Delayed Grief...

Kevin died a year ago this past Tuesday. Today is the day his facebook friends found out he was gone. My feed is filled with grief today as people mark the year. 

I wrote about him on my Thirty Days of Thanks on the 21st. He shares the 21st with Jack (Brent's father). Jack's birthday, Kevin's death day. Life and death marked together as is the way in my family. I'm not sure yet if it's a good poetic reminder or a fucking gut punch. But it is. So I hold space for both when they happen.

But for three days those of us where weren't local didn't know he was gone. In our minds and hearts he was still alive. Delayed grief without realizing it was delayed. 

Kevin and I would have had a really deep philosophical talk about it if it hadn't been him who had died. First he would have taken a walk down to the local dispensary, and then we would have talked about when the death actually occurs, is it when the person stops living or when the people they love all find out, does it happen in stages? The people who are closest find out and death starts. Like a ripple in a pond maybe, until the farthest circle happens death isn't complete. Schrodinger's cat for sure would have been mentioned.  

We had a lot of deep talks while he was high and I was just my normal off kilter self. I miss that. His altered state and my normal were the same wavelength but with different life experiences. So we understood each other but also got new perspectives and new things to ponder. And also new weird food combinations to try. Sometimes the things I would come up with to eat when Brent was travelling made Kevin seriously doubt that I have never gotten stoned. And also try them for himself. 

But...

Watching the grief reminders spread this year has reminded me how many people he shared a wavelength with. In different ways. He was a multitude contained in one person. A puzzle piece with all of the different edges that could fit in with a variety of pictures. He meant and still means a lot to a lot of people all over the world.

And, to go back to the rings in a pond analogy, if we are all still remembering and holding that thought is he gone? 

Does anyone die while there are people still holding their memory?

What is the "us" part of us anyway? Is it what we hold in our own bodies or is it what other people hold of us in their hearts? What makes us, us?

I don't fear death. When I die this existence is over. There is no reason to fear it, there was no me before I was born, there will be no me after I die. I don't have existential fears over the prebirth time so why would I have it about the after death?

But the difference between before I was born and after I die will be other people having memory of me. 

I did not exist before. But after I die part of me will live on in the memories of those I leave behind. 

Life after death.

Is that what it really means?

And trying to follow all of that makes you understand why Kevin got stoned...

I miss you, my friend. 

We all miss you. 

 

Gee, Thanks...

This morning I was looking at something on one of the social apps and a video started auto playing. It was a snippet of a podcast that the algorithm was recommending for me. Okay fine, I'll listen. 

It was a musician being interviewed and he was talking about how he's gone on the offense with his grief. How he deals with it on his own terms now so it doesn't sneak up on him. 

He was talking specifically about his mother dying and how the grief would just blind side him at times. How he'd go for long stretches and be just fine and then BOOM tears. So he decided that he was going to welcome the grief in when he wanted it. He was going to honor her and the grief and it would be his to manage. 

So he does these little things to honor her. Like if he sees a woman who resembles her, or is about the same age as she was, in a coffee shop he'll buy her coffee. He's talking about it and he says, "I tell her this might seem odd, but my mother died and she was around your age and I'd like to buy your coffee." and the podcasters are all like, "Aww, that's so lovely." and then he talks about how he really feels that it's good to do it and the universe gives hims signs. Like a few weeks ago there was a table of women having breakfast in the same restaurant as he was and they were all about his mother's age. So he went up to the table and gave them the I'd like to buy you breakfast in honor of my dead mother who was about your age spiel. One of the women said, "oh my son just died, and he was about your age." 

So they are hugging and bawling and it's just so great. He is really glad he's found this way to experience grief on his own terms and play offense with it. 

So I'm listening to this clip and the tears are streaming down my face because we are just a few days out from the anniversary of Mom's death and today has been one of those in my feels about it days and there have been a few things that have been really emotional, including this clip. 

And I thought, it's great that you get to play offense and deal with your grief on your terms by doing this, but you are the blind side for those other people. Telling them "I'm doing this because my mom is dead and you are her age" is making them deal not only with your grief, but also possibly their own. It just seemed so selfish to me. 

And I'm sure that it's colored by my own mother, but still. 

He's out there managing his own grief and thinking it's so beautiful that he and this woman in the restaurant could bawl together and I'm thinking, maybe she was having a lovely griefless day up until that point. Maybe she hadn't been thinking of her son right then. Maybe breakfast with her friends was the bright spot in her week and you just waylaid her with your own grief. 

So after I listened to the clip I looked up the musician. I didn't think I knew who he was. 

Oh...he sings that song about the guy who is at the bar flirting with a woman but then wants all the credit that he goes home to his wife. It's such an upbeat poppy song about how he should get credit for only mostly being an asshole. 

I'm guessing he and I wouldn't get along in real life. 

You Can Never Go Home Again...

Okay, so maybe that's not true. But we may never go home again is pretty accurate. Or we will most likely never go home again except to attend more funerals. Which is just really fucking cheery to think but, honestly, probably true. 

So yeah, the trip home last weekend. 

It was a whirlwind trip. We flew in and flew out basically. It was interesting to view in a semi-detached way for sure. The last time we flew was a year ago. A few days after Ann died. At the very beginning of the pandemic. It was really uncomfortable. But that was a mix of the pandemic and being in shock. I mean flying home after Dad died was surreal and there was no pandemic. In fact in a way it was even weirder because nobody else seemed to understand that Dad was dead. They were just going on about their lives like nothing catastrophic had happened. At least when Ann died everyone was acting differently. More careful. More subdued. It seemed a bit like the world was in mourning with us. 

The airport at that time was pretty empty. Stores and restaurants were closed. Most everyone was in masks but it was still really new so it was weird to see everyone in masks. We owned like 4 total at the time and would wash out the mask we wore in the sink in the hotel room so it could dry to wear again. Switching back and forth. 

This time we grabbed a couple of masks from our vast collection, headed to the airport that was filled with people wearing masks. Stores are reopening, but the Portland airport is in the middle of big remodel so a lot are closed. We aren't sure if it's stores that didn't make it, stores that are still closed because they aren't sure about being able to maintain the distancing rules still in effect or if they are closed because of the remodel. But there was a mix of closed and open. And it wasn't weird seeing everyone in masks. It was weird seeing SO MANY PEOPLE. The flight to Albuquerque was full. Like "Please check your luggage" full. That was the weird thing now. 

The landing was rough. Like not metaphorically, but actually. Though we thought it also fit metaphorically. It was almost too much to take. My stomach was starting to really protest when we finally touched down. Just so bumpy. Kind of the reminder that Albuquerque is never easy. 

Speaking of...we had dinner with my family that night. I'm sort of kidding. It's always kind of a brace yourself thing because you never know. And now with Mom gone I wasn't really sure how it would be at all. It wasn't bad though. It was just my two middle siblings and two of my nephews. Very small contingent. I vetoed having a few other family members there just to avoid the fight that would be almost inevitable. It might not have been, but odds were that if you got me and my uncle together someone would say something at some point that wouldn't be fun. Just best to avoid it since we were only going to be there for a day. 

And it was our first (for Brent and I) venture out to an indoor restaurant. I think 6 spread out at a table was good enough. 

It was weird. Being in a restaurant. You put on your mask to come inside. You wear it to go to your table. Then you can take it off to eat and drink and visit while you sit at your table. Now, we are all vaccinated so there wasn't any real risk at all anyway, but after over a year of avoiding indoor spaces and wearing a mask constantly it was odd. 

But the meal went well. We got to see my oldest nephew for the first time since his weight loss surgery. Seeing the pictures online gave us a good idea as to how much he has lost, but it was nothing like actually seeing him. And hugging him. The last time I hugged him was at Mom's funeral. He had already lost 60 pounds at that point pre-surgery, but he was still big enough that I couldn't get my arms around him. Friday they overlapped. By a good amount. He's lost 210 pounds. Which is basically Brent. He's lost a 6 foot tall grown ass man. How crazy is that? And more importantly he looks so happy and seems so much lighter in his soul. It makes me so happy. 

My sister, brother and I talked a bit about growing up. It's always an interesting thing for me. You all know I read a lot about memories and how ours are all faulty. We think we know what happened but every time you remember something you change something in the memory. And you can actually tell yourself a false story often enough that you really believe it's true. Even if it's completely made up. It trips up people in public (See Brian Williams) and makes a big stir with people thinking "OH I would never! He's just a liar!" but we all do it. We all have our versions of what really happened. Sometimes they match and sometimes they are completely different stories. That being said sometimes listening to my sister talk about our childhoods I think I don't know any those people. I recognize the names of the characters but that's about it. I am sure she feels the same about me. 

But all in all it was a nice visit and nobody fought and nobody cried. Those are always wins. 

