth (or worthlessness).  Through Mom, I have come to greatly appreciate the beauty of truly simple things, and things embedded with meaning.  If I bring an object into the home, it might as well have significance.  And so, in the material world, I come to terms with Mom's passing.  

This sock is a cruel reminder of me, sitting in a sun-filtered hospital room deciphering a brain-busting cable pattern, while the respiratory therapy guy, who must have been six foot six, kept on coming in and doping Mom up, in an effort to get her lungs open and stop aspirating her food.  Once, Mom looked at me and joked, "will the sock fit me?"  I argued that the sock was for me, not her.  Later, while she was resting, I looked at the thing, and thought, "Maybe I should make these socks for Mom, they'll be light."  But not only did I not get to tell her that, the sock was nowhere near complete and she was gone. 

As the New Year approached, we began thinking and discussing the reality that Mom wasn't responding to therapy in a fashion that would return her to her lifestyle and her home as she wished.  When we, a few days later, found ourselves tending Mom in her own beautiful bed, I sat and gazed at the embroidery that I had fashioned when I was twelve years old.  All these years later, Mom still slept and woke with this embroidery hanging right above her bedside table.  So, as we moved into the stage of hospice, I set up a tray and chair next to her bed, brought my coffee, yarn, crosswords, and sat, tending to her needs, gazing at the Fall scene.  My mother's material world enveloped me for so many years, and continues to do so.  Her decline, at home, was rapid, and she was saved the grace of being known as a Bridge Player, a Bingo Player, a Loyal Friend, and a master of her own domain.  Check.