Miz S

How is Mom doing? And some pictures.

One of my mother's old friends came with her son to the funeral and to the post-funeral gathering. Her son brought a book that my mother sent to him on the occasion of his birth more than 50 years ago in an African country (the Congo, actually. Can you imagine giving birth to your first child in the FUCKING CONGO in 1958??)  where the father was serving as a diplomat. Here you see my mother, a little confused, reading the inscription that she wrote so many years ago.

As well as can be expected for an 86-year-old woman with Alzheimer's experiencing severe cognitive decline, I guess.  She is devastated, grief-stricken, confused. Her tangled brain has trouble processing what happened.

Mom's bewilderment about my father's sudden death is made worse by the fact that she doesn't remember that he had serious health problems during the last 2 years of his life.  As far as Mom knows, he was perfectly healthy up until the day he went into the hospital and then dead less than 48 hours later.  She thinks that a simple germ felled him, something that could have been fixed with proper care and the right medicine. "If only Mother had been here," she laments, thinking back to the childhood pneumonia that almost killed her in the days before antibiotics, and how my grandmother pulled her through it with nothing but aspirin and bed rest.

A quiet afternoon the day after the funeral, looking at her college yearbook. 

My siblings and I were shocked as well, because Dad had been in a sort of holding pattern for awhile with no recent hospitalizations, no falls, no UTIs or pneumonias in the last 8 or 9 months--perhaps a testament to the vigilance of Pam, Samelia, and Eleni, the caregivers. But we haven't forgotten all the close calls and how much he suffered during some of those previous hospitalizations. We are grateful that it happened so quickly and that we didn't have to make any really tough decisions about life-sustaining procedures.

Someone is with Mom all the time, of course. A caregiver during the day, one of us on several weekday afternoons/evenings, and one of us on the weekend days. She is sad when we are not there.

She misses him so much, you guys.

My impossibly slim and naturally still-blonde sister Sarah organized a pansy-planting activity last weekend. It's hard to see her behind the handrail, what with the impossibly-slim thing.

Ok fine, I'll show you a picture of her where you can see her. Can you believe she's 52 years old?   I used to be that skinny. DAMN YOU, O THOU LACK OF SELF CONTROL.

The caregivers, who all loved my father,  are grieving, too.  Samelia said to me once, "He is my father now, too."   (All the more poignant because her father died when she was a teenager, killed in the Liberian Civil War.) Pam and Samelia were in the hospital room with us when he died. Pam, Samelia, and Eleni all came to his funeral and wept.

That kills me. I love them so much for what they have done for our family, and I can't believe how lucky we have been. I heard dire warnings from so many people about locking up valuables, sloppy care, etc. Our experience has been the complete opposite.

I have so much more to tell you.  Thank you for listening/reading. Sorry I haven't replied to the all the comments, but I have read them all, of course, often more than once.  I have even quoted a few of them (I'm always embarrassed to say, "This person who comments on my blog said...."  Instead, I say, "This friend of mine said....")  

I really do consider you friends, even the people I have never met in person. Thank you for all your support.

Josh, Sophie, me, Emma. Check out Emma's cool vintage dress -- worn by my mother back in the 1950s.

Emma, Paul (Sophie's fiance), and Sophie. Random picture of the kids goofing on each other, but you can see more of Emma's dress here. It had a low back which is really pretty too.

The Villainous Funeral Guy.

Oh, Funeral Guy. You tried so hard.

The funeral is over, so there's that. 

Oh, also? I'm such an ass. I really am.  But a public declaration of this fact will not prevent me from being an ass on any future occasion.

The day after my father died, my sister Julie and I went to a funeral home to make arrangements. Our family had already decided on cremation with interment of the ashes at a later date. But there were still a lot of arrangements that had to be made because there would be a funeral Mass at my parents' church and the ashes had to be in the church during the funeral Mass, which meant we needed to rent a ceremonial casket, blah blah blah.

Julie was all mature and friendly, but business-like,  with Funeral Guy. I was all cynical and suspicious and "Hell no, we don't need that crap!" We sat at a highly polished table in a tastefully decorated room and Funeral Guy quickly learned to avoid eye contact with me, what with the eye-rolling and glaring.