Getting to the hotel was a challenge. Which was the same when we were in town after Ann died. Last year downtown was cordoned off for the protests around George Floyd's murder. We literally could not get to the hotel. Every street was blocked. We ended up having to call them and move our reservation to a different hotel. This year we went to check in as they were closing down cross streets to prevent, cruising? street racing? fun? We weren't sure, but it was a trick, again, to get to the hotel. And though they had opened up restaurants and capacity they haven't yet opened valet parking, which had been the only way to park before, so we had another layer of finding parking and getting that taken care of. But we got checked in and then spent the night listening to cars and motorcycles racing on the street outside the hotel because it was one of the only ones still open. Yay...

Also we found that it was probably good we ended up in a different place last year. The times we had stayed at that hotel before we had a big room. Bed, couch semi-suite set up. This time we were in a regular room and it wasn't very big at all. Still a nice room, still one of the nicer places in Albuquerque to stay, but it would have been much harder to deal with for a week than the Embassy Suites was. Sometimes even in really crappy situations the world does you a solid. 

Saturday we went to take care of the business we were there for. Brent had checked and double checked that the bank had all of the information they needed so there wouldn't be any nasty surprises. And we went ahead and brought copies of everything anyway just to make sure. We got to the bank to open the safe deposit box and get all of the paper work out of it. It took a little bit to get the box open, for some reason the bank's keys (you need both yours and theirs to open the box) aren't labeled and you have to have both keys in in exactly the same way to get the lock to release and the guy from the bank must have gone through all of his keys 4 or 5 times. Enough that he was really starting to get flustered, which of course made it even more difficult. 

While Brent signed off on getting everything closed I sat and looked through the paperwork. To see if I was right about what was going to be in there. And I was. And I wasn't. I had guessed the original will, their marriage license, Jack's military paperwork, a copy of his death certificate and if she had a passport that as well. So their marriage license was in there as well as the military paperwork that I expected and a copy of his death certificate but, no will. I have no idea where the original certified copy of the will was. We are thinking that maybe they never had it certified. Or there is a lawyer somewhere who has it that we didn't even know about to contact. But all we ever had was our copy and the copy we found at her place that was just like our copy. 

There was also a lot more paperwork. We live in such a bureaucratic society and we don't even realize it until we lay out the "necessary paperwork." There were copies of the original marriage licenses and divorce decrees from the first time Jack and Ann were married, their second marriages to others and then like I mentioned the marriage certificate from when they remarried. That one was sweet to me because it has both of their signatures on it as well as mine and Brent's as we were their witnesses. I happened to be pregnant at the time so the whole of that side of the Mastenbrook family was represented.

She also had her complete vaccination records which I'm guessing she needed at times for her nursing license. All of Jack's paperwork from his last physical, which makes me think she requested that information to see if there had been any warning about his heart that was just ignored. And her birth certificate as well as Jack's and Brent's. Brent's was a surprise. We had to get an official copy at one point for his and there was a flash of annoyance that they had a copy and didn't just give it to us when he moved out. It's not the first time I've been annoyed at a dead person, and it won't be the last, but it's always an odd feeling when it happens. Spoiler alert, they don't care.

When we got home all of the contents of the box went into our "deal with it later" box in the garage. But at least now all of those pieces are done. 

Want to know the real kicker though? After a year of trying to get them to do it remotely so we didn't have to fly down for that one last piece. After a year of being told it was against their policy and that it had to be done in person. They never even asked Brent for his ID. 

Never.

Not when we got there. 

Not when we opened the box and cleared it out.

Not when he closed the account.

Never.

You just have to shake your head. Now we are sure it's because he had the keys and had been in contact with them and the odds of a stranger knowing the appointment time, getting the keys from us aren't great, but still. 

The appointment took about a half hour all together. And that was that. The last piece of the estate taken care of. And we were done. Ten in the morning with a flight that was leaving at 4. We had made plans to grab lunch with friends before heading to the airport but still had a few hours to fill. 

We drove around town a bit and sort of said goodbye. We found a few of the places we had lived as kids. Our old schools. Some friend's houses. A park we used to picnic in when we were still dating. We tried to find the first house we bought but they've reconfigured the roads in our old neighborhood so we couldn't quite figure out how to get there. But all in all it was a good trip down memory lane. Also reinforced where I got my idea of what a nice neighborhood, and a nice house look like. Four Hills was the rich neighborhood for Highland students. The houses up there aren't giant mansions or super crazy large, but they are bigger than the houses down in town and they are all a little different style. More brick ranch houses (though BIG ranch houses) fewer adobe homes. That to me was what rich people did. Build a house out of brick instead of mud so the wolf can't blow it down as easily I guess. For Brent his idea of a nice neighborhood was shaped by Kalamazoo. Wide tree lined streets and deep front yards. It's always interesting to see what has made itself at home in your brain and why. 

Then we headed to lunch with Nikki and Caren. It's always so good to see them face to face. Nikki was such a huge help to us last year. She had recently been through it all when her mother died. She was an incredible resource for information. We had no idea what to do or how to do it. Another thing we just don't talk about enough with people. What do you do when someone dies? Not just the grieving but the actual amount of STUFF that needs taken care of. When our fathers died it was easier because it all just went to our mothers. When my mother died there were a few things but she didn't own much and my brother and sister had lived with her and knew where everything was. When Ann died it was kind of chaos. There was a house and a car and the contents of the house and investments and Jack's death benefits and Social Security and two years of taxes to take care of and...well...It was really nice to have someone who knew the steps to take.  

And again, it's just nice to see both of them face to face. Nikki and Brent were very close friends through high school (I think I've written about this before) and she sort of inherited me when he and I started dating. We've kept that friendship over the years and with Facebook it was easy to settle back in to it. Nikki and Caren have been close since high school. Caren and I knew of each other, we were both drama kids, and we had the Nikki connection, but we weren't close. Facebook brought us back into each other's orbit and we realized we really dig each other. We have past connections that we can touch on, but more importantly we are "now" friends not just "then" friends. We built our friendship out of the current day. It's kind of a unique situation. But they've both been there for us all along.

After grabbing lunch with them we hit the airport and were on our way again. 

A longer rough ride out of town, but not as bumpy as landing was. Still probably a metaphor there...

But that was it. 

It's all done now. 

We are orphans and have no paperwork still tying us to Albuquerque. We aren't sure that we will ever visit again for pleasure. It's an odd feeling. 

You can never go home again. Or at least not in the same way. 

Ghosts...

I am a ghost hunter.

Wait, no that's not right.

I am a ghost catcher.

No, still not it...

At the end of the month we will be going down to New Mexico to finish the last bit of Ann's estate. She had a safety deposit box that we need to open and empty. That's the last piece. We found the keys when we were cleaning out her house last year but couldn't open the box at that time because we only had a copy of the will. We needed the original will. Which we assume is in the box since we never found it. 

Don't put the original will in a safety deposit box unless your executor is also listed on the box. Just so you know. It makes it much harder to deal with everything.

But now we have been through probate with the copy of the will that we had. We can open the box. 

We had tried to get the bank to open it on Brent's authorization. Just send them the keys and copies of the letter of testamentary and a copy of the death certificate and then they could open it and send us the contents. We had thought it would be easy considering there was a pandemic on so travel was not easy, or recommended. And our first contact at the bank thought it would be easy as well. But her supervisor told her no, we could not do that. Brent had to open it in person. 

So we are flying down to New Mexico at the end of the month, once our vaccines are fully activated, and opening the box. My guess for contents? The aforementioned original copy of the will, his dad's military papers, a copy of his dad's death certificate and a copy of their marriage license. I'm pretty sure that's what will be in there. Possibly her passport if she had one. Nothing earth shattering, and really nothing we need. But...we don't know for sure so we are flying down to New Mexico to open a box. 

Now you are asking why we are both going. Or at least I would be asking if I were you. Why pay for two tickets and a hotel room just to open a box? And I can see it. I mean, we talked about it. If there were more flight options so we could have gotten a longer time between flights it probably would have been a fly down, open the box, fly home all in one day event. And then...well...I probably still would have gone with him. 

Because I'm a ghost shield. That's it.

I am a ghost shield. 

I will serve the same purpose I did when we went to New Mexico last year after Ann died. There was no reason for me to be there. Like, official reason. Brent was the sole heir. He was the name on the paperwork. There was nothing I could do to help with the processes. Except shield him from some of the ghosts. 

I sorted paperwork. 
I dug through drawers and looked in baskets.
I checked bookshelves.
I packed pictures and letters and mementos he might want later. 

He didn't have to. He didn't have to see the stack of letters between his father and his mother from the time Jack served in Vietnam. He didn't have to look at the Christmas letters from his Grandfather. He didn't have to see the things Ann had from her childhood and mementos of the complicated relationship she had with her own mother. He didn't have to see all of the accumulated things that had been tucked in boxes, stored away. He just had to deal with the things that had to be dealt with. 

While I handled the ghosts. 

And I know that I'm a pretty piss poor shield, actually. I only kept away some. But ghosts bleed around edges. The sneak in through the cracks. They are already with us. 

So I couldn't, and I can't keep all of the ghosts away. But I can help. 

We are flying down to New Mexico and the end of the month to open a safety deposit box. One we assume is filled with a handful of important papers and nothing else. 

