And the great September weather continues.
Even in this most unusual month for all of you and especially for all of us, in my family, the good weather just drifts right in, here in south-central Wisconsin, day after day, same sunshine, same comforting warmth. It's like we are standing still while spinning in a storm of events. There was a debate, and in the thick of words flying across a split screen, I got the call that my mother died. Yeah, her death was like a shudder underneath the earth's crust: it had an impact, on me, and, too, on all members of our family, even those who had little contact with her in the past decade or two or three. She had one of those outsized personalities that left you wondering what just happened when she touched your life. Her smile, but too, her scowl were legendary! I remember when she was hospitalized this April and the staff complained that she berated them and wouldn't cooperate. A new doc came in and he reported to me, grinning through his words -- she was great with me! Smiled and called me her guardian angel! Lovely woman! Next day he called again -- never mind. Didn't like my suggestions. Totally hostile. Told me she wouldn't treat her worst enemy the way I treat her.
Her death means that all this is shut down now. Legends of the past. We move through the day, with memories which make us laugh, because so many of the more dramatic ones are a lot more fun in the retelling always. In my everyday, her exaggerations and dramatizations always left me depleted. Ed couldn't understand why I let them get to me so much. It's on you to shrug it off and move on -- he'd always say. And I did always move on, but it took a while. Because, shouldn't I be able to do better by my mother? To turn things around for her (and therefore for the both of us)? Every once in a while there would be a glimmer of hope. She would say -- I read your blog post about your problems with flights cancelled and travel plans unraveling. I can't believe you were so upbeat about it! I should be so unbothered by everything and everyone! But the next day she would be back in the same tailspin of bother. All those perfectly straight white teeth of hers, ten times better than mine, ready to smile? Pffft! Retired now, saved exclusively for the very rare kid visit. (She discouraged them all from coming. I think just seeing their energy levels exhausted her. How do you manage at your age? -- she'd often ask me. Your grandmother was twenty years younger when she took care of you. I was ten years younger when I looked after your girls. You're old! In there was a compliment and a warning: I am dangerously close to being over the hill. Hold on to these days while they last! -- she'd say. Sigh...)
So on this splendid September morning, I feed the animals and I have a beautifully long breakfast on the warmed porch, no chasing of the sun needed...
And then I drive over to pick up my daughter and once again we head out in search of... my mom's body -- now presumably at the funeral home way at the edge of town.
They have put her "on display" for us. The funeral person hovers in the room while my daughter and I get closer. I'm thinking -- can't you leave? I'm not about to steal anything! Still, the funeral person hovers. My daughter asks -- you want to be alone with grandma? No.... it would be me and the funeral person with your grandma.
Everyone says this -- they look so peaceful in death. Well sure. The empty body does not move, talk, smell, sing, cry, love. What gave life to all those feelings and emotions has left. Stardust and souls meandering in ways none of us understand. Or are they meandering? Maybe she, my mother, just left that body and found a home within those whom she loved. That's what I would do. Get rid of that wrecked ship that carried me along for a lifetime. Let me float now carefree in the hearts of those I adore.
I have one last good look at the face I knew so well, lifeless, but very much hers, standing in for the essence of the person that was my mother. How many of us get to know a face so well, to study another for 71 years of our lives? To have felt both so sad and so hopeful at its sight, to grow old, okay -- older! -- next to it?
So I look at it before it disappears for me, even as I know, like my grandma's face -- it will never really disappear for me. That face is stuck with permanent adhesive to my soul.
And now it's time to pick up Sparrow. His sister is home sick today so it's just him.
And because it's Thursday and a mid-September Thursday at that, we go to the local market...
... so that I can pick up some local honey and, importantly, another box of tomatoes for freezing. I had already gotten one earlier this week and we have some ten freezer bags of tomatoes prepped and ready for our winter chilis, but ten bags are not nearly enough. We stock up on more.
Sparrow likes having his sister around, but he also likes the occasional day where he can take the lead at the farmhouse. We have a quiet afternoon of favorite Sparrow games and stories.
I drop him off, I return home.
And let me just say a big thanks to all of you who wrote, who sent flowers and messages of love. Each one was savored and held close. You're all wonderful.
with so much love...
