If I Were A Rich Girl

This is probably not heading where you think it is.  I wrote my mother’s obituary and it appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch and the Mechanicsville Local.  When I talked to the paper they asked me if I wanted them to send a copy of their pricing guidelines and I said no, that it didn’t matter.  I basically knew what I wanted to write.  I wasn’t going to go crazy overboard but I also wasn’t going to skimp.  That simple obituary cost me $478.  I don’t regret it, not for one moment.  I have some feelings about obituaries being classified as “ads” but I digress... I understand why they make it cost prohibitive.  Otherwise we would have novels for obituaries. But how do you summarize someone’s life in just a few, short lines?  So here are some of the stories and details I would have put in her obituary if I were a rich girl.

My mom was a dancer.  She took a lot of dance classes when she was young.  My grandmother worked in a car dealership and my grandpa was a coal miner.  My grandma sewed a lot of the dance costumes to save on the cost of dance classes for my mom.  School was never really her thing.  According to my dad, she just didn’t feel like doing the work.  (I may or may not have been worried he got me and my mom confused in that moment but...) She moved to (possibly) New York (dad can’t exactly remember and I am not sure I ever knew) to be a flight attendant.  She didn’t make it through flight attendant school, she said it wasn’t for her.  She left there to be a typist for the CIA.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my momma worked for the CIA.  She worked for them during the race riots in DC.  She told me she remembers bomb sniffing dogs having to inspect the buses before anyone was allowed to get on one.  She remembered watching some of the city burn from her building.  Which, oddly enough, brings me to how my parents met.

My dad was working at a drug store in Northern Virginia.  It also had a 100 seat cafeteria.  My mom was a frequent customer there though she had not seen my dad.  She was in her secret floor when she looked out and noticed the air conditioner on the roof of the drug store was on fire.  She called down to the store and my dad answered.  My mom always told me she thought he sounded cute but my dad recently relayed the opposite, that he thought she sounded nice.  Maybe it was both.  But he told my mom to introduce herself the next time she was in there and he would buy her lunch.  So I guess that was their first “date”?  But soon after, my dad took her over into Georgetown for a proper first date.  He went into work the next day and told his employees that he was gonna marry her.  It is unclear to me what happened in the months between that date and when they got married.  Both of my parents are extremely tight lipped about the engagement story.  I can only assume it was something sexual and gross that I don’t want to know about.  This fact (that my parents won’t tell how it went down) was brought out at the meeting with the pastor to plan mom’s service.  My brother had no idea.  But anyway, one other thing that was brought up at the planning of the service was the fact that my parents always had good communication. When they were dating, my parents would sit on the balcony of my dad’s apartment and just talk for hours.  Often my mom would look at her watch and say “oh crap it’s 2am!”

In any event, my parents were married in Arlington Temple UMC in Arlington on April 14, 1973.  They lived in Seminary Towers Apartments.  My dad’s former boss kept trying to get him to move to Richmond but because of my mom’s job, he declined.  One day my mom came home from work and calmly said to my dad that they had 2 choices.  Move to Richmond or move to Turkey.  Mom had been with the agency 5 years and they said it was time to move her.  Of course she declined and they moved to Richmond.  They lived in a townhouse on the West End because they weren’t sure they would like the town.  They decided to settle in Mechanicsville.  The doctors told my mom she wouldn’t have kids so they bought a tiny house on Fullview Ave in downtown Mechanicsville.  It had all the space they needed and it allowed them to pursue their love of going to the beach often.  They paid $29,000 for that house and were told they were “crazy” for spending that much on a house in Mechanicsville.  At some point, my dad became a paramedic with East Hanover Volunteer Rescue Squad and my mom became a dispatcher.

