The bad news
The bad news is that SB's mother died suddenly during our London visit. It's hard to describe the emotional impact of this. The logistical impact is that we bought last-minute tickets round-trip between London and Louisville, KY in order to organize and participate in her funeral. I have a lot of complicated feelings I want to talk about, but I keep trying to write them and not writing anything, so I just don't think I'm ready yet.
As a bit of nice fortune, we were able to buy the burial plot beside SB's younger brother. She wanted to be laid to rest near him. I don't personally visit graveyards, and I think I would prefer to be cremated myself, but this was something she wanted, so it feels good to be able to do it. This line between what we do because it mattered to our lost loved one and what we do because it matters to the people left behind is a strange one.
We'd told her about the baby, but SB had asked her to keep it secret until we got into the safer second trimester. Apparently, what she did was tell everyone she knew and swear them individually to secrecy. We announced it while we were there, and I was flooded with exclamations of relief that the word was finally out. In different circumstances, we might be annoyed, though we'd probably never have known. These were her people, and she would have taken the responsibility of talking to each one of them if things had gone badly so that we never got word. As it is, it feels good that she got to express her excitement. And it was good to have something happy to talk about as a counterpoint to all the loss.
Now we're back in London to finish our visit. I'm wrung out and trying to figure out what exactly I need to heal. SB has been amazing. My role was really to be a support to him. He held himself together, got everything done, stood up under the flood of condolences from dozens of people he barely knew, and made great strides in settling her effects. I mostly just held his hand while he did it, and that in itself was enormous.
This isn't the musing I'd intended to write, but it seems to be what I have to write. I'll hopefully revisit this later to try to capture some of my deeper impressions.
As a bit of nice fortune, we were able to buy the burial plot beside SB's younger brother. She wanted to be laid to rest near him. I don't personally visit graveyards, and I think I would prefer to be cremated myself, but this was something she wanted, so it feels good to be able to do it. This line between what we do because it mattered to our lost loved one and what we do because it matters to the people left behind is a strange one.
We'd told her about the baby, but SB had asked her to keep it secret until we got into the safer second trimester. Apparently, what she did was tell everyone she knew and swear them individually to secrecy. We announced it while we were there, and I was flooded with exclamations of relief that the word was finally out. In different circumstances, we might be annoyed, though we'd probably never have known. These were her people, and she would have taken the responsibility of talking to each one of them if things had gone badly so that we never got word. As it is, it feels good that she got to express her excitement. And it was good to have something happy to talk about as a counterpoint to all the loss.
Now we're back in London to finish our visit. I'm wrung out and trying to figure out what exactly I need to heal. SB has been amazing. My role was really to be a support to him. He held himself together, got everything done, stood up under the flood of condolences from dozens of people he barely knew, and made great strides in settling her effects. I mostly just held his hand while he did it, and that in itself was enormous.
This isn't the musing I'd intended to write, but it seems to be what I have to write. I'll hopefully revisit this later to try to capture some of my deeper impressions.