The Definite Article

I've thanked a lot of people over the past few weeks - not everyone, unfortunately, not even half of everyone - but there was someone to whom we can't send a thank you card, or call her, or thank her in person: my mother.

My Dad is eating, and he's sleeping, and he even visited Mark, Mara and Liam in Columbus. He's gone back to work, repaired his car and has steam cleaned the carpets. I love him, I want him to be happy. I don't expect it to be today.

I feel at peace with my farewell. I miss my mother but I'm not sad when I think of her, at least not for her, just sad for me. The choking, incapacitating grief that I thought would leave me unable to work for weeks hasn't come, though I still feel overwhelmed every now and then.

And credit for the averted catastrophe goes largely to my mother.

I don't want to reduce the thanks that should be given to the communities that supported us and her, but she deserves some too. What were some of the things that she did to make our burden lighter?

First, she decided to die. This is a pretty big step. The more I think about it, the bigger it becomes. Most of us don't want to die and my mother was no exception. Nevertheless, it is still inevitable, I think. (Dr. Aubrey de Grey can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) But she made a decision to not to try to live forever.

A lot follows from there. Once she decided that it's unrealistic to believe that she should live forever - or even as long as she wanted - you can begin to plan.

And so she did.

She made it clear how she wanted to die: at home, with her children and her husband. This meant that we all knew that when Maman feels bad, you come home.

We knew not to take her to a hospital.

She had frequent and recurring talks with Hospice. She started talking to Hospice about two and a half years ago and has gone on and off Hospice as it looked like she might live longer than six months or less than six months.

She made a will.

She made a plan - and that plan included dozens of details that we, her family, might have argued about had she not made a plan.

She set aside what she wanted to wear. She ordered her own coffin. She bought a silk shroud. She bought rose oil so that we could wash her with rose oil scented water after she passed. She bought a burial ring.

She made a list of everything that she wanted us to do, and went through it with each of us, gently, from time to time to revise it and update it. We all knew it by heart by the time she passed.

She organized a group of ladies from work and friends to make dinners and bring them over when we lost our motivation to cook.

She had a list of people to call when she passed who were in turn responsible for getting the word out, so that we didn't have to. This was very important to me. The morning after my mother passed away, I only wanted to be with my family.

She had already selected the funeral home, bought her burial plot, selected the mason for her headstone, collected the documents for the mortgage, the bank accounts, her mobile phone plan, the long distance and anything else she remembered.

She made gift boxes for each of us, with final parting gifts in them. She gave me a hand-carved wooden shaving bowl and Quomodo Indvidiosulus nomine Grinchus Christa natalem abrogaverit. Thank you, Maman!

She really thought about us, each one of us, and made her passing as easy for us as she could.

And I'm grateful. I just wish I knew where to send the thank you. I'd deliver it in person.