(no subject)
I'm back on the European continent.
The last week has been really good in many ways, apart from the inescapable awfulness of my mom's death. There were many things that could have gone differently that would have made everything much worse. On the whole, we were blessed with grace.
I'm an only child, and my parents are divorced, which leaves me as the sole responsible person. It is overwhelming the number of things that you have to decide once a person dies. And the bizarre unfinished business that a person can leave behind. I sorted through everything my mom owned. And I returned my mom's cable box to the cable company and shut off her phone and her utilities. I visited her dogs who had been taken to the local humane society (I have no way to adopt them, which is my biggest regret). I organized a funeral service. It was a good one, although very simple.
We buried my mom on Tuesday, April 1st. We were outside next to the grave site. I played Cat Stevens' If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.
Then I read from one of our spiritual master's texts, about death.
Then I spoke about my mom, and invited other people to do so.
My aunt, my dad, and my mom's best friend (from before I was born) spoke.
I played The Blind Boys of Alabama singing I Shall Not Walk Alone. My dad threw holy water on the coffin. I buried her with some spiritually significant items (of prasad).
And that was it. I cried a lot. I haven't cried very much since, but I'm not sure yet whether I'm just at the low point of the tide or if I really have come through the worst part of the grieving. In any case, I feel more comfortable with the knowledge that my mom is dead. It feels sort of like when you first lose a tooth, and your tongue keeps returning to that spot and probing for it, even though it's gone and the probing hurts, and then after a while the probing stops hurting. And eventually I suppose you get used to the tooth being gone and stop noticing the gap. Right now, though, her death really is at the bottom of everything, just there, sitting and looking back at me whenever I peer down there. It doesn't hurt to look at anymore, but it's still there.
The last week has been really good in many ways, apart from the inescapable awfulness of my mom's death. There were many things that could have gone differently that would have made everything much worse. On the whole, we were blessed with grace.
I'm an only child, and my parents are divorced, which leaves me as the sole responsible person. It is overwhelming the number of things that you have to decide once a person dies. And the bizarre unfinished business that a person can leave behind. I sorted through everything my mom owned. And I returned my mom's cable box to the cable company and shut off her phone and her utilities. I visited her dogs who had been taken to the local humane society (I have no way to adopt them, which is my biggest regret). I organized a funeral service. It was a good one, although very simple.
We buried my mom on Tuesday, April 1st. We were outside next to the grave site. I played Cat Stevens' If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.
Then I read from one of our spiritual master's texts, about death.
Then I spoke about my mom, and invited other people to do so.
My aunt, my dad, and my mom's best friend (from before I was born) spoke.
I played The Blind Boys of Alabama singing I Shall Not Walk Alone. My dad threw holy water on the coffin. I buried her with some spiritually significant items (of prasad).
And that was it. I cried a lot. I haven't cried very much since, but I'm not sure yet whether I'm just at the low point of the tide or if I really have come through the worst part of the grieving. In any case, I feel more comfortable with the knowledge that my mom is dead. It feels sort of like when you first lose a tooth, and your tongue keeps returning to that spot and probing for it, even though it's gone and the probing hurts, and then after a while the probing stops hurting. And eventually I suppose you get used to the tooth being gone and stop noticing the gap. Right now, though, her death really is at the bottom of everything, just there, sitting and looking back at me whenever I peer down there. It doesn't hurt to look at anymore, but it's still there.