My brother was born in 1980 and then I was born in 1984.  It became clear that the little house on Fullview wasn’t going to work any more.  They decided to build a house which is the house mom died in.  They had requested a bay window in the front but the builder didn’t think my parents would get the financing so the builder went with what the other couple interested in buying the house wanted: two windows in the living room and not a bay window.  Once my brother and I were born, my mom took odd jobs around town but never held anything really steady.  She devoted her life to us and dad.  I have a lot of fond memories of my mom picking us up from the bus stop and taking us to McDonalds or we’d come home and there would be a scavenger hunt waiting for us.  Mom was really creative and she had a lot of talents that she kept hidden.  Some of my fondest memories of her were when she took me and Cory to Kings Dominion.  She had an adventurous spirit, she rode the scary rides with me.  One fateful day in particular, she convinced me to ride Diamond Falls with her.  She had no idea (or so she said) that the drop at the end was so steep.  I was so scared and she just rolled with laughter (and apologized).  She also chaperoned my chorus trip to Disney.

Speaking of choir, she was a huge music fan.  She played saxophone in the marching band and even appeared in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when she was in high school.  We definitely didn’t agree on most music.  She loved Big Band and Van Halen.  There really wasn’t anything in between.  She also loved NASCAR for reasons unknown to me.  She also loved animals.  She never met a dog she didn’t like.  She was always taking care of stray animals too.

In the coming weeks and months I am sure more and more memories will come flooding back.  And I will do my best to write them all.  It’s cathartic and I want to remember it all.  Thanks to the Coronavirus I have plenty of time to write and reflect.  But for now, that is chapter 1 of my momma.

Cry and the Whole World Cries With You

I know that’s not the saying, it’s supposed to be “laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone”.  But there is something interesting about grief when the entire world shuts down.  Tongue in cheek, my mom *would* die right in the midst of a global pandemic.  That way everyone has to stop and mourn her.  I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days.  Part of me is glad that life is different right now and the other part of me is scared shitless.

I am fortunate to have experienced relatively low levels of grief in my life.  Everyone has died in order and my grandparents died in their 80s.  But one thing I know about grief is how freaking hard it is when people are just walking around, living their lives when for you, time is standing still.  Laughter is piercing because you are falling apart inside and everyone else is living like they have no cares in the world.  You want to scream at everyone that they need to be more sensitive to you and your grief but you also know how insane that sounds.

But for now, the world is feeling what I am feeling.  Grief, uncertainty, anxiety.  There is no more “normal”.  As time goes on we will adjust to the new normal.  And truth to tell, I am not sure whether I find comfort or discomfort in all of this.

The Things I Said to My Dead Mother

I hope to God that this is the most morbid post I ever make.  8 days ago my mother dropped dead of a probably massive heart attack.  My brother was with his daughter at the father daughter dance and my dad had run to the store to pick up dinner and came home and found her on the floor.  The paramedics worked on her for 30 minutes and never got her pulse back.  I was at home with Chris when my dad called.  Time stood still.  I don’t enjoy reliving the trauma of that night but I want to preserve these memories.  I never in a million years thought that I would be burying my mom when I was 35.  She had me at 38.  She didn’t even live long enough for me to get to the age she was when I was born.  I had just talked to her a few hours before.  She had a cold but other than that she was normal.  In some ways I take comfort in that. As hard as it is, I am reminding myself that I didn’t have to see her deteriorate any more than she had.  I never had an experience where she didn’t know who I was.  I never had to make tough medical choices for her.  I didn’t have to worry about bankrupting myself or any other family members by having to have around the clock care for her.  But with that said, this really, really, really sucks.  The corona virus is spreading, things are uncertain, and all I want to do is talk to my mom.

One of the things that hurt the most is that I didn’t get to say goodbye.  We met with the funeral home on Monday.  The guy had a confederate flag lapel pin and a Hampden Sydney College coffee mug.  I thought to myself that I could not possibly hate this man more than I currently did.  I will think you kindly to refrain from telling me how you feel about the confederate flag, that is not the point of my post.  He offered to write my mom’s obituary and I quick, fast, and in a hurry said I would.  Even without the pin and the mug, I still would have a lot of feelings about someone who had never met my mom writing her obituary.  He asked if any of us wanted to be present when she was cremated.  I stayed quiet because I was worried that would be my only chance to see her.  But as it turns out, we had to “identify the body”.  We all broke down when we saw her.  My dad