At one point, I had to call my brother to ask a question about how many death certificates we would need to order. I told my brother that Funeral Guy was asking about how many bank accounts our dad had (because you need separate death certs for all the financial institutions). And my brother, who also has a streak of The Suspicion, said loudly, "He wants to know about the bank accounts? Very clever. FUCK THAT. Tell him we need 20 death certificates."

I put down my phone, laughing helplessly and saying, "That was the funniest thing I've heard all day. Um. My brother says we need 20." 

And then whispered to Julie, "Do you think he could hear that?"

"Definitely yes."

Julie might have been getting annoyed with me at this point, but I hope she doesn't hold it against me. She has a very forgiving nature.

Later we had to go into the showroom to pick out the urn. Julie and I instantly agreed on the plainest and least expensive urn.

Funeral Guy sighed and said, "Well, if that's what you want."

Really, Funeral Guy? REALLY?

Honestly, I have nothing against morticians or funeral directors.  It's a business, I understand that.  A sales business.  I suppose there are plenty of people who don't mind spending $10,000 on  the casket that will cradle their loved one for eternity, or $800 for a brass urn to hold ashes.  But there are other people who think that is foolish. I resented Funeral Guy's effort to shame us into buying the more expensive urn for the ashes. I think a good salesperson reads his clients and then does his best to meet their needs without betraying disappointment at their cheap-ass selections. Especially in a sales business that concerns such  emotionally charged circumstances.

Later, I nixed Funeral Guy's suggestion that he would handle placing the death notice in the paper (for a fee).

"There's no mystery about the death notice," I snapped. "We'll do that."

Funeral Guy tried to sell us a guest book sign-in, which included pages to keep track of who had sent flowers or cooked meals to make thank you notes easier.  

"We'll take care of that," said I, crisply.

Of course, we totally forgot about the guest book and now we have no fucking idea who was at the funeral. Our list of people who sent flowers or meals is on at least 3 separate pieces of paper on the dining room table at my mother's house. I predict those lists will be accidentally thrown away any minute now. I kinda wish we had bought Funeral Guy's guest book.

Later, when I complained about Funeral Guy, Julie said mildly, "Yes. He's the villain here."

And I realized what an ass I am. 

Then again, anger IS one of the stages of grief, right? It comes right before the eating stage of grief, which is where I am now.  Wouldn't it be great if there were an exercise and healthy eating stage of grief?

Next time, I promise I will be mature and will try to employ a filter before I speak. I will try not to roll my eyes when the Funeral Guy speaks. I might even forgo sneakily taking pictures and then writing a blog post about him. But I can't promise that I won't laugh my ass off when my brother says, "FUCK THAT" for the whole room to hear.

Next Entry: How my mom is doing.

Sorrow A Hundredfold.

My father reading to the 7 youngest grandchildren, probably around 1994.

Last Thursday, I stopped by my parents' house after work and hung out for a bit. My brother and my niece were there. My oldest nephew was in and out.  Hilarity abounded.

On Saturday, my sister Julie went to my parents' house and fixed lunch for them. My father ate like a trencherman.

On Sunday (which now seems like a thousand years ago), my sister Sarah and I met there at noon to fix lunch, hang out, and cook an extra meal for dinner that the aide could serve to them later. 

My father didn't come to the table because he felt nauseated. It's not like him to refuse food. 

So we took him to the emergency room. He was admitted to the hospital with a bowel obstruction.

That evening, he was transferred to the ICU because of difficulty breathing. He spiked a fever.

Do you see where this is going?

The doctors asked us, "If it becomes necessary to intubate him, do you want us to?"

Wait. SHIT. What?

We said, "Yes."

Late in the afternoon on Monday the doctors told us that Dad had developed severe sepsis, and the situation was grave. We told them that we did not want intubation, chest compressions, or any extraordinary measures.

A priest came and gave him the last rites. I watched my father make a wavering, loopy sign of the cross. This killed me dead.

They began to try and keep him comfortable with morphine, and after that he was sort of out of it.

On Tuesday morning, the family assembled. When we were all there, the nurse turned off the medications that were maintaining his heartbeat. He died about 3 or 4 minutes later.

It was 48 hours from his first symptom to his dying breath, and for that I am thankful.

But, goddamn.