But just incase there is more...

I will be there. 

Shielding him from whatever ghosts I can.  

Motherless Day....

So here starts the really bad part of May. 

Last Mother's Day was the first Mother's Day after my mom died. It was really hard. I wrote a blog about how I had been tripped up buying Ann's Mother's Day gift. That it shouldn't have been a surprise that it was difficult but for some reason I didn't think about how hard it was going to be. 

I wasn't surprised this year. I knew the onslaught of "Don't Forget Mom!" was coming and we couldn't do anything to stop it. I'm sure it was harder for Brent than it was for me. The firsts are always hard. 

But now here we are. The first Mother's Day where neither one of us has a living mother. Which is bad enough but Mother's Day 2020 is also the last day we spoke to Ann.

You all know I've struggled with the guilt over that conversation for most of the year. She was telling us things she was doing, massage, hair cuts, and I couldn't stay quiet. I told her I just didn't see a way to do massage safely. That if I were still practicing there is really no way I would do it, not right then. (Remember in May last year we were still having a hard time getting PPE for emergency room workers, let alone massage therapists) You cannot give a massage and not be in someone's space. She assured me that she trusted her therapist and was positive she was cleaning well between clients. We dropped it. But she knew that I didn't approve of the choice. 

A few days after that call she started to feel unwell. And then 10 days after the first "I don't feel good" she was gone. And she never called to let us know she was sick. We never knew. We had to reconstruct what happened from messages she sent to people. Not us. Others. 

I felt a lot of guilt. Would she have contacted us if I hadn't said anything? Did she feel like it would have been admitting she was wrong to let us know she was sick? It really ate at me.

Until I realized that the only thing worse would have been not to say anything. If she had told us all of her plans, and I had thought, that isn't safe and yet kept my mouth shut. She still would have gotten sick. And, honestly, the odds are she still wouldn't have called us. She clearly didn't think she was going to go to bed one night and not wake up. If she had thought it was that serious she would have gone to the hospital. She knew she was sick, she was positive she had Covid, but she was going to ride it out and be fine. She was a nurse after all, she knew how to handle things. 

Except, of course, it was that bad, it was worse than she would have realized. And so she didn't call the hospital, she didn't call an ambulance and she didn't call us. 

And if I hadn't said anything I would have been left reeling wondering if she would have taken my warnings seriously. If she would have thought, "Well Denise was a therapist and if she doesn't think there is a way to be totally safe, then there probably isn't." I would have lived with the guilt of silence. 

Now, I know, of course, that it didn't matter. She did what she was going to do anyway. But at least I tried. 

Because that's all we can do in life is try. Silence is worse. She didn't heed my warning, and again, we don't really know if she caught it from the therapist or the stylist or just out running an errand, but we do know that it didn't matter what we said, she had the information and made her own choices. Which is what all of us have done this year.

And always. 

But not saying something when you see a danger? When you see something wrong. When you know it could go really badly, or when you just know better from experience. Not saying something at all is worse. It's evil, in my opinion. You can't make someone heed the warning but to not give it is evil.

That's where I've landed a year later. 

She didn't call because she didn't think she was going to die. Not because I told her to be careful and she wasn't. She just didn't think that Mother's Day 2020 was going to be the last time we spoke. 

Neither did we. 

Another first done. 

 

Oh, Facebook, Stop Trying to "Help"

Looking over my "On This Day" feed the past couple of days and May of last year has disappeared. I knew I had posts, I was doing the ISO POD list. (Isolation Picture of the Day) so I knew if I had started it on May 1 I wouldn't have ended it on May3. And, honestly, unless I've mentioned going on a Facebook fast the odds of me not posting multiple times in a day are slim to none. And yet...no on this day memories. 

Then I realized what was going on. Facebook was helping again. May was rough last year. There was the whole pandemic thing. It was the first Mother's Day after Mom died. I lost a friend around the middle of the month. Then found out another had passed at the end. And then on the same day I found out we lost him we got the call from New Mexico that Ann was gone as well. It was a rough month. So Facebook is doing that thing where it just stops showing the memories. 

There are about six weeks around my Dad's death that they never show me. The month of August 2019 is gone as well. And now it looks like May 2020 will be disappeared as well. 

Which doesn't help.

I have to think that someone at Facebook is a fan of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Which, full disclosure, is one of those things that I hated so much I think people are pulling a prank on me when they talk about how much they love it. Like Jonathan Franzen books and Cirque du Soleil. But that sort of pretend it never happened doesn't work for me. 

In fact it makes it worse. Especially as time goes by. Like I can be rolling along perfectly fine, enjoying the summer sunshine and how lovely June can be and then I notice that my On This Day feed skipped a year. And there is a moment of my brain registering why, Oh yeah...that's the year Dad died. So it actually works to call attention to it instead of hiding it. 

Because that's the hard part of death. It's not the remembering. It's the vacancy. It's the missing parts. It's the hole that is left. 

Posting about my feelings when someone dies is what I need to do to deal with it. And it also gives others a chance to share their memories which is so wonderful. To hear how those that were important to you were important to others is fabulous. And even to get the comfort from those that might not share your grief on a personal level but want to let you know how much they care about you. That's the good stuff of life. The connections. 

By hiding those connections all that is left is the hole. 

I've let Facebook know, multiple times, that I do not want them to do this. I've not asked for them to hide things. I don't like it. They actually have a tool you can use to hide people or memories you don't want to see. It's something you can manage on your own. But they are helpful and will do it for you if you don't. 

It's frustrating. 

Because it's not helpful. Not at all. 

Memories are wonderful. For me even the sad ones are important. Remembering is what keeps them with me. Remembering how much it hurt when they left lets me know how lucky I was to have them at all. 

And Facebook in their oh so helpful ways has blocked all of those memories. 

Yet...

They still have shown Brent and I both a barrage of Mother's Day ads. 

You know...to buy presents for our dead mothers. 

That they are helpfully hiding memories of them dying. 

Maybe so we forget and buy them something?

Another First...Not the Worst. Mostly.

 I got the first reminder two weeks ago.

Then another one this week, "Hurry before it's too late!"

Brent got one this morning when he woke up and I got the last one shortly after that. 

Everyone clamoring to remind us that today is Ann's birthday. 

The first two were pretty frustrating because I went through it when my mom died. The flower company I use to send flowers sent the reminders. Now, when Mom died I sent them a note saying hey, how can we fix this? And they were very sorry, and would look into it and...

When Ann died I went in and removed the relationship from my file pretty quickly. So 6 or 7 months ago. Thinking that if I did that they would have, surely, fixed their algorithm in the year since I messaged them about Mom right? I mean, I cannot be the only one to send them a message saying DON'T DO THIS! But nope...and the Hurry before it's too late message was just a peach. 

Well...

Actually...

The calendar reminder was just me forgetting to turn off the notification. I had it set so I would remember to remind Brent and Christopher to call her. Because that was my job on her birthday. Send a gift a few weeks earlier, then remind the boys to call her so they could take credit for remembering. It was a well oiled machine.

We have a break now for a stretch. Until the worst part in May. But we've made it through the anniversary of Brent's father's death, all of the holiday cluster and now her birthday. So that's good. It's good to make it past the first milestone markers. The first year just sucks. And this year blending with the first year of my Mom and the year of Covid (which, of course considering that's what she died from) and just the mess that time is right now...it just sucks.

It's a slog. 

The memorial that Biden did as part of his inauguration was lovely. And moving. And it helped. To have someone in authority say, yeah, this happened. This was not okay. We know this hurts. That helped. There has been too much denial. Too many people who want to act like the hundreds of thousands of Americans alone who have died are no big deal. Well...

Hurry before it's too late!

It is a big deal. To each and every member of their family it's a big deal. And we all hope you never have to face it up close. But we wish like fuck you would at least understand how awful it is and how incredibly insulting, and hurtful it is when you deny it is real. That it's happening. That we could all be doing things to help stop the spread but...you know...government control or what the fuck ever...

Brent and I are still working through her loss. It's always hard to lose someone, it's harder when the relationship was complicated. And I think a lot of adult children/parent relationships are complicated. Or at least mine with my mother was, and his with his was. For me I still go between grief and guilt and little anger is still there as well. But mostly grief. And I think the guilt and anger are probably part of the grieving process so I guess all grief. 

But we are past (or in the middle of today) the bulk of the firsts. Her birthday isn't the worst. I think Christmas was. That was the day that we both forgot at different points in the day and thought to ourselves, "Oh we need to call...oh wait..." Remembering is hard, forgetting is the worst. 

One more first down. Two more to go. 

 

One More Milestone...

It's weird. 

That could sum up 2020 right? 

Specifically I'm talking about going into our first Christmas since Ann died. 

It's weird. 

It feels like she has been gone for so much longer, and then when I think about it, it's been just about 7 months. Not even as long as my mom was dead before Ann died. Which is part of why it's weird. I get it. We weren't even through with the first year of mourning for her when we started again. So it feels like we have been mourning forever, and we have been mourning for over a year now.

And it's because she died in the first wave.

