Found Mom's obituary the other day.
She wrote it herself (not too long ago from the handwriting) and stuffed it in the drawer of a small sideboard just outside the kitchen where the hall from the dining room begins. It's in with some old silver, flower arranging doodads, other household odds and ends and a poem (not her own) about not missing her when she's gone.
In the meantime, she did give me a slight scare last week. She keeps regular hours, going to bed between 10 and 10:30 and waking between 7:30 and 8. Last week she decided to "work in the garden," the flower-planted walk from the house to the driveway, and spent an hour sweeping dirt from the paving stones after my brother had been weed pulling. The next day she was exhausted, sat around all day, and went to bed at 9. The following morning at 8:30 her door was still closed. I listened at it, heard nothing, and decided to go for my walk as usual.
It's interesting how easily we can contemplate, and even accept, our own death, but not those of the ones we love and how we're still surprized by their acceptence of their deaths. I recall my father's mother saying a number of times she was ready to go but she was in a nursing home, had had several severe strokes and was old (to my mind). Then I realize that Mom is already five years past her own mother's lifespan and only two months shy of passing Grandma Rosinus.
Anyway, the obit covers most of the basics but really does not do her justice. I think I shall edit it and, when the time comes, post it here. I'll do a draft and sit with her and go over the details. Obituaries being a major moneymaker for the newspapers, when I'm done it will be too big (expensive) to submit to the News Press.
Oh, and when I got home, she was up getting her coffee and everything has been fine since.
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Hey Jimbo, nice piece. I think the sentence "The following morning at 8:30 her door was still closed. I listened at it, heard nothing, and decided to go for my walk as usual" is really where the story is.
ReplyDeleteAs my parents age, I find that just getting a phone call from my mother later or earlier than is normal causes a momentary flash of terror to run through me. In that moment before my mother starts talking about something mundate, I brace myself for the inevitable announcement of my father's death. He is in good health but at 87, death really is just a phone call away. I have to believe that you also had that moment. Death for a moment was just behind an unopened door.