This Friday marks the one year anniversary of my mother’s death. This past year I have made the 2 ½ hour drive to her grave on Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas and many times in between. I don’t plan to do this every year, as it seems a bit morbid, but the “first” of anything after the loss of your mother is eventful. My father is 87 years old, and lives in the small town where my mom is buried. I don’t ask him how often he visits her grave, but I would guess it is more often than he will say.
This Friday my husband and I already planned to be with my father, as is my sister from Phoenix. My mother’s only sister, Peggy also planned to come to my family’s home town to be with us Friday as well. The problem for my Aunt Peggy is that her husband who has with cancer, and has been dying for the past year. She received her husband’s diagnosis just a few months after her younger brother had died, and only weeks before her only sister passed away.
Paul, who was a strong, tall and rugged man and I had always had a relationship of banter. At the beginning of his illness he weighed around 235 pounds; he now weighs less than 130. From the time I was 11 years old, we would tease and joke with each other. Not over anything in particular, but pretty much everything; for no reason other than the both of us could take a joke. That continued into my adulthood, and up until he became sick and too weak for it to be fun.
When she told us that her husband had stopped his radiation therapy last week because he was only getting worse, we told her that we would come to Florida and be with Paul and her on Friday. My dad, my husband, my sister and I would drive the 3 hours to her hometown and visit her on the anniversary of her sister’s death. She told me Monday that she was happy that we were willing to do that. She also told me that Paul was in the hospital and his condition was on the decline. There were times in this past year that they had been hopeful of his recovery, but in recent weeks the news was grim.
I received a call earlier today from my Aunt Peggy telling me that Paul died this morning. My heart aches for Peggy. In the past 18 months, she has lost the brother with whom she was closest, and her only sister who had been both a sister and a mother to her. Now she has lost her husband of 44 years.
Tonight I will finish packing to head south tomorrow for our visit. Instead of visiting with my and uncle, we will be attending Paul’s funeral exactly one year to the day of my mother’s death. It wasn’t how we had planned to spend the first anniversary of my mother’s death, but we will spend it together nonetheless. Thinking of my aunt and her heartache has helped take my mind off of my own selfish feelings of grief. I can only imagine how it would feel; watching my husband die before me, and the helplessness that must accompany the sadness.
This Friday will not be about me, or about my reliving the morning of July 16, 2009. This Friday will be about my attempt to bring comfort to someone else. My grief will be redirected, away from myself for someone my mother dearly loved; her only sister.
Paul, may you rest in peace.
Copyright 2010: joyonboard
Photo: personal library; sunset, Orange Beach, AL
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Comments
I am so sorry.
Sending you mega hugs
I'm so sorry for your Aunt Peggy. When my husband of 33 years died almost 11 years ago, I felt like my own life was over. A huge chunk of my identity died with him. He'd been ill for almost 5 years before he died and I was his primary (and often only) caregiver. So I have some idea of how Peggy is feeling right now. Please tell her for me that it does get better, the overwhelming feelings of loss and sadness (mixed with just a smidgin of relief, which adds guilt to the mix) will dissipate but only real time does that. There's no way to hurry the process.
I wish you and your family a safe trip. No, it isn't the way you'd planned to spend the time but it's important that you're there for Peggy. One day her good memories of her time with her husband will overshadow the sadness. Promise.
Rated. D
Blessings and prayers with you and your family.
~ I feel much better about tomorrow; to spend the day focusing on her and not swimming in a stew of self pity, or something.~
They tell me, you are on the right path. And now you can help her find that path, too. (((R)))
I didn't expect to grieve over my mother's death. We had a terrible relationship. But in fact grief hit me like a tidal wave at her memorial service, and a year later I had not completely shaken it. Then sadly, another death in the family finally displaced it.
I have begun to understand the wisdom embedded in the old traditions of observing a year of formal mourning for a family member. It really does take that long to get through the process, and having a specified time to remove the weeds of mourning does help one to finally move on.
~R~
My brother in law lost his Mother, Grandmother, and Father within 6 months time. I marvel at his strength. I hope that you can find some peace and I think that your writing is a beautiful tribute to lives well lived. Don't worry ever that you sound morbid or whiney.