We have so many friends that have lost family in the second wave, and the third wave that it feels like we are old hands. Like we've been here for a long time. But it's only because 2020 has been so long. So very very long. 

And it's weird anyway. 

Looking back on my On This Day feed and 12 years ago Portland had a harsh stretch of weather. Schools ended up closed for basically a month for the holiday. We got snow, then ice, then more snow and it just never warmed up for it to go away before the next storm would hit. It was crazy bad. And during that holiday stretch Ann had decided she would come visit us for Christmas. It was the year after Jack died and we thought we were looking at a new tradition. 

And we weren't super happy about it. 

The small stretch of time we lived in New Mexico after Christopher was born we did Christmas with both families. It was crazy. Opening gifts at home then rushing Christopher out before he could play with any of them. Then afternoon with my family and back out to home for evening with Brent's folks. It was crazy and exhausting and when we moved we stopped even trying to go home for the holidays. We started to do really simple things for Christmas. At the time part of it was buying a new game and playing games and snacking while we sat around in our soft clothes. The thought of having to get dressed and have company and do a whole thing again wasn't thrilling. 

We just didn't have an easy, laid back, soft clothes all day sort of relationship with Ann. It was always complicated. I've written about it before. Jack and Ann were wonderful grandparents to Christopher. Great relationship there. I will always be grateful for that. But they weren't always the best parents to Brent. And they were challenging in-laws for me. At least at the beginning. Eventually we found a rhythm. But not a spend every Christmas together sort of rhythm.

But...Jack had just died. We knew she had to be lonely. So life changes. 

Then the snow hit. And hit. And hit. Her flight got cancelled and moved so many times that instead of coming in two days before Christmas she landed Christmas night. And then while she was here another storm hit and she barely got back out again to go home. That ended the coming to Portland for Christmas idea. Even though the odds of it happening again were slim (though we've had Christmas storms like 3 times since then, but none as bad). It was just too much for her. 

And we were relieved. 

And that was so much easier to deal with when she was alive. Now? The whole challenging relationship part is A LOT of baggage to unpack. And it's unfair. Not to her, or about her, but in general. We had figured it out and made everything work as best as we could considering the history and who we all were. But once she died and that complicated relationship was set and finished? It's just harder. Death is so final.

I mean, we get that, right? On an intellectual level we all get that. There is an ending that will happen. I think it's a large part of why religions with life after death beliefs are so popular. Because we know that death is final, but man we fucking hate it. So if you can make it not so, you do that. But for me? Death is final. What we had with Ann is what we had, and that was not celebrating Christmas together and being okay with that. 

And we were. 

Honestly. 

And we still will be. 

Just this year will be a little difficult. 

And there will be flashes and patches of more difficult moments as we finish the year of firsts and then years of memories. It doesn't go away, but you can make dark jokes about it eventually, like this year when we got the card from the Army reminding us that Jack's still dead but hey we got a new liaison so that's good right?

It's actually a lovely thing they do, if you lose someone while they are in the service there is a whole department that you have access to that can help. And they really did help navigate all of his benefits and paperwork when he died. But they keep in touch. Thirteen years later and we get invitations to the "Your Dad's Dead" barbeque. We get "Your Dad's Still Dead" Memorial Day cards. And the annual "Yeah, Your Dad's STILL Dead" Christmas Card. If I check the mail first I usually just slip them into the recycle bin before Brent sees them. I mean, he knows his dad is dead. But it's a nice help for some I am sure. 

So at least we won't get those every year for Ann. Though I would guess we will add it ourselves. Hey! Just letting you know your dad's still dead, we'd have sent one to your mom but well...

So here we are. The thirteenth Christmas since Jack, the ninth since my dad, the second since my mom and the first since Ann. Merry Christmas! All of your parents are dead!

I'm not sure it would be a best selling Hallmark card but I bet it would make one hell of a Christmas carol because seriously those songs are the most depressing ever!

So yeah....

Merry Christmas 2020, hopefully next year will be more festive and we will all be better off than we are right now. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow... (seriously, they are depressing songs)

 

Another First Past Again...

We are past the first Thanksgiving without Ann. Marking the first holidays is usually really difficult. But this year it was...

Odd.

I think odd sums it up the best.

Normally we would have called her and checked in. Of course, we couldn't do that. But we watched a lot of our friends posting about Zoom Call Thanksgivings. What would have been semi-normal for us was completely different for them. And we didn't do it because our new normal is just us.

But even with it being odd, we are past the first major holiday. Christmas, her birthday, and then the double whammy of Mother's Day and the anniversary of her death on deck.

It's still very surreal. I forgot she was gone just last week. I was trying to figure out what I was missing for Thanksgiving, it seemed like I had forgotten something major (turns out it was a roasting pan) but while I was thinking of all the things it could be I thought, "Oh I need to remind Christopher to update his Amazon list for his grandmother." And then remembered that I didn't have to do that actually.

Oh.

It's such an odd year. The amount of universal loss is overwhelming. A friend had to say goodbye to one of her pets this week. It made me cry. It's always so hard to do. But then another friend posted a picture of their old dog enjoying Thanksgiving and I thought, wait, weren't they ill as well? I had to go back and look at old posts to see if I was remembering wrong. Because I had forgotten. Normally that's something I would keep in my head. But no...not this year.

And then a friend posted a GoFund me for another friend's expenses while she battles cancer. And I knew she had cancer, I sent her a cozy blanket for when she gets her chemo. Mom was always freezing when she got chemo. But in a way it was a shock to remember that yes, she has cancer. That is a thing that is still happening.

And then the Thanksgiving posts came and I have at least 5 friends who have lost a parent this year. Not counting Brent. Now, granted, we are all hitting the age where those of us with parents on the older side are losing them but still it seems like a lot over a short amount of time. 

And the Covid numbers keep climbing. We are at 263,000 deaths in the US alone. And I've talked about it before, it's so infuriating as one of those families to see people still want to downplay those deaths. Like it's not a big deal. They say well, it was something else, they died WITH it not FROM it. It's just the flu, it's just a bad cold, 99% survival rate...

Fuck all y'all.

Honestly. 

It just makes it so much harder to grieve naturally. I mean, it's hard enough in the time of Covid, let alone if they died from it. Funerals (for those who wanted to do them) had to be postponed or done with only a handful of those who wanted to attend there. Doing all of the things you have to do when someone dies is exponentially harder when government offices are at reduced staff, or closed all together. We still have one more thing that needs taken care of in New Mexico that has to be done in person. When the vaccine is available, I guess, but until then it just hangs out in the void.

I have two friends going through divorces and another thinking strongly about it. More loss. Different loss, but still there. Grieving a relationship instead of a person, but either way, grieving. 

It's just surreal at this point. 

So much loss. 

I can't hold it in my head. 

I know I've been a lousy friend this year. 

I'm not the best friend for the checking in and supportive moments anyway. I am more the pep talk when you ask for one friend. I'm really bad at the little things that make most friendships. I know this about myself. And anyone who has been friends with me for a long time knows that as well, and I so appreciate those that have stuck it out. Because I do really like you, and I think of you often, and I pay attention to your posts and your updates, but...I just don't think to text, or write, or gods forfend, call. I'm not that friend. 

And this year it's even worse.

Because I know so many people need those sorts of friends. Especially right now. 

But that's not me. 

I am so not that person that when others are it's always sort of shocking to me. Random gifts or cards or messages always kind of stun me. And remind me that I have attracted really great people even if I am a little (a lot) worse at that sort of thing. I always sort of want it to be me. I mean, I mean well. And sometimes I actually remember to follow through. But it's rare. 

This year though, I've been even worse. Teflon brain. There has been so much loss that I cannot hold it in my head anymore. Who lost a parent. Who lost a pet. Who is ill. Who is on the first year of a child not at home. Who is in a change in other ways. It's just so much. Too much.

So I am apologizing to everyone who has told me something only to have me be surprised a month later to hear it "for the first time." I would apologize one on one but...well...

Yeah.

I'm looking forward to getting back to even keel. To dealing the losses at a more reasonable pace. To having some sort of new baseline take hold that isn't tallied on the news every night.

It's been a bitch of a year. 

But at least we are past the first Thanksgiving. 

Another Anniversary to Mark...

 A year ago we were getting ready to have Mom's funeral. We had pushed it off from when she died in August to give a few family members time to get back to New Mexico. At the time I told you all that I absolutely didn't recommend doing it that way. That it was just like having your grief stuck on hold for awhile and then having to start fresh again. 

Then came the pandemic.

So many people have had to put their grief on hold. To either wait on funerals or to hold them with only a handful of people there. For loved ones to pass alone in hospitals or nursing homes and then to not even be able to gathering as loved ones to mourn them. 

It's been awful to watch. 

And it makes me wonder what we are all going to be facing when this crisis time has passed.

Grief on hold. 

