Your Mom

I neglected to get the name of the site where I got this image. Sorry!

It's Mother's Day on Sunday. My first one without my Mom, since she passed away last December.

(frowny face)

So far all the  "First _____ without Mom" events have been bearable. Christmas, My birthday, her wedding anniversary, these things have all come and gone without any--or much--crying.

Whenever I miss her, I'll pull on the woolen poncho she used to wear all the time. (After Mom died, my sister and nearly came to blows to determine which of us would get to keep it. I resorted to bribery.)
It's a bright turquoise poncho in a woven Mexican pattern. The first time I wore it, my husband's flew open and he said something like "Hola muchacha!"  Later at my lovely friend Heather's house, her husband greeted me with "Wow, Jen, where'd you park your burro?"
I mostly wear it around the house now.

Right now, I'm just a little annoyed with myself for forgetting she's gone. While shopping this last week, I caught myself picking up an object and thinking "Wow. I should get this for Mom."
And then I remembered she's dead and I get peeved. I mean, there's all this knowledge about the stuff she likes that I don't need anymore, but can't forget.

Like a month after leaving a job, I still remembered where the matches were kept in the bathroom (for No. 2 aromas), and the name of the office network server, plus the spiel I had to unroll each time I answered the phone all day. It was just taking up brain space that I could have used for better things, like composing wittier hate mail to the old boss.

Anyway. In addition to the phantom gift shopping, frequently there have been times where I'm merely reminded that she's gone and my nose will get all out of joint. I'll see her favorite Werther's butterscotch candies and pout. I'll see an Oprah magazine in the checkout line and get grumpy that I won't be able to borrow her copies anymore. I'll flip past QVC while channel surfing and remember how much she used to enjoy ordering a ring or bracelet. I almost cried in a doctors waiting room because the Ellen Degeneres Show was on and for a split second I thought we were sitting in her kitchen watching together . Great. Now I'm ruined for watching Ellen. Thanks a lot for dying, Mom. Sheesh.

Recently, a friend mentioned she was going to Easter dinner at her mother's.
I did a double take, and then had this fleeting thought: "Oh yeah. Some people still have a mother."

That sounds maudlin, but really I just forget, and "reverse deja vu" happens, where it's so jarring to remember what used to be normal, but isn't anymore.

I told a friend about how I wear Mom's poncho sometimes to feel closer to her. My friend got a sweet "aaaaww" face and said "That's nice. Does it still smell like her?"
Smiling, I replied, "Thankfully, no."

This Mother's day I plan to lounge on the couch with the poncho draped over me and wrapped around my children snuggling up to either side. While they watch cartoon network, I'll close my eyes and feel the fabric wound around us, imagining we're in Mom's comforting arms, as I remember them from when I was a kid, when her body was still full and soft and warm.

It's BIG, isn't it?

Christian much?

Actually three inches tall! Total bling.


Below is a copy of the eulogy I wrote and read at my Mom's memorial service. I've edited a bit, to shape and polish the writing from what I read that night. I was still working on it in the car on the way to the memorial, and it still needed some final touches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cross pictured above comes with a funny story.

Mom wore a jeweled cross for a long time, up until about two hours
after her death. I kept noticing it over and over when she was in the
hospital, and later when I helped Bob, Margie and Becky Strouse care
for Mom during her last week on Earth.

It’s been three years since I gave my life to Jesus, which I did
mostly because I was doing a horrible job of running my life on my
own. Although I'd never seen her read the Bible, Mom usually wore a
cross, so I figure she believed...something. But still I never really
talked with her about my new direction in life. I got
the feeling she thought Christians were just a little misguided, or
narrowly focused. I was a little embarrassed anyway, since it seemed
so…uncool.

Plus, it’s hard to talk over Mom's TV, which she kept at full volume.
And who can compete with the Food Channel?

This last time she was in the ER, I stood next to her bed. For hours
she sat hunched over, her arms limp, hands in her lap. She kept her
eyes closed except to give the stink eye to anyone who came in to
get blood or adjust her BiPap breathing mask. She didn’t speak much
except to restate "I want to go home," as if I hadn't heard already. When she first got there, she spit it out like a command. Two hours later it was like an exasperated sigh. Two more hours and it was a whimper.

I never knew if she meant her home in Spring Mills, or her post-corporeal Home with God. She always referred to dying a "Going Home."

At one point when I was alone in the room, I began to pray out loud,
but quiet, in case she wasn’t too happy with Jesus at that moment. She
was already grouchy as a bear. It had been a long time since I’d
prayed over her. I watched her cross necklace abruptly rise with her
chest as the Bipap machine pushed oxygen in, and then drop as the
machine sucked out co2. I kept wondering what that cross symbolized
for her. Was it just pretty, or did she love Jesus?

