First Visit

I am, right now, visiting my dad.  This is the first visit since the funeral and it is so hard. Being here is so painful.  Everywhere I look I see her, I've said this all before, but I need to say it again.  My mother's absence is tangible, I feel it with each fibre of my being.  At home I am learning to live with the pain, here, I can't escape it.

I wish I could say that I can turn my sad moments into happy memories, like I am told I should be able to do. But I can't.  For those of you following this blog, this must be sounding awfully redundant by now.  It is redundant...the pain is like the tides...in and out, sometimes it is intense, other times a bit less but always there...a constant noise in my heart.

Tonight my daughter made a Christmas Tree ornament.  She pulled out my mother's craft supplies and created an ornament.  To most, this wouldn't mean much, but to those who knew my mother, it is significant.  My mother took much joy in making crafts, particularly ornaments.  Every year, each Christmas, we would receive about a half dozen home-made Christmas ornaments from her.  She made them out of sea shells, pine cones, cinnamon sticks, some she hand sewed.  She made them out of all sorts of things.  They were unique and beautiful and I loved every one of them. I marvelled at her creativity.  My mother made no ornaments in 2009, I remember finding that very odd at the time.  In retrospect, I guess my mom was tired, but I don't think any of us realised just how tired she was.

The ornament my daughter made

Back to the ornament my daughter made.  In the midst of her creating this masterpiece, she looked up at me and asked, "If [Grandma] were alive, do you think she would be proud of me?" ...and the tide came in... I answered, "Oh yes, my sweet daughter, she would be very proud".

The Day of the Funeral, Continued

We were all there, and people were beginning to arrive to say their last goodbyes.  People who had known my mother from years ago when she was raising her family and people who knew her years later, after retirement, when she was taking joy in her grandchildren.  Any way you sliced it, it was all so hard. Yet, even in all the sadness and grief I was amazingly strong.  God was, yet again, holding me up.  He was giving me strength to move forward when all I wanted to do was crumble to the ground and cry.  My Dad's eyes were glazed while he greeted people.  I was shaking the hands and accepting kisses from people I had never met, until now.  They all seemed to know me though.  Finally the moment had arrived, it was time to begin.

There was a beautiful picture of my mother at the entrance to the church...so young and happy.  I tried to keep that picture in  my mind's eye, not the marble box.  The service began at the baptismal font where, according to her denomination, life in Christ began. Everyone began their journey to the front of the church.  My brother led the way holding the box that contained my mother. We followed next, a daughter on either side of Dad, holding him up it seemed.  It was a mile to the front of the church where we all took our seat in the front pew. Mom was surrounded by so many beautiful flowers, I remember thinking how fitting as her's was the greenest thumb anyone could ever hope to have.  She could bring a dead plant back to life, she was amazing.  Oh how I wish I had inherited that gift from her, but I didn't.

All I kept thinking was how I couldn't believe that this was finally happening, I was burying a parent, my mother. The women who, the same age as I was when I had my daughter, dreamed of a fourth child - me.  I was her baby.   The woman who raised me from infancy to giving me away in marriage and who helped me be a mom when my baby was born.   The woman who would have laid down her life for me.  How my heart hurt.

Each daughter had a part to play in the service.  I was the second to read.  My oldest sister read the twenty-third Psalm (my mother's favorite),  then it was my turn.  This was my choice:

  "But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."  1Thessalonian 4:13-18

This I remember, a spirit-filled smile came across my face as I spoke these words: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."  I saw my mother, with outstretched arms running towards me,  not unlike the first time I got off the school bus from my first day at school, welcoming her baby home.  Home.  A child feels so at home in her mother's arms. Home...home.   I was comforted, I believe that I will see my mother again one day.

I'll write more about the funeral later, my heart is hurting too much to write any more.

The Day of the Funeral

I didn't know which outfit to wear.  Sounds petty doesn't it?  My husband took me out the night before I left to buy a new outfit for the funeral.  I bought two, and so didn't know which one to wear that day.  I woke up early.  I laid both outfits out on the bed -- one traditional, brown and black, morose.  The other one, pink and floral, happy.  I felt guilty even considering wearing the pink outfit.  It was so mom though, I knew that if she could have picked one, that is the one she would have chosen.  She wouldn't want me to be morbid...she would want me in bright, happy colors.   So I chose the outfit she would have bought for me, and I wore it proudly.

What an awful morning.  It was a Tuesday, and it was a beautiful day.  Yet, my heart was the heaviest it had ever been in the whole of my life.  Sounds like I am exaggerating, but I am not.  Couldn't eat, couldn't think, didn't want to talk to anyone.  I just wanted to be left alone, in my own miserably sad world.  I hated what was going to happen later today and there was not a damn thing I could do to stop it.  Death sucks...no matter how you may look at it, it sucks so much.

The funeral wasn't until 2PM that day.  We had agreed to meet at the church at 1:30.  Talk about time standing still -- it seemed like FOREVER before we left for the church.  I remember everything about that car ride to the church.  Every traffic light, every tree, every sound.  We were on the way to bury my mother, to say good-bye forever...even now, five months later, the pain in my heart, nothing can describe it.

Well, we were all there...my two sisters, brother and my dad.  The only one missing was my mom.  But she was there, she was in a beautiful marble box, the best money could buy...sitting on a pedestal. She wasn't there, and wouldn't be either.  And that thought rang over my head like a clanging cymbal.    

The Day Before the Funeral

Today my Mother's body was being cremated.  That thought made me shiver.  My sisters and I decided to clean Dad's house, to keep ourselves busy, as well as to make things nice for Dad before we left. So I cleaned and cleaned like I've never cleaned before.  I cleaned like my Mother taught me.  She would have been proud.   

