On Wednesday, Jun 13, we found out that my mother in law had died in her favorite chair while watching TV. I knew something had to be wrong, as she hadn’t checked her email in a day or so (and she loved her email and internet access….) and wasn’t answering her phone during the day on Wednesday. We thought that she might have been out doing stuff… but when I tried calling around 7:00 pm on Wednesday night and there was no answer, we became officially concerned. Dave emailed his sister, Adrienne, and she answered back that she had seen mom the prior day to go shopping and that all seemed OK. Mom had told dave that she was having a really hard time doing stuff, and it was getting worse.
Around 10:00 pm that night we got a call from my BIL, Evan, with the news. Everything from there became a blur. we emailed and made phone calls. One call I should have made was work. Oh well… c’est la vie. We were both in a daze. So much so we couldn’t cry. We held each other for hours, and didn’t sleep much. I had to go to work the next day for a couple of hours. I did go to work and I was basically kicked out. We got home that morning and had to wait for a piece of furniture to arrive. Once that happened i was able to make our flight arrangements. Dave made an appointment with the funeral home. We told A of the plan, and she said that we should make all the arrangements. We did, over the phone…. including a visitation and memorial. We invited her to come along and help, but we got the feeling that she wasn’t into it… we didn’t push it. Too sad of a time.
I did the arrangements, packed, etc., and was in a pattern of extreme sadness and lull for most of the day. Dave I think was the same way. He kept it very together on the plane and at the airport as well.. that is, until we got to the hotel. He was sniffling most of the night, but i finally got him to sleep. We really had a rough night, but I knew that I had to workout. The workout helped emmensely. Oh, yeah… did i mention Dave’s dad kept calling with his plans.
Friday morning, we called A. We asked her again if she was coming to join us at the funeral home. She was wishy washy about it, so we went on our own, and decided to meet her at 10:00 am at mom’s old apartment. We had so many decisions to make. I think we did good. We’re having mom cremated, and i’m just getting the creeps with having the urn in the house. We were better emotionally than the prior day, but still very emotional. When we got to Mom’s, dave knew what he wanted. We immediately put those things to the side, and went continuing to clean. A protested a bit, but calmed when Dave said that mom said we could have them (i heard her)... we gave her mom’s rings, to give to the girls. There were bits and pieces that we found that dave wanted…. a didn’t seem to worry about them. she sat and emailed folks for a while after taking some things, and then disappeared for a while with evan. we met back at the apt later to give her the keys back and the mover guy helped us pack up some stuff to ship to us. we had one more box to ship but it wasn’t ready yet.
Dave’s dad came in on Saturday night…. we went out to dinner and caught him up on stuff. he wanted to go into town the next day (Sunday, before the visitation) to get a hotel reservation for the next night (monday). we dropped him off in town and we took off for needham. They ended up taking a cab back from boston to the funeral home. they came on the tail end of the time, so we didn’t see them much. A good thing happened, A actually said hi, and he got to meet the kids… (a good thing, tho i think its gonna be the last…. nephew said it was weird meeting him….) Thank you, Hoodlums, and Michelle and Loretta for coming. You guys made us feel so much better….
The memorial was good. Dave and I were really sad. And had no problem showing it. We saw a couple of folks that we hadn’t seen in ages (one person, in fact, since our wedding
). Dave encouraged me to talk. I spoke after the minister about my three passions in life and how mom played a role in each. I couldn’t make it past the first sentence. Dave was by my side, and I got through. Almost not a dry eye in the house. My younger niece read a poem. It just felt rehearsed. Maybe I’m weird.. but then again, i can cry at anything, and this didn’t trigger it at all. The 23rd psalm… that also brought the waves back. Dave is so relaxed with our friends (thanks again for coming Diane, Ho, Hey, and Bis) that he just burst into tears at the end. All he could do was hold on to me and cry. we had the guys to hold him, too. All dave could say is ‘i wanna go home’.... and i know where he was coming from. I did, too…. We said goodbye to everyone—(i was a little perplexed/annoyed that a, the kids didn’t hug us goodbye, but oh, well, I didn’t feel like pushing it at all. ), and brought his dad and wife into town for the hotel. we went to dinner, and then back to our hotel after saying our goodbyes to them. Bis came by that night and hung out with us for a bit. Bis… you rock.
We dropped off some death certs at Evan’s house and talked for a while before hitting the road for the airport.
OVerall, a really emotional weekend. Dave swore to me that when our urn arrives, he’ll wait for me to open it so that we can make a little ceremony to place it properly…... That is going to be tough. But some closure will happen with that….
I really hope we can keep in touch with A and the kids (know Ev won’t be in the picture in the very near future….) but not sure at this point. it would be nice, but we’re not pushing it….
The messages on the guest book online and those of our friends and online buds just brought me to tears…. thanks guys… you rock too.
Back to reality…. 16 weeks to chicago and counting!!