We buried my mother on September 22nd, several hours away from the place she called home. Someone in her family -- grandfather or great grandfather? -- had purchased a number of burial plots in a small cemetary. There were three remaining. My parents were to have two of them, and there was an extra. My mother always said if my brother or I died before getting married, we could have it. I guess it will remain open, since we both have our own families now.
While in the hospital, my mother came to believe that she had only two to three months to live. She inferred this from one of her doctors, who told her that things would get worse over the next two to three months. She couldn't imagine how things could possibly get worse, since she was having such a rough time of it. She told me that she didn't want to die around Christmas time, because it would be so cold then. My mother had an aunt who died on Christmas day (that was her aunt's wish), and my mom said that was so hard on the family. I know that my mother also recalled what it was like to lose both of her parents in January, in the middle of winter's icy grip.
On the day we buried her, only family members were present. My father, my brother and his family, and our little family. We'd brought DD this time, even though we'd sheltered her from exposure to the funeral home and the open casket. We told DD that we were going to say good-bye to grandma. It was such a beautiful day, so peaceful and warm. We each placed a rose on the casket and said our final good-byes. My mother could not have picked a more perfect day to be placed at rest, next to her own mother. Later, on the way home, DD said: "Mommy. I didn't want to give my rose to grandma. I wanted to keep it." Now that would have made my mom smile.
I've finally finished the thank you notes. There were quite a number of them, because my mother knew how to make friends and keep them, and many people came to pay their last respects or sent flowers or cards. Oddly(?), my father received sympathy cards from her hairdresser, physical therapist, and pharmacist. Two ladies from her hair salon came to visit us at the funeral home, full of very nice things to say about my mom. (By the way, thank you to all of you who left such warm and loving comments; they were all appreciated.)
I've been agonizing over the cause of death on the birth certificate. The doctor said that it was non-alcoholic cirrhosis/liver failure, caused by non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, and complicated by acute renal failure, congestive heart failure, and sepsis. I've been researching this, and I think that she died of sepsis. I don't know why it is so important to me that the record be straight, but it is. Her liver enzymes were consistently normal while she was in the hospital. We did not expect her to die, but yet she did. I don't believe that any of the doctors and nurses did anything wrong -- I'm just trying to understand why she died when she did. My mother always believed that when it is your time to go, that's all there is to it. I do accept that God called her home at this time, and even though I still don't quite understand it, I am glad that she didn't have to go through all the suffering that is end stage liver disease.
On another note, my brother and I aren't speaking to each other now. Well, he's not speaking to me, unless I speak to him first. You see, my SIL did a lot of inappropriate things while my mother was alive. On three occasions, she tried to coerce my mother into being cremated. I only heard the last conversation. What was the point? Why, to leave "the family" with more money. Why did she care? I'm not quite sure. It isn't her money; it's my parent's money. And she really made my mother upset. During the conversation that I heard, my mother said that she absolutely did not want to be cremated. SIL wouldn't let up. I ended the conversation by saying that it was her money, I was to be appointed her personal representative, and we were going to honor her wishes -- no cremation. End of story. At that time, I didn't realize that this was the third time that dear SIL had brought this up, or I would have torn her a new orifice.
And another thing. My parents had an ongoing argument during their 50 years of marriage. My mother was a horrible housekeeper, as in you-can't-even-get-in-some-of-the-rooms-because-of-the-accumulated-junk bad kind of housekeeper. That was my father's complaint. My mother always accused my father of not picking up after himself. It was their argument, their marriage, their business. My brother and SIL chose to insert themselves into the middle of this argument, taking my father's side, and they apparently decided that SIL was going to clean my parent's house -- whether my mother liked it or not. She repeatedly tried to get my mother to agree to let her into the house to go through everything. At one point, she told my mother that she was going to come over and "go through all the drawers and all the closets," because things needed to be straightened up. My mother was not the type of person to tell her to go to h*ll, as she would have been justified in doing. Instead, she just said she really didn't want her help. It was so bad that when my parents went on what would be their very last vacation together in March of this year, my mother was afraid that dear SIL would come into her house when she wasn't there to go through her things. She didn't do that, but my mother still worried about it.
These types of things just p*ssed me off. My SIL always waited until I had left whatever the family gathering was before having these little discussions. I also heard her ask once who was going to "get" something after my parents were gone, as though she had some claim on family things, I guess. That also p*ssed me off. But I never said a word to her, because my mother asked me not to. But it was no secret to my mother how I felt about her and the things she'd said.
On the first viewing night, someone asked about my mother's pearls. I told this person that they were mine, because I wasn't able to find the ones that my mother had worn with the dress (she was buried in the same dress she'd worn for their 50th anniversary party -- she looked so pretty!). Truly, I did look for the necklace, but as I said, my mother's house was in such a disarray, I just didn't know where to find it. I didn't mind -- I was glad to give her a necklace of mine. SIL took this as an opportunity to pipe up and say -- are you ready? -- "we're going to find all kinds of things when we start going through her stuff."
WTF? But I didn't say a word. The next day, while talking with my brother about a number of issues, I (nicely) told him that I didn't want SIL going through our mother's things. (Quite frankly, I honestly believe that if I didn't say something, SIL would have shown up on my father's doorstep the day after we'd buried my mother to "help" him -- she truly is that dense, and that persistent.) My brother said "she's not going to do that" and hung up on me. Hung up on me! A**hole. He wouldn't speak to me the next night at the funeral home, on Friday at the service, or at the gravesite on Saturday. Interestingly, when I sat down with my mother's best friend on Thursday night, the first thing that she told me was "your mother didn't want SIL to go through her things -- don't let her do it." And my father said that my mother told him the same thing.
So, I guess my instincts were right. I've since told her, in response to an e-mail that she sent to me, that I wasn't trying to hurt her feelings, and she shouldn't take it personally, but going through my mother's things is something that my brother, father, and I should do. I also added that I wouldn't have dreamed of suggesting that I should go through her mother's things after she died. (What kind of barn does someone have to be raised in to have to be told these things in the first place?)
But, apparently, they've both decided to be p*ssed off about this. Honestly? Right now, I don't care if I ever talk with either of them again. They do have three kids, and my daughter is fond of them, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if they don't want to talk with us anymore. DD has other cousins on my husband's side, and that family is so much nicer. And, BTW, if something happened to DH and me, DD sure as h*ll wouldn't be going to live with my SIL. I'm sure that she and my brother would be quite surprised by that, though they shouldn't be. I would never let SIL raise my daughter. Unless of course I would like her to be loudly screamed at whenever she does the slightest thing wrong, or have her drugged if she's a little too active, because it's just too much bother to deal with otherwise. Um, no thanks to that. Yeah, I'm bitter. And I have a lot of suppressed anger that my mother wouldn't allow me to let out. I do imagine that we will all talk again, but right now, I just don't care to.
I'm still missing my mother so very much. I see her everywhere, in everything. Things that should make me smile just make me cry. I still have trouble telling people that she's gone. I can't get much further than that before I start crying. People tell me that it will get better. I can't possibly imagine that. Because it will mean that I am going to get used to not having my mom around.
And how can that possibly be a good thing?