Because we are all grieving right now, in various ways. Some of us have lost family or friends. Some have lost jobs. Or businesses. Most all of us have lost our sense of normal. And it's not just going to come right back. Even when/if we get a vaccine that works. And, I think I've said this before but I'm going to say it again, I'm not totally sold on the idea that a vaccine is going to work. Or at least not like we think of with measles or mumps or shingles. It's a type of coronavirus which is what the common cold is. A type of coronavirus. And colds mutate. That's why we get so many of them. And the typing that's happing with this virus shows that there are multiple strains out there. So how will a vaccine work against a mutating virus? I'm not an immunologist so maybe there is some sort of formula that hits a lot of strains and wipes it out, but I just don't understand it. And maybe it will be like the flu vaccine and we will need to get a different one every year. The flu is a different type of virus but still a mutating one, and we are still fighting the virus from the 1918 Flu Pandemic. It didn't "go away" either, just mutating and circulating. I will still get the vaccine when/if they come up with one that they think is promising but I'm not 100% positive that it's the silver bullet people think it is. 

Anyway...

Once that happens. Once we have some more protection from this. Or we all learn how to exist with it out there (wear your damn masks, people) we still aren't going to go bouncing back to normal. The people we've lost aren't coming back. A lot of those businesses aren't coming back. Those lost jobs aren't coming back. At least not for awhile. I think we are going to hit a strong recession, possibly a depression before we are through this. And I know a LOT of you are like, THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TO OPEN THE ECONOMY RIGHT NOW! But, look around. You can open a theater but you can't convince most people it's safe to go to a show. You can open a restaurant but you can't convince everyone that eating inside with people you don't know is a great thing. 

I read a story on the Navy Pier in Chicago and they closed early for the season because nobody was coming. Or not enough people, anyway. They had shut down then reopened and one of the business owners said he was doing about 6% of his normal sales. Six. Because you can open a store but if the virus isn't contained it doesn't matter. There aren't enough of the "who the hell cares?" people out there to sustain everything. And as we get more spikes, which are happening all across the country, it's just going to keep people in and away. 

So there will be more death. A lot more death, as I mentioned, cases are spiking and we still aren't doing anything to contain it, not really, not consistently, not everywhere. There will be a lot more financial upheaval. And we've got a brewing Civil War on our hands too. I think the rise of Q and the real acrimony between people has been exacerbated by the grief we are all living with. We want TO DO SOMETHING and Q has tapped in to that with people who believe that they are somehow really saving children. And the battles between political parties is a way to feel like you are doing something important in a world that's out of control. Good guys and bad guys and if we can help the good guys win then everything is better. Well...

I do want a massive Blue Wave. I do think Trump needs booted from office. And in such large numbers that there is no question that the majority of the American people saw him for what he is, finally, and said, that's not who we are, that's not what we want to be. 

But I don't think it's going to make things all better. I think if Biden wins he's facing and even more difficult presidency than Obama did. And Obama came in as the economy was crashing down around us. I think it's going to be really difficult. And I think there are going to be people rooting for him to fail. And I think there are some pretty scary groups out there that are just waiting to fuck some shit up (we've have multiple arrests for planned political kidnappings lately) So no, I don't think it's going to be all better. I think it's going to be really hard.

And we are all going to have to do it while we grieve.

A year ago we had my mother's funeral. We put it off to give people a chance to be there. I don't recommend it. But we are going to be doing it as a country here really soon. We are going to be dealing with the grief, with the loneliness, with everything that has happened during this stretch. 

I hope we are able to do it together. 

One Year...Three Months...

We've made it to the end of the firsts. Which is always the worst. 

We are three months in to the first year. It seems so much longer. 

Today is the anniversary of Mom's death. Tomorrow is the three month mark of the day that Ann probably died. The 29th of June is her official date of death because that's when they found the body. But backing up in messages and the state of the house I'm pretty sure she died on the 27th. And I know, it's really harsh to say things like "found the body" but it is what happened.

It's like processing Mom's death. It's not really suicide because suicide is forbidden in the church. But she absolutely chose to die. People hate the word suicide. And I get it, I really really do. For years I had one opinion about it and people who did it and it took a long time to shift that thought process. Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and that helped me reset my thinking. The right to die. We do it for our pets when they get too sick to continue a pain free life, we should be able to do it for each other. Being able to say when we are ready. 

And that's what Mom did. She said when. She said when she had enough. She had waited patiently for a few years for "God to call her home." Almost every time I spoke with her she mentioned it. That it could happen at any point. Finally she decided to help it along. By not eating. Then by not drinking. It was her choice and her terms. She was done. 

Wouldn't it have been nicer for her if she could have done it earlier? Like maybe two or three years ago when she decided she was just waiting to die. What if she could have had access to medical care to help her transition quietly and painlessly? Just like we did for Samson and for George. Death with dignity laws but not just for people with terminal illnesses that cause tremendous pain. Death with dignity laws for whoever wants to access them. 

And yes, there would need to be a set of counselling appointments. Is this really what you want or is this a temporary thought? But imagine if it were really a true option. An actual thing that we all accepted as part of life. The pain it would save. Not just the pain of living while waiting to die but the pain for people who have to live on when a loved one has chosen suicide. 

If you knew it was an option at any point in time, if you knew you could get access to medical assistance to help you, would it change the number of gun deaths or hangings or overdoses? If you saw the doctor and got the counselling you had to get to make sure you were ready for this choice, would it help stop people from making it? The ones who could find help in other ways? Would it make a difference? And if they didn't change their minds at least their family and friends could know it was coming. Could have the chance to say goodbye. To try and understand why.

I also know for me a lot of the time I don't want anything different than what I have but knowing I have options makes me feel good. Like I know what I want for dinner and it's probably going to be one of the same dozen or so meals I rotate through, but if you told me I was only going to be able to eat those 12 things for the rest of my life it would make me miserable. I don't want to exercise the option very often, but I do like having it.  

If people knew they had the option, at any point in time, to peacefully leave this life, would it help more people make a different choice?

It wouldn't have changed what my mother did. Well, I mean, it wouldn't have made her want to live. She still would have made the choice to die. It just might have made it a nicer process for her. And for my siblings who had to watch her waste away. And for the rest of the family who had to wait to hear every day if this was the day. If she was finally free.

Losing your parent is always hard. We've had long illnesses and sudden heart attacks. Wasting away and 10 days from "I don't feel well" to dead from a disease a large group of people still think is some sort of hoax. None of them were easy. None of the first years were easy (including the restarted one we are in right now). But if it could have been easier for Mom? If her last years had been years she wanted to be here instead of years just waiting to die? Wishing to die? That would have been so much better.

Maybe some day we will have more choices. Living and dying.

Just A Day...

 Having kittens is exhausting. 

Four AM wake up this morning the first time. I got them settled back down and asleep again after about 45 minutes. I think Brent was able to sleep for most of that time. Then they were awake again close to 6. Okay, fine we'll get up. But first Tux peed the bed. 

What the fuck, dude?

It's actually the second time he's done it. 

And then the third while I was showering. 

And then on the bathroom rug next to his litter box. 

And that's on top of Tig last night and this morning being in too big of a hurry to get back to playing and stepping in his own poop and getting little poopy cat paw prints everywhere.

Tux seems healthy but we've moved the vet appointment up from Tuesday to Sunday (when they could see him, and they aren't super worried so we are trying not to be). And I went and bought the Kitten Attract litter to see if we can fix the behavior. 

And people in the UPS store weren't social distancing or paying attention to the big only 5 customers in the store at one time. And there were a couple of people fighting about wearing masks outside of Walgreens (they were there together and one of them didn't want to wear a mask and the person they were with was telling them they had to wait in the car then). And I'm pretty sure I need to wreck a friendship because I've made the commitment not to just ignore the unpleasant shit, but I am so tired and so on edge that I cannot see a way to do it calmly. 

And...

Oh yeah...

Last year today was the last time I spoke to my mother and I'm still not positive that she knew who I was at the time. 

Grief is a real bitch. It makes good days bad and hard days feel impossible. 

Except For Your Four Fastest...

The Estate sale was this past weekend and it went well. They've cleared everything out of the house and taken care of all of that. Tomorrow the title company will come to us and we will complete the sale of her house. Her investment accounts were all transfer at time of death so that was taken care of as soon as we had a death certificate. We filed her 2019 taxes and will still have to do 2020 but that can't be taken care of until next year's tax time. We had two things we thought we were going to have to go back to Albuquerque to take care of and we've found work arounds for those so we don't have to do those in person. It's all been fairly smooth. I mean, there have been hiccups here and there and things that took longer than we thought they should, but honestly it's been less than two months since she died and we've (we meaning Brent) have pretty well taken care of everything.

So that's all gone really well.

Except for the part where she's dead.

And the part where there are still people refusing to wear masks to prevent the spread of a virus that kills people.

And the part where there are people who are sure this is all a hoax and nobody is really getting this, let alone dying from it.

And because of those parts, and the part where it's still ravaging our country we hear about it every day, multiple times a day...Hey! You know the thing that killed your mother? We're going to talk about it again.

Hey!! You know how your mother died? Well this dude thinks it's a false flag so we are going to talk to him!

