We Weren't Done [June 21, 2016]

I wrote this in the days after my mother died in 2016 but never hit publish.  I'm hitting publish now, because I don't want to lose it.
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I sat down earlier today to write my mother's obituary and I couldn't do it.  I pulled up templates and googled "good obituaries" and found lots of suggestions, but no help.  I could list my mother's family, her place of birth, her death - but it was the life in between, what could I say?  Too much.  There is too much to say.  So I walked away from it and like I have done many times and for many things during this last week and asked for help - Joel wrote her obituary for the paper. He did a wonderful job. But it was mine to do. And I couldn't do it.

The thing about writing an obituary is that it's a place to list your earthly accomplishments, which in my mother's case was easy - first in her family to go to college, first in her family to get a Master's Degree, first to get a PhD.  She owned her own business.  She raised a daughter. She moved from Knoxville to Kentucky to pursue her dream of being a college professor.  She was loved everywhere she went.  And then.  And then. And then she was diagnosed with MS.  Twenty three years she lived with her MS.  And at the end of that time it could be easy to look at only what she lost - her career, her mobility, her memory, her beautiful handwriting.  But her life was full and I can say that she was content. She had my father, she had Joel and me, she had a small circle of friends and family who saw her on a regular basis here in Nashville. And she had Owen and Sarah.

And as I sit here I'm just floored at how life has turned out. How is it Joel and I have both lost our mothers and that Owen and Sarah have lost their grandmothers.  A life with no Grandmother in it. The grief tonight is physically unbearable.

I'm trying ro find that grace and peace I felt in the hospital, but now that I'm home and just realizing all the life altering decisions that have been made in the last two days, it's hard. There's no grace or peace on this side of her death.  There's just empty. And pain.

She was only 74.  I say "only" because she comes from a gene pool where the women have long lives.  Her mother, my grandmother was 88 when she passed away. I've heard several times already that is was her time.  She was tired. That she's better off because her struggle is over.  The thing about that is - all those helpful comments make me angry.  Furious. Raged.  People commenting on her struggle who didn't see her contentment. And yes, her life may have looked smaller, more narrow from someone who didn't interact with her on a regular basis, but her life was full. She reveled in her grandchildren,  She may not have known the day of the week or who the President is, but she knew her grandchildren and lit up when she was with them. 

I sat with her by myself for quite a while after she died. I sent everyone home and it was just the two of us.  I wanted to memorize everything about her that I could. Her beautiful hands most of all.  I didn't want to leave her.  I wasn't ready for her to go.  I needed more years of Sunday lunches.  I needed to see Owen take her for a drive in the car.  Watch her watch Sarah graduate from Saint Bernard.  We all needed more hugs, more love, and more time. She was only 74.  We weren't done.