The day was a day of busy work for my Father.  I'm glad he had things to do.  He had to visit the funeral home to settle his "bill."  Imagine that, in the depth of his grief he had to go write a check.  My parents had visited this funeral home, together, thirteen years prior to my Mom's death to pick out their caskets and flowers and whatever else you pick out when you are pre-planning your funeral.  The ironic thing is my Mother died on the exact day they signed their paperwork, thirteen years earlier.    Dad modeled his suits for us so we could help him decide what to wear to the funeral.  Somehow he looked so small in the suit he used to wear to the office.  His shoulders hunched, his stance not as tall as it once was.

I remember so many years ago now, my Dad arriving home from the office, on the dot, every day at 5:30pm.  He would come in the garage door, mumble a hello, take the mail out of the mail slot, and walk to his room to change.  He would go into the living room, sit in his Lazy-Boy, and begin reading the newspaper.  He seemed especially unapproachable at this time, than any other time.  Things change over the years and, as I was aging, so was he...I didn't need to approach him just as he was becoming approachable.  How I wish I could go back in time and savor that moment...the moment that, at the time, seemed insignificant, but now..the sounds, the smells....you really just can't appreciate it in real time, can you?  Anyway...

The day ended, with nothing spectacular happening.  I went to bed, dreading the next day, when my Mother's ashes would be placed into the hole in the wall...forever, or at least until the return of Christ.

That Day, part 2

Orchid

We sat in that room for what seemed like days, however, from start to finish it was only about two hours.  We sat there, taking turns going up to the casket, either by ourselves or with each other.  I watched as my Dad touched her hand and her cheek. I listened as he whispered to her.  How many times, during their fifty-four years of marriage, did my Dad touch my Mother's cheek in an intimate moment, or take her hand to cross the street?  How often during their fifty-four years of marriage did he whisper in her ear?  I watched this unfolding in front of me and, although I would have thought it impossible, my heart hurt even more.

Each time someone went up to be with her, the tears began to flow anew.  It is hard to believe that one person could be loved so greatly.  That her death could be so far reaching.  Yet, each one of us loved her dearly.  She was the wife to one and the mother to four, but she was so much more.  She was a whole person, who started young and grew old.  She had hopes and dreams, some fulfilled and some not.  She laughed and she cried, she had joy and she had pain.  She was there the day I got on the school bus for the first time and she was there the day I graduated college.  And she was there all the days in between. And all the days after. But she isn't here any longer, perhaps this is the hardest pill to swallow.

My last memory of her alive is from October, sitting on the couch next to her, in her embrace.  She was frail but she held me like a mother holds her child, as tightly as she could.  She whispered in my ear, "I love you soooo much."  I think my mother knew, as well as I , that this would be our last embrace.

My mother was an amazing woman, I see that now.  She had unwavering love, but that is, after all, a mother's heart.

That day

We went to church with Dad the Sunday after Mom died.  What a hard day.  Later that afternoon we would make the short trip to the funeral home, to see mom one last time.  I sat in church thinking about how much my mom looked forward to church.  This was her only time to socialize. She had a circle of friends there who she sat with for a few minutes each Sunday before mass, catching up on the week and showing the latest pictures of her youngest granddaughter.   One friend, Phyllis, sat in the same pew with my parents. Phyllis was older than my mom and often fell asleep during mass.  My mom used to joke about how she would have to nudge her awake in time to take communion.  (A side note: Phyllis told me that, in conversations she had had with my mom, that my mother was ready to die...what did that mean?  I never had a chance to ask her). These were some of the few times that I saw my mother smile and laugh in these last few years.  When she would talk about her zany friends at church and her youngest granddaughter, my daughter, she would smile.  My daughter could make my mother laugh out loud.  How I savor those memories.

I can't even remember what happened between church and the funeral home, strange huh? I know we ate, but beyond that, it is gone.  I guess it is because the memory of what happened at the funeral home is so strong, so intense, that everything around it, sort of, disappeared.  Today, more than three months later, I can close my eyes and see the scene as though it were right in front of me.

We arrived at the funeral home right on schedule.  My stomach was in my throat as we met up with my brother  in the parking lot.  I didn't want to go in.  If  I could have, I would have taken off.  I would have run far, far away.  What I was about to see and experience was something that you can not prepare yourself for -- ever.  It is something that now, in hindsight, I wish I had not done.

My Dad and sisters went first.  My brother and I, arms locked, paused at the door.  He asked me if I was ready, I said no...but we walked through the door anyway.  He and I gasped when we saw her, and  I started to cry from what seemed like the deepest part of my soul.  It hurt so much at that moment that I didn't think I could go on. The intensity of that moment, the intensity of the grief I felt, if it had been a sword, would have slain me.  Yet, even in the intensity of the moment, I felt the arms of my Heavenly Father.   He was holding me up, allowing me to walk forward.

And there she was.  She looked like she was sleeping, like I could nudge her awake.   As I looked at her, the reality of the past few days began to hit me.  It rang in my head: My mother is dead, there is no waking her, she isn't here, she's gone - forever

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Happy Anniversary

It's their wedding anniversary today.  They would have been married fifty-four years. I can't even begin to imagine what my dad is feeling today.  All sorts of things, no doubt.  I'm feeling something too.

I am told, that moments after my mother died, my father, with tears streaming down his face, reached under the blanket and took my mother's wedding band off her finger.  My dad placed that ring on my mother's finger nearly fifty-four years ago and before that moment it had never been off.   My Dad took the ring off his bride's finger.  They were no longer married, my father is no longer a married man.  Til' death did they part.

This thing called death changes everything.     

I, M take thee, F to be my wedded wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish,
'til death do us part.