Funerals

When my daddy died, my mom was so sick from chemo we had to put off his funeral. The plan was to have a viewing, funeral, then have him cremated. Instead, he was cremated the day after he passed. I am ok with not having the viewing. My last memory of my dad, while isn't the most ideal, it was of him alive. He talked about being baptized in the South China Sea, how he was excited to see his own father when he passed, and just how much he loved me. He was weak, sick and in pain but, he was alive and able to talk.

The days beyond until the funeral were miserable. Something about the funeral is the first step of the walk of "letting go". Every day I had to ask mom when she would be ready. Her doctors said she could do it physically, mentally she would never be ready. Finally I got her to let me plan the funeral and set the day for October 14th. I set up the music, preachers, bagpiper, and wrote my own eulogy to my daddy.

The hardest part of all of it was getting up there and paying tribute. Not that I didn't want to, but facing the fact I was talking about wonderful things I would never experience with him again. My daddy was my closest and dearest friend. He was my rock and my north star, the voice in my head, the reason I believe in myself. I will never be ready to say goodbye.

That's something I have had to learn to live with. Let me tell you, I don't remember much about the 1 day of visitation and the funeral aside from the bagpipes setting off all the hearing aids (which was so funny and something daddy would have thoroughly enjoyed) and my mom almost passing out. It was a packed house but I was a zombie, completely numb to anything but my own screaming distraught little girl inside wanting her daddy back.

In the coming days mom's cancer spread and her condition worsened. In May I quit my job and called in Hospice. Never do we plan to clean our parents and wipe their butts... but sometimes its what we have to do. No matter how much I bathed my mom, the smell of decay hung to her like the cancer that would not die. She quit eating, quit drinking, and for 4 weeks clung to life rarely awake.

I sat there day to day and cried, held her hand and asked her what was I going to do? Even at her weakest she would squeeze my hand and tell me, "You are going to be okay, you are ready, it will be fine". The day before she died she had her last visit from her closet and longest friend. As I followed them out of her room, she grabbed my hand opened her eyes and spoke for the first time in a week. "I love you so much, so so much". She closed her eyes and never opened them again.

For mom that was the end. She died the next day. After the funeral home came to get her, I got ready and drove to Lebanon to tell my kids. Again, I felt like I was 5 steps behind my body. I was numb, couldn't think, just functioning enough to hold my babies while I delivered the news. Two deaths in under a year. How would I hold it together for them?

The next day was the first visitation and mom wanted a viewing so she had not been cremated yet. That is one wish I shouldn't have granted. It's a memory I wish I could etch off my brain. Hearing people say,"She looks good" just made me think ... what part of looking dead looks good? I know there really is no good thing to say and its something that makes everyone uncomfortable. For two days I stood by her casket not budging receiving condolences and dreading the funeral.

The day of her funeral, as I did for daddy, I gave my moms eulogy. It was easier to do hers because I took a Xanax, lol don't judge me. Another packed house, my parents were not short on people who loved and adored them. Most of what I remember is the kids and I saying good bye and kissing her forehead before they closed the casket. Her shell was hollow and at that point so was my heart.

A week later I got her ashes, I placed them by daddies and planned my ash scattering tour. They had a list of places they wanted their ashes to be released, and my mission was to visit them all. The coming days in that first year were brutal.