After thoughts…

You know years ago, if you had told me that mama’s death would have been as difficult to deal with as it has turned out to be, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.  Partly because our relationship was difficult and I know how miserable she was.  I guess for some strange and stupid reason I thought that would make it a little easier.  It has not.  In fact, I think it has made it tougher because I got to experience mama on a level that I had never experienced before.  I think because I had more time with dad and our relationship wasn’t as strained throughout our lives as it was off and on with mama, it made dealing with his death a little easier.  I had over a year with dad while he was coherent enough to talk about things and just be together.  With mom we had 2, 2 day weekends and then a month with her. 

Mama must have told my roommate I love you every time she passed by her bed.  She knew my roommate was shy at the best of times and she was determined to get her to talk and get a smile out of her.  Well, mama did it!  She got my roommate to engage with her.  They talked about different things including my beloved Bulldog Gus and that got me to remembering the last time I brought him to see mama in February.  A year prior to that I had called mama balling while I was at the vet with Gus.  He had a grapefruit sized hematoma with a walnut sized tumor inside of it attached to his spleen.  He was so sick and I was faced with a decision that was a no brainer for me but the risk involved with that type of surgery at his age was so high that the vets weren’t sure if he would make it through the surgery.  It didn’t matter, I had to try and save my buddy no matter what it cost.

 

Mama was so upset because she loved that beautiful soul as much as I did and offered to pay for the surgery.  I told her that if it was more than what I had, I’d let her know but ended up having just enough to take care of the bill.  That surgery saved his life and gave me a year and one more month with him that I will cherish for the rest of my life.  So in February when we went to see mom, I knew his time was running short.  Gus was almost 13 years old and he had lived longer than the average with his breed.  Mama said that she could see that he wasn’t the same dog she had remembered but while in the kitchen she was giving him a treat, he got enthusiastic about it and lunged at it a little too much catching her fingertips.  I saw mama pull back and count her fingers like she was making sure they were all there.  She was smiling and told Gus, there you are, that’s the happy little guy I remember, but I’d like to keep my fingers if you don’t mind.  It made me laugh and it’s something I keep thinking about. 

It was about a month or so later on 03/19/19 that Gus and I had to take that final ride to the vet.  It broke my heart… it still does.  He was my first dog and helped me so much after Trey’s death.  He was my buddy that rode with me everywhere in the years afterward until I started working full time outside the house again.  Gus gave mama and me something neutral to talk about as did the other animals I’ve take in, fostered and helped.  The personalities and attitudes of each animal here were so pronounced that when I would share the stories of some of the activities with her she would laugh and always ask about them when we talked.  But mama told me that when I had to take Gus for that final ride, not to tell her about it until it was over.  She just couldn’t bare it.  So I waited until after it was over to call her.

Since these chapters are about love and loss, I have to share that event to help me deal with it too.  Gus maintained for that year after his surgery to remove the tumor.  He was older and slower but he was still Gus to me.  On a Friday afternoon he started to have a hard time standing and there had been a small bump on his back bone less than a quarter in size.  Over the next few days the bump grew in size, was soft to touch but was most probably painful too.  He still ate his food but I had to bring it to him.  The vets were closed of course due to the weekend but by Monday, I knew that I had to take him in.  So I called them and made the appointment for Tuesday afternoon and we spent the rest of that day and the next giving him all kinds of treats he normally couldn’t have. 

He had lots of belly and head rubs and love from others who had stopped by to say goodbye.  Gus had made such an impact on so many people’s lives.  He was and is well loved.  My roommate and I left for the vet that afternoon and we parked in the rear.  I moved Gus from the back seat to the back of my SUV in his bed and we just sat there for about 2 hours quietly watching the world.  He never got up and I rarely let go of his paw.  It was a beautiful day to send him off but it was also a very hard one to bear.  It became time and then Gus was free again.  My home and my heart were so empty and I had to adjust to that feeling of loss.  Gus had been on a schedule of meds and other things that I no longer had to do.  I didn’t know what to do with all this time I suddenly had and it is the same with mama’s absence.  I don’t know what to do with myself.

One of mama fondest memories that she mentioned in the last month she was here was me telling her about how Gus and I were doing when he first came to live with me.  I had bought him a bed and that lasted all of a week or so before he eased his way onto the bed and then onto the pillow beside me.  When I didn’t want to get up in the morning to face another day without Trey, Gus would come and give me a snot shower in the face.  When I started to pull the pillow over my head, he would stick his nose under the pillow to make me get up.  Then finally he settled on just sitting on my bladder because he knew I’d have to get up to pee.  Gus was smart, dedicated, loyal and was the best friend anyone could have ever asked for.  I remember that mom called me shortly after Gus came and said she was coming by for something, I can’t remember what, but she really just came by to see Gus.  Who could blame her?