HEY!!! Feeling any better? Well, look, we just wanted to talk again tonight about all of the people worried that their investments aren't doing well right now and fuck the fact that 145,000 people are dead and not coming back and we aren't even close to done with this...

So yeah. It's all gone really well and really smoothly.

Wear your fucking masks.
Wash your damn hands.
Keep your distance!

EDIT:

Okay, just kidding...now one of the things we were going to be able to take care of remotely they've decided we have to do in person again. BUT at least it's not something that needs taken care of right away so it will sit for a year or so until we can safely travel again.

It's All Mixed Now...

There really isn't a way to keep the Corona Chronicles and the Grief Chronicles separate right now.

We are heading into the fifth month of living with the pandemic. The last time we lived any sort of normal schedule was the second week of March and even then it was starting to set in that we weren't really going to be seeing normal normal for awhile.

Things are starting to open up here in Oregon. Slowly. Places that opened quickly, or never really shut down, are experiencing skyrocketing cases. Emergency rooms in Houston are all full. The thing that staying at home was supposed to prevent is happening. But I sort of figured it would. People weren't really understanding what we were supposed to be doing. Flattening the curve didn't mean the virus was going to go away, it meant that we were giving hospitals a chance to catch up. And while we were mostly staying home they did.

Then the reopening started and people were really responsible and wore masks and kept their distance and....

Nah.

People rushed out and tried to recreate the "WAY BEFORE" as quickly as possible. We are not good neighbors. We being the US in general. The selfish vibe is super strong. People don't want to wear the mask, it's so uncomfortable, it's just the government trying to control you, you can't tell me what to do!

For fuck's sake...

I am rule averse. So rule averse it's a joke in my family that if you tell me what to do I will do the opposite just for spite even if what you are telling me what to do is something I really want to do.

I've talked about both of those things before in this series of blogs.

But I wear a mask. I keep my distance from people. I wash my hands more than I did before. I'm careful. I'm conscientious of others. Because if we don't all do our part in this it won't matter.

I said in May that I expect to get it at some point. I still feel that way. If I haven't already had it, I cannot believe that I will be lucky enough to dodge it until a vaccine is available. And I'm actively trying not to catch it.

There are people out there who don't wear masks and don't keep their distance and don't limit contacts and treat it all like it's not a big deal. They will get sick. They will spread it. That's just a fact. Ask Florida and Texas and Arizona if the virus gives a damn about your political belief and YOUR FREEDOM!

And about that economy....with the restrictions in place that are part of a responsible slow roll out a lot of businesses are figuring out they can't survive. The levels of unemployment claims are still increasing. We are going to have a massive issue here when the protections from evictions and bill collecting stop. People don't have money. And there is no "WE'RE DONE WITH THE VIRUS NOW!" switch to flip to make all of that go away.

I mean...there are a lot of switches that could be flipped at the local and federal government levels that would protect people but we don't do that because....umm...reasons.

Speaking of the government...Trump started holding rallies again this week. He just needed his YOU LOVE ME fix. It didn't quite work out, the first rally was a bit of a bust. I mean it still had a few thousand people there, like 6200, but he was expecting closer to 50K. Seems his campaign likes to post on Facebook and Twitter but doesn't actually pay attention to what is going on outside of his I LOVE YOU group...which sort of sums up his whole presidency. But anyway...a bunch of people signed up for tickets who had zero intention of attending. So they set up an overflow area and spent a ton of time posting about the MILLIONS who wanted to see him and then empty seats...rumor has it he was PISSED.

But he persevered and held another one in Arizona, remember when I mentioned them at the beginning? The place where Covid 19 cases are skyrocketing? So yeah, he held a rally there with people all crammed into a church, not wearing masks, and all believing the church has a miracle air filtration system that will save them. I know that sounds like a joke, but I'm not kidding. They posted a video about their system that would kill 99.9% of the virus, until the company that made the system said...yeah...no.

And then today Pence was on TV talking about how we are just crushing it with our response! So much better! Few cases! Few hospitalizations! SO MANY...well lies. I mean that's what he did. Which is the fucking standard right now. They lie. They've lied all along. They will continue to lie. They will continue to try and convince you that nothing is more important than the economy and getting that running along smoothly again.

And well....

My net worth will increase by a not insignificant amount over the next few months. We will sell the house and the car, both of which she owed less on than they are worth. We will sell all of her household belongings. We will withdraw the money in her bank account. Her investment we set up when Jack died will turn over to Brent. So there is another piece. We also won't be looking at the future expense we had been planning on either a move back to New Mexico as she aged, or buying a place with an Ohana or Casita. So all told we are significantly better off financially than we were on May 28th.

Do you think that makes it okay?

Wear your mask to protect others.
Wash your hands to protect yourself.
The economy will do what the economy will do, but the dead will not come back to life.

Pieces of Grief....

They would press their hands into hers, trying to make meaningful eye contact. "Oh I am so sorry..." some of them would start, some would go directly to a personal anecdote about him. "He and I were...", "He was always so..." and then they would wait. Wait on something from her.

Like they all needed a piece of her grief to make theirs real.

Or sacred.

Or complete.

Then they would move along the line and the next person would start.

Over and over again. So many people taking little pieces of her away with them. Leaving pieces of their pain with her.

As if she didn't have pain enough on her own.

And she wondered if they would go home and feel they were done.

They had paid their respects. They had said their piece. Now they could move on.

Not thinking about what they left her with.

What would they think if she went to their houses the next day. One after another and shared a piece of her own grief.

"He and I were..."

then the next house

"He was always so..."

Just give them some of it back. Make them sit with that for awhile.

Would that be better? Would it lessen her burden?

She didn't believe it would. But the thought kept her from screaming in their faces as they came in a line "He was so..."

Pain shared is pain halved.

That was only true if you were sharing with someone who wasn't dealing with pain of their own.

Later they would all talk about how lovely she had been. How she had looked everyone in the eye and listened as they told her how important he had been.

"I think it really helped her..."

The Firsts Are the Worst and the Ninths Are Only Kind Of Better....

It's Mom's birthday.

It's the anniversary of Dad's death.

I found a way to make those blend better in my head when Mom died on Kelsey's birthday.

But it still sucks.

This year it really sucks.

It's the first of her birthdays without her. There was the email from the flower company reminding me to order her flowers. There was the On This Day a couple of days ago from last year where I almost forgot to get her flowers set up and was grateful for expedited delivery. And then there is the day.

It's funny, Facebook hides the posts from the actual day my father died. So I have my On This Day memory cycle and that year is missing. Like if they hide it I won't remember? I didn't do it. You can do that if you want. You can filter out dates or people you have tagged, but I didn't make that choice, they just did it for me. How nice...I guess like the Trump theory that if we stop testing for Coronavirus we won't have any new cases, if I don't see when I posted that Dad died he's still alive?

And of course this year it really sucks because we are still reeling from Ann's death. It hasn't even been a month yet. We are still stuck at the mercy of New Mexico waiting for the death certificate. We found out today that the person we had been working with at the funeral home left and somehow nobody picked up his clients. So maybe now we will get the certificate and be able to keep moving forward.

So yeah. This year, the first is the worst as is to be expected, but it's just so much worse than I was actually expecting.

I've played way too much Toon Blast. I think I mentioned that I figured out it's a good tell for when I'm depressed. Matching games in general, not just that one. But I delete it from my phone so I don't play mindlessly unless that's what I really want. Just mindless. This weekend I hit that point. I'm full of grief. Which makes sense. I mean, I know it does. We lost my mom within the year. I lost two friends in the weeks before we lost Ann. The whole freaking world is fighting a virus and the US is maybe finally starting to deal with its original sin and that's, of course, a huge emotional toll. The personal and the world and the country pain is all blended.

And today is the anniversary of Dad's death and Mom's birthday.

The fact that I'm sitting upright is a huge win, I think.

The firsts are the worst. 

Grief and Guilt Go Hand In Hand...

Driving down the freeway in New Mexico last week...

"I know it's awful to say, and I wish I didn't feel this way, but I'm really mad at your mother."

And I am. That's not all I am, but it is part of what I am.

We last talked to Ann on Mother's Day. We had talked to her a few weeks before that, just checking in when the pandemic hit. That first conversation after hanging up Brent and I agreed that she wasn't really aware of the changes just yet. She was on her way to dinner (things hadn't completely shut down yet) and then the grocery store. We had already experienced our first pandemic bare shelves grocery run and tried to warn her. She was pretty sure it wouldn't be that bad.

When we talked to her on Mother's Day she said that she had been surprised at the shortages in the store. We also talked about how the shut down wasn't really all that bad for all of us. She was a loner as well and had retired last October so staying in and staying by herself wasn't difficult. Then she said that her massage therapist was seeing clients out of her house and she had gotten a massage the day before and that was great and that her hair stylist had come to her house and given her a cut so that was nice as well.