A day or two before she died I was reading out loud to her from a
Marianne Williamson book, which was a huge relief from the insipid mystery novel she had all of us reading to her. (Becky thought Mom just wanted to finish it before she died).

She stopped me with a wave of her hand and asked if we could pray for some people. I held her hand and closed my eyes. She began wheezing a short prayer for each member of her family and some friends before falling asleep again. I thought it so like her: she couldn’t walk or stand, and could barely breathe but she was pouring out prayers for the ones she loved.

December 4, 2010, the night she died, I arrived at 7 pm to sit with her so Bobby could
get some sleep. Although in a hurry to get to the bathroom, Bob paused
by her bed to touch her hand and say ‘I love you’. I went over to the
bed to let her know I was there to take over for Bobby. I leaned over her, to hear any whispered request for water or milk. I did a breathing check, like I always did when I saw her asleep, but she was not moving. She had color and her hand was warm, but she was gone.
Bob’s last words to her had been ‘I love you.’
Mine had been “Hi, mom, you want some milk?”

After everyone had been contacted, we waited around for the nurse to
come verify her death. I sat slouched in her wheelchair and watched her
color gradually fade into the pallor of a yellow wax bean. This caused
the cross to stand out brighter in contrast. Her last few weeks I had
reassured myself that she was alive by checking for its movement in
time with her ragged breath. Its stillness was unexpectedly jarring.

I spent a lot of the first couple days grieving by cruising Amazon.com
for a cross necklace to remember her by. I know, forcing myself to
shop sounds like agony beyond imagination, but I managed to endure.
(That was sarcasm.)

The cross in the above picture sang to me. Delicate silver vines entwine the
open filigree cross, supporting sparkling crystal flowers. It looks
nothing like mom's but I loved it way beyond any of the hundreds of
crosses I viewed.

I ordered this from amazon.com two days after Mom died.

When it arrived I opened the box, and pulled out a navy velvet
drawstring pouch. You know, I should have realized by the size of the
drawstring pouch that I was in for a surprise.

I pulled it out and busted up laughing. It was indeed the same
beautiful cross I’d wanted, but it was so ginormous that it was gaudy.
It was so like her, sweet and sparkling with light, but not so tasteful as to be boring.

I love her.

I miss her.

But when I see the big honkin cross, I’m going to smile for her.

I doubt I'll find out why wearing the cross was important to her. But its constant home on her chest reminded me that He was with both of us as she struggled down her path leading Home.

The morning of the Memorial Service my dear friend Kim sent me an email to comfort me today especially, because of the Memorial. I thought it sounded like just the advice Mom might give, back in the day:

"Tonight let yourself be wrapped in the love of all those who join
you--love for your mother and love for you. This may be an odd way to
think about it, but when mourning I try to see my grief as a very
precious thing that I metaphorically just hold in my hand and sit
with. Sometimes it means I sob and sometimes I laugh and sometimes I
just remember, but I always try to do so with the greatest respect for
the love we shared and the loss I feel. I hope you have a blessed
day."

Space for rent. Joking.

Betty Lee Rodgers, 1939-2010

Hello to all my (two) followers!

I bet you're asking: "When are you actually going to POST?"
It would have been sooner, but lots of death got in the way. (Cue dramatic music.)

Mom died Dec. 4, 2010, after a roller coaster three weeks of being almost dead then coming back to life stronger and then declining again into a miserable death. She'd been sick forever, but that made it all the more strange when she actually died, instead of rallying like she usually did.
Then a dear friend died three weeks later. He had also been sick for awhile, so that was not a surprise, either.
But even when death is expected, it's still not fun when it shows up.
It's like I ran a marathon and tripped into a face-plant across the finish line. I'm relieved to stop running, but I'm now face-down in the dirt.

It's been a few months, now.
I'm pretty sure I'm in the "Eeyore" stage of grieving. (I mope a lot.)
But not as much as I'd thought, which is confusing.

I'm confused because losing my Mom was not the experience I thought it would be. I anticipated different feelings, fewer self-revelatory surprises that I wish I'd figured out earlier. Nothing feels "right" so I might as well not expect anything to be that way.

So now, I'm winging it. I am blessed that I have time and space to do that.
Thanks for all the great people who have comforted me.
Soon I'll post my eulogy that I read at Mom's memorial, there have been some requests for it.
I want to end on a happy note, but if I wait for a great quip to emerge from my mind, it will further delay this posting.
So, a cliched reassurance for all (two) of you: I am truly fine, just passing through a storm, learning to dance in the rain.
(That last part is from a plaque in my bathroom. I stare at it a lot.)