Mama asked me whether I would move later on down the road one afternoon.  I never really thought about it much after I sold my camper.  I had accepted that I would probably live here throughout my not so golden years.  It did make me stop and think but over the next few days it became clear that maybe this was the place I needed to be.  On a practical level, I know this house and what’s wrong, what’s been done and how to go about fixing what is needed.  Trey, Dad, Gus and now Mom all died while they lived here so I might as well complete this cycle and do the same.  My memories are so strong here and maybe I’ll be able to feel them around me more here than anywhere else.  I’m still waiting on that dream or for dad to knock three times to let me know they are okay… maybe one day?  

Each loss I have endured seems to compound the ones before by bringing back all the memories of each to be felt all over again.  I guess that’s one of things that many older people have to deal with as their family and friends go before them.  But losing mama on another beautiful day, who was the last of my immediate family, the woman who gave birth to me and the connection we had is something in another realm altogether.  It is so out of my depth and not even close to what I thought it would be like.  The woman I brought home was my mother but not the one I have known most of my life.  The difference was staggering and I’m still not entirely sure of what to make of it all.  Processing all that had happened in that short time will probably take years at best.  It’s why it feels so surreal, like did all that really happen? 

I’ve talked on the phone more in the last few weeks than I have all year and probably last year too.  I’ve spoken to a few extended family members and have gotten to know them a little better.  I’ve gotten text messages and ones on Facebook from many others and my limited ability to have normal conversations shows all too clearly.  For that I am sorry, it’s just I’m awkward in the best social interactions and in the worse, I am more at a loss.  I can guess many of them are too maybe for different reasons.  But it is deeply appreciated that they have reached out. 

On Monday 10/14/19, I picked up mama’s urn from the funeral home.  I have talked to both the cemetery and them about markers for the plot mama has at Sunset where Trey is buried and have found that between state and federal laws and the business of dying that to have mom and dad’s ashes interned is not only going to be much more expensive because of their rules, it’s also going to be a convoluted process to pay for it now and do it later.  I’m just not ready to inter their remains at this time.  So I made the decision to just have the markers on the plot and I will scatter the rest of dad’s ashes and moms whenever, wherever I feel like its best.  Some of dad’s are at Kure Beach where he used to love fishing.  I’m going to have to think hard about where mom would like to be. 

When I picked up mom’s urn, I brought her home in her car since she’d only driven it twice since she got it.  It’s a fancy urn that is black with gold designs on it because it reminded me of the jewelry she wore.  I hope she likes it, but know she probably doesn’t care about those matters now any more than before.  One of the things I kept repeating to her while she was here and struggling was, I got you mama and that’s what I said to her as I put her urn into her car for that final ride home.  To look at an urn in whatever form or however beautiful it is, is humbling because you know, I know that the contents held someone that was here and was loved, even when the frustrations were high at times.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  That’s what it comes down to in the end for our bodies.

No matter your views on the afterlife, while we are here it still counts in the way we all live our lives.  Who we are, our character, morals, values, the love we feel and show, the hard times we cause and get through, the pain we endure and the things we have accomplished is all a part of us.  It’s these things we take with us when we go while leaving the body behind.  But it is also things that are left behind in the hearts and souls of the people who love us.  The memories and feelings are what’s important even if we struggle with them.  Mama was important.  I don’t think she realized just how important she really was.  I’ve known all along that she was important and that’s why I’ve had the issues I’ve had with her.  Mama mattered to me and I feel the loss of her deeply.  I feel the loss of Trey deeply. I feel the loss of Dad deeply.  I feel the loss of Gus deeply. I feel the loss of Danny deeply.  All of these losses have left me a much different person.  They all mattered and they have all touched my soul in different ways so when they left this world there is a bigger void in my heart. 

All of these events over the last year bring me back to my original questions that I’d started to search for answers after Trey died.  What is my purpose here?  I now understand that much of that purpose is to learn and maybe clear some karmatic debt possibly accumulated along the way.  But there must be another reason I am left here when so many I love have gone before me.  What is it that I’ve got to do before I die that would fulfill that purpose?  I still don’t know if or when I’ll find the answer to that question and am sure that many others grapple with it as well. 

After bringing mama home, I’ve spent the week looking at pictures and trying to find some to post.  I had to dig around in a few different places and found that there are even less pictures of dad than of mom because he too was usually behind the camera.  I can’t tell you what it meant to me to find some pictures where mama was actually smiling.  She did have some happy moments in her life, although not near enough.  It seems like we only took pictures at holiday’s and rarely in between for those everyday moments.  But I think back and know we were living those moments whatever they were.  Mama and I did have a lot of good moments too.  We both have a dark and twisted sense of humor.  We both loved Trey and Gus with all of our hearts.  We both share a lot of memories of the past whether they are good or bad.  We both loved each other even when we couldn’t show it.  In the end though it was quite clear that the love was given and received by each and that’s all that matters.