Like your aunt, my father endured the dubious distinction of being the "last man standing" among the mainstay of his dearest peers, by sole virtue of continuing to live. He lost his beloved life partner, my mother, nine years before him. Her death came after nearly two decades of debilitating and progressive coronary-artery disease that was responsible for a host of ills and invasive interventions, including two heart-attacks, two bypass surgeries, multiple related surgeries, the loss of ability to walk beyond 10 feet, two strokes, nine years of mild diminished capacity resulting from the first stroke, and more hospital admissions, ER visits, rides in ambulances, and sundry indignities and humiliations that inescapably accompany protracted death, than any of us could begin to count. My father stood by her through all of it, and fought hard as her advocate to obtain the best medical care, the latest in treatments and procedures offering life-extending possibilities, and whatever comforts he could provide to improve her quality of life. He used his considerable skills as an investigative journalist to research and acquire all such options. When all the available medical interventions had been exhausted, and they both knew the end was approaching, he concentrated his energies on filling the time left to her with pleasures and joys, some big, some small. They had loved traveling, and when her illness precluded the rigorous adventures they had typically enjoyed, my father arranged dozens of luxury cruises for them, affording them taking in new sights and experiences in the most relaxed manner travel can be. When even that exceeded her energies, he took her to movies every day, and out to dine at fine--sometimes exotic--restaurants, pastimes she had relished with special delight. He made sure she saw lots of friends and kept busy with enjoyable activities. He retired early from a job he loved to have as much time with her as possible, and to insure she had proper support at home. He moved them into a lakefront high-rise where her sister lived so that she could be closer to family and friends, and where she could swim every day in the building's indoor pool. There is no doubt in the minds of any of us that our mother lived far longer than she would have if not for all our father did.
Mom, who was a courageous, strong, mostly upbeat and uncomplaining person, bore the hardships of her illness a lot better than dad. My father's vigilance in keeping his wife alive and in comfort succeeded for a long time, but not without considerable cost to himself. He was exhausted and depleted by his heroic efforts, and it took a steep toll on his physical and emotional energies. He gave in frequently to outbursts of frustration, and an anguish that too often expressed itself in rage, as he lashed out at the adversities that had befallen them.
When my mother died, almost 10 years ago now (next month), dad had to adjust to life without of his companion of more than 60 years, counting their courtship. His own health declined, yet he remained standing as he watched a streaming parade of friends and former colleagues pass before him. He watched their painful declines, sorrowed in their confusions, attended a lot of funerals, wrote a lot of condolence notes to widows or widowers, adult children of lost friends, made phone calls to spread the word of a new passing, until there were few left to call. At lunch with him once he remarked to me on the irony he saw in outliving so many of his former contemporaries, saying, "Who would have thought *I* would be the one to live the longest? I never imagined my odds would be so good." He was referring, I knew, to the hard way he had driven his body throughout his life, verging sometimes on real punishment. I couldn't think of anything to say, as all of us who knew him had wondered the same thing.
In his last years, advancing blindness and sharply decreased mobility, owing to arthritic knees and a damaged heart that left him winded with every step, began shrinking the walls of his world around him with a terrifying speed, until it was a very small one, with not many people left in it. He lost his ability to read or use the computer, which were his favorite recreations. But he replaced visual reading with audio books from the public library, and called people to look things up for him on the internet. In the last year, I began reading to him as often as I could from magazines he liked that were not available in audio. This "service" of mine provided unexpected benefits, which was the forging of a deeper bond between us, father and daughter, and a new appreciation of each other that we had not really recognized previously. It was a surprise and a true pleasure to both of us, and a privilege to me for which I am profoundly grateful every day since my father's death.
The end came a year ago today when his battered and embattled body decided it was time to quit. There were no wrenching decisions for anyone to make. Dad's body made them all for us, so that we could turn our energies completely toward ushering him gently and lovingly from this world to which he had brought all of us, to give him the proper and dignified he deserved so richly.
Joyonboard, you and I share an original intent, which was to visit the gravesides of our departed parents. For me, this would be edge of a great pier that delineates a beautiful harbor at the breast of my city's spectacular lake (one of the Great ones). That's where we scattered his ashes, as he had requested, so that his essence could join my beloved mother's, where dad had scattered them nine years before. But I commend you for doing instead an even more meaningful and fitting tribute to your mother on this first anniversary of her death by bringing solace and support to her beloved sister at this time of immeasurable loss. You know she would be there if she could be---and she will be, through you.
My father lived to almost 89, and as much as I continue to grieve for his loss every day, I know I should be rejoicing the full and remarkable life he lived. It truly was a remarkable and rewarding life. We all know he felt that way, and it's true. I thank you joyonboard, because in reading your entry and replying to it, you have revealed to me the best way I can remember dad today, on the anniversary of his passing. Dad was a writer, and a damn good one. Writing about him, as I have here, is the finest way to honor him, his life, his spirit, and the multitude of gifts he's given me, both material and (even more so) intangible, that to continue magically to flow to and from my life each day...and perhaps always will. My sincere sympathies to you, joyonboard, for your many losses, and my thanks too. You have helped me compose the very tribute I wanted to write today.
Many blessings to you, and your family. Take care.
Blow me a kiss if you pass thru monkey town. I'll catch it and send it back.
Sorry, so sorry, for you to endure another loss, and much love to you and your family
Lezlie
You share your feelings with dignity and grace. Your place is to provide her comfort, if not in words, simply because you are present. This is one of the hard moments, and I have no reference points to even compare. May your family be well.
Raney