Brent and I stared at each other for a moment (when we talked to her we would put it on speaker phone) and then I couldn't help it, I said that I didn't think that was a good idea. I said I couldn't imagine how to safely give a massage right now (I used to be a therapist and had actually spent some time trying to figure out how I would practice during a pandemic if I was still in practice). I tried really hard not to sound shocked, but I am sure the tone came out in my voice. She was 71 years old, a diabetic and a heavy smoker. She was the prime demographic for this being something to take seriously. We wrapped up the conversation and said our I love yous (thank goodness) and I told Brent "I don't think she's taking this seriously enough." And he agreed but there wasn't really anything we could do to make her take it seriously. She was a nurse before she was a counsellor and she was going to treat it the way she was going to treat it and that was that.

That was May 10th. The rest of this I am recreating through text messages and talking with other people.

On the 15th she rescheduled her next massage appointment. Her cat was going to be at the vet and she didn't know if she'd be able to make it out to Tijeras. On the 16th her massage therapist pushed her off again for her own scheduling. Then on the 17th Ann cancelled her appointment because she wasn't feeling well, nothing major, just not feeling well. On the 19th she said she had flu like symptoms. On the 20th she said she was pretty sure she had Covid 19. She listed out her symptoms (breathing, fever, body aches, gastrointestinal issues, lack of taste) and yeah, it lines up that she had Covid.

On the 26th she texted her friend and said she needed help. She was too sick to go to the store and was out of groceries and cat food. On Wednesday her friend (the massage therapist) brought her stuff to her. She said she was really pale, and clearly sick but that Ann didn't want to go to the doctor. She was just going to handle it herself. Wednesday night she stopped answering text messages and phone calls.

Her friend tried to get the police to do a wellness check on her but they said she had given them the wrong address and so weren't able to do it. This part makes zero sense to me, because they didn't call her and say, hey you gave us the wrong address where do you want us to check, they just made a note and didn't follow up until she called them back. When she checked with them and found out that they hadn't made contact with Ann she went to the house and with the property manager found a way to break in. That's when she found Ann's body. That was Friday the 29th.

Looking at the condition of the house and when she stopped answering her phone and her texts I think she died Wednesday night. Her dinner plate was next to the sink with part of her meal gone and the rest left on the plate. Her phone was in the living room by her chair and not in the bedroom plugged in to charge for the night. So sometime after her friend was there but before she would have gone to bed for the night. That's my guess. So the wellness check from the police probably wouldn't have mattered and all we would have had was a door busted down that needed repaired. It's probably a good thing they went to the wrong house. Probably.

But we'll never really know. I would guess the date of death will be the 29th since that's when they found her and the official cause will be natural causes, even though I'm pretty sure, and so was she, that was Covid 19. But the medical examiner let us know that if we wanted an autopsy it would be a long delay, and honestly at the time he was telling us that we were still in shock and probably shouldn't have been making those decisions, but it is what it is. There will be a lot of those cases, so keep that in mind when idiots try to explain to you that Covid is being over counted, or that it's not that deadly.

And again as I mentioned she was a 71 year old smoker with diabetes, so there are your pre-existing conditions that everyone wants to discount the deaths with. When sorting through her paperwork I saw her note from the doctor for her January physical. Blood sugar levels looked good. They were really pleased with her overall health and were optimistic that the medication change they were trying was going to do even more good. So yeah, she had pre-existing conditions but I've been consistent in this, and I will say it again, anyone who thinks that just because someone is older or unhealthy in some other way it makes it fine that they die, Fuck you.

But yes, I am angry with her too. I'm angry that she didn't go to the doctor. I'm angry that she didn't call us and tell us she was sick. Now, I know that she didn't because she didn't want us to worry and she didn't want us to nag her to go to the doctor. She was incredibly stubborn. Was sure she knew best about pretty much everything, but especially health things. But still...

And then there is the guilt that goes with it. Would she have called us if I hadn't said anything about her massage not being a good idea? If I had kept my mouth shut would she have felt like she could tell us she was sick without the risk of an I told you so?

I've talked before about our relationship with Brent's parents. It was complicated from the start. We worked really hard to make sure there was a relationship. And even though we worked at it and it was pretty good by the end it was always a little tenuous. Brent is dealing with his own guilt right now wondering if he had done something different would she have called. And would it have made a difference?

And we will never know.

We will never know exactly when she died.
We will never know exactly why she didn't call us.
We will never know exactly why she didn't call for medical help.
We will never know if that would have even made a difference or if she just would have died in a hospital, surrounded by strangers, racking up major bills instead of quickly at home.

We will never know.

And I'm a little angry about that.
And feeling a lot of guilt as well.

Which is normal. I know. I'm still working through patches of guilt from my mom's death so we will just add this to mix. All we can do is say that we will never know. And try to find peace with that.

And I will work to convince Brent that he has nothing to feel guilty over as well, which is so much easier to do because I believe that part.

As for my part? I will never know.

It's a Lot....

We are back home. At least for awhile. We took care of what we could in New Mexico and hit the hurry up and wait wall. We need a death certificate to go further and in the best of times that seems to take about two weeks. This is not the best of times. We couldn't even get the medical examiner's office and the funeral home working together nicely until last Wednesday.

It was a hard trip. It was a surreal trip. And I process by writing so I had nowhere to put everything I was dealing with in my head and everything that I was trying to help Brent deal with. Because that's the really hard part right now. I haven't dealt with my mother's death yet, not really. We are in the first year, the firsts are the worst, it takes time, all of that. But we have no time. Not for me to put everything away and move forward with my own mourning for Ann and to focus on being Brent's support. We are both walking wounded. And we did the best we could.

Flying in a pandemic was strange. Most everyone wore their masks. Even though it's supposed to be mandatory there are people who won't wear them. So far nobody is forcing them to so they don't. There were no direct flights, in fact the flight from Seattle to Albuquerque was a connecting flight to San Antonio. Remember those? Where you would land at an airport and some people would get off the plane and some new people would get on? I haven't been on a connecting flight in years.

There were a few shops open in the airports, but not most. The flight itself had bottles of water if you were thirsty, but that's it. No drink cart. They gave a snack box in first class but there wasn't an option for anything in coach. People seemed fairly quiet and reserved but that might have just been the mask muffling everyone. Wearing a mask constantly is uncomfortable. I've worn one for errands and such but it's only a half hour or so at a time, flying in to Albuquerque it was like 6 hours straight. And New Mexico is under mandatory mask orders so anytime you are in public you are in a mask. My ears are sore. Gives me a lot of sympathy for health care workers who are in them constantly.

We got the keys to the house from David and Steve and checked it out quickly Monday night. We were meeting a cleaning crew there on Tuesday and didn't want our first time seeing everything to be with a bunch of strangers. Then we tried to get to our hotel for the night. Tried. Because of the protests we knew downtown was going to be challenging but we also figured we'd be in our rooms each night before they really got going so it was no big deal. But what we didn't realize is that our hotel was in the middle of the cordoned off area. The police set up blockades and barriers around a few streets and our hotel was right in the middle. Literally no way to drive to the hotel. We got our reservation cancelled, much to the disappointment of the hotel manager who wasn't really understanding what was happening, I imagine he was going to have a nasty surprise trying to get home that night.

The new hotel was at maybe 20% capacity. Or at least set up for that much. The restaurants weren't open, there was no maid service, two out of three elevators were shut down, the convention areas were closed off, but it was a bed and a place to stay and had internet access. Good enough.

We spent the week we were there getting the house cleaned, meeting with a realtor, finding an Estate sales company, sorting all of the things in the house to make sure we had anything important, and Brent spent a lot of time on the phone calling people and companies saying over and over again that she had died. There is no other way to do that. You can't just send out a blast to everyone in the world and if they need to know they do. You have to call people. You have to call people you don't know, and call people you do. You have to listen to their grief while you are still seeping in your own.

It's a lot.

And it's not done. We will have to go back in a couple of weeks. Or at least Brent will. We haven't decided if I am going with him or not. But at least he will have to be there. New Mexico won't let him sign over the title of her car until she's been dead for 30 days and it has to be in person. We also found the keys to a safety deposit box but we can't open it until we have the death certificate and the letter of testamentary, which we probably could have gotten a lot easier with the official copy of the will that we believe she must have put in the safety deposit box, since we had a copy and couldn't find the original in the house anywhere. Don't keep your will in a safety deposit box. Keep it in a fireproof lock box in your house. I found something online that said we should have been able to pull the will and nothing else but the bank said no. So don't do that. Keep your will where your executor can have access to it easily. 

I'll write more tomorrow about this, I just wanted to start dumping things out. Tomorrow's will be a little harder. Just as a warning. 

But I need to start processing so I will start writing. 

It's a lot. 

And the Clock Starts Again...

When I wrote the blog yesterday talking about mourning I had no idea what was still to come.

As most of you know we got the call last night that Brent's mother had passed. We didn't even get a full year to process the grief of losing my mother before getting pushed right back to the start with his. It seems unfair. And it is unfair. And it's life. Or death I guess more accurately.

We were getting dinner ready when Brent's phone rang. He put it on speaker when he answered and as soon as I heard, "This is David" I was crying. Because there is no reason for David to be calling us unless his mother couldn't. I guess I could have started out optimistic that Ann was just sick, but I didn't. And she wasn't.

As best as we can tell right now she got sick on Monday or maybe Tuesday and most likely died sometime on Wednesday evening or Thursday though the official date of death will probably be Friday because that's when they found her.

She had called a friend on Tuesday and asked her to pick up groceries for her because she wasn't feeling well. On Wednesday her friend dropped them off. She said Ann was sick, was very pale, she had flu symptoms, but didn't want to go to the hospital. Just wanted to rest and get better. When she called on Thursday to check on her she didn't answer the phone. She asked the police to do a wellness check and the police told her they did one but she had given them the wrong address. Which is just crazy to me. If they did the wellness check and got there and it was the wrong house why wouldn't they call right then and say something? But they didn't. They waited for her friend to call them back and ask about the check. By Friday afternoon when Ann still wasn't answering her friend went to the house to check on her herself. She and the property manager for Ann's community were able to get a back window open, her friend crawled through and found Ann's body.

She said it looked like it was sudden. That there wasn't any sign that Ann had struggled. So I guess that's good.

I mean. At least it was as peaceful as it could be. That's the sort of thing you hold on to.

We are heading to NM on Monday to start handling things. I'm not sure how long it's going to take. We are dealing with Covid restrictions on top of being from out of state. A friend of ours who had to go through all of this with her own mother has been a great source of help, as well as internet searches for What To Do When...

When Jack died Brent helped his mother through the process but she was there to say this is where that is, this is who that is, this is what we have. I didn't have to do this when my mother and father died. My siblings handled everything. And there wasn't as much to handle. No house or car to deal with. It all just moved from Dad to Mom then from Mom to them. But still there was all of the paperwork. And we will have all of the paperwork but not sure how to get all of the forms when the city is shut down.

It's a challenge.

But there is nothing to do but put our heads down and deal with it.

It's also the undoing of all of our own social isolating, and distancing. We are flying. We are going to be in contact with multiple people. We are going to be out and about instead of tucked up safely at home. We can't keep ourselves away from others so we are going to have to be super careful to try not to spread the virus. So the Corora Chronicles are meeting the Grief Chronicles again. In the worst possible way.

I don't know if they will automatically test her for Covid or if they will just put the cause of death down as natural causes. We could ask for an autopsy but the medical examiner let us know that they are facing a large backlog and without the police pushing for one we would be looking at a long time before it was done. I don't think Brent has the stomach to wait. We will never actually know what her last moments were like no matter what happens, so I think we will go with died suddenly with no struggle.

So we've got the points of reference again. Jack (Brent's father) had a massive heart attack and died very young when we were not expecting it and it was awful. My father died after years of being sick and in ailing health and we were expecting it and it was awful. My mother died at the end of a long illness, when she decided to die, we waited for her to pass for a month expecting it every day, and it was awful. Brent's mother was fine when we talked to her just two weeks ago and now she's gone, and it's awful.

There is no way to lose a parent that isn't awful.

And again, for anyone playing along at home who has been confused all of this time about my stance on Covid only being deadly for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, fuck anyone who says that like it makes it not so bad. It's awful. She was in the high risk group. It looks right now like she caught the virus. It doesn't feel okay that it happened. It feels like we lost her decades before we expected to. So fuck anyone who says that.

I had no idea yesterday when I said I was mourning that I was just starting.

Brent has joined the adult orphan club and Christopher has become someone with no living grandparents and it's awful.

It's just awful.

The Corona Chronicles...Meet the Grief Chronicles...

It's been a rough weekend for sure.

I wrote the latest installment of the grief chronicles on Friday and thought, well whew, made it through the hard part.

And then it got harder.

And I feel selfish saying it like this because clearly it's not harder for me, not really but...

After posting my blog and moving along with the day I heard from a friend that her mother passed.

Well fuck.

So her grief is new and mine was all stirred up and our other friend whose father passed earlier in the week and it was his funeral (I'll be back to this again) was Friday and it was just a black pool of misery.

And all of that would have been hard no matter what, the first year is the roughest. No matter that mom was ready to go. No matter that we are 8 months down the road. No matter that both of my friend's parents were also elderly and ill and ready for a bit of peace as well. All of it still would have been hard. But we've got the extra layer now.

My friend who lost her father held his funeral on Friday. But because of the time we live in and the restrictions on size of gatherings and the travel restrictions, it was small. Only a few of their family members could attend. Only a handful could get that closure. That final moment. It's hard.

My friend whose mother passed? Well her mother lived in the States and my friend lives in Canada. Travel is restricted. And if she had gone ahead and traveled anyway when her mother's health really started failing she would have had to stay in isolation for two weeks until she could have seen her. Which wouldn't have been enough time. So she would have been in isolation not seeing her instead of at home not seeing her. And there will be no funeral. Not yet. Because the family would all need to to travel to New York (where her mother will be interred) from all over. So until they can travel there is no funeral at all. Just waiting.

You all know how I feel about that from when we did it.

Yes, you have to do it sometimes, this time especially, but it sucks so much.

So this has been a low level grief buzz weekend. Sometimes breaking out into big fat tears WHUFF gut punch grief weekend.

And then the pissed as fuck at people who have decided that they shouldn't have to stay home anymore because FREEDOM.

It started with astroturf campaigns. The fake protests designed to look like grass roots efforts. They are generally started and sponsored by a small handful of players. And then if they take hold they explode. This one started small, the media loved it so much they gave a few hundred people a ton of air time and then it actually started to get bigger.

Because appealing to people's better natures only works if they have a better nature.

Okay, maybe that's not totally fair, but it is part of it. What these seeded posts and protests are working on is turning going out into an act of freedom and staying in as some sort of communist thing. I'm not sure why taking care of other people is always labeled as communist and socialist instead of just being good humans but my guess is because it sounds like a bad thing if you do the former.

There are posts about how it's actually selfish to stay home because we are still dependent on the workers who are keeping things running so by staying home we are protecting ourselves at their expense. Except that doesn't make sense. I have friends who work in grocery stores and Target/Wal-Mart type places. They have been determined essential workers (put a pin in that one as well) and so have had to go to work daily. I am so grateful for them that they are there. I try and listen to them when they talk about how scared they are and provide whatever comfort I can. Because they are scared. People in their stores and in other stores are getting sick. Because they have to have contact with people every day.

I stay home between visits. I don't go out until I've passed enough time to be pretty sure (though the time lines keep changing) that I'm not carrying the virus. The only one I'm endangering by going out is me. I go out one day, I buy what I need and I go back home. I'm not out daily contacting different people and going to different places. I'm doing my best to keep you all safe. Because if I get it, I will be sick and sad that I'm sick, but if I get you sick? Especially when I can prevent spreading the germs easily? Well then I'm devastated.

Except the people who want to be able to move about freely don't really care about that. Their response is "If you are so worried stay home." Which is so fucking much like anti-vaxxer "logic" it pisses me off. Yes, if I stay home I'm safe. But if you go out to three different places every day and contact all of those people then as soon as you get infected you are spreading it to multitudes. Multitudes who are only out because you couldn't sit your ass at home. It's not about if I'm safe, it's about other people being safe. I am doing what I can to make sure the people I interact with when I have to get things, are safe from ME. I wear a mask now to protect them. We need to do our best to protect those that are the most at risk. And the people working in essential services are the most at risk.

Movie theaters, salons, tattoo parlors, seating areas inside restaurants, none of this is something you NEED. These are things you want. But if you force them open then the people who work there HAVE to go to work or they lose their benefits. Understand this part. The government wanting to open things up because of the economy doesn't just mean some sort of altruistic we want small businesses to succeed sort of thing, it's we don't want to pay unemployment and we for sure don't want to pay the extra amount we've been paying for the Corona shutdowns. They want to stop providing for people.

This whole the economy is crashing rhetoric is bullshit. We have the money in the United States to take care of everyone. We always have. We have the ability to get everyone under decent health care. We always have. We've just not made that choice. And now that we are seeing that it would be better to make that choice the powers that be are doing everything they can to blur that vision for you. To once again convince you that taking care of people who are in need is a bad thing.

It's not. We can take care of the people who need it. We just need to be a little less selfish.

And for fuck's sake stop whining about how you're essential too! Honestly, this one about did my head in the first time I saw it. (And it's not gotten better) If this isn't some sort of bullshit I don't know what is. You want to be an essential worker? Fine, go get a job in one of the essential industries like food service or healthcare. Just because you want to say my job is essential to my family making money doesn't mean the same thing and you fucking know it. Stop feeling hurt because someone else got a title you didn't. Assholes...

Stop being selfish. You are just being asked to stay home for awhile longer while we keep the number of infected down. Don't run out to carry the virus from location to location because it's in America it should be free to make anyone sick it wants to...

And maybe, just maybe, you can help save a few people from blending their corona chronicles and their grief chronicles as well.

Stay home.
Stay safe.
Assume the first person you come in to contact with has the virus and then imagine how far you would spread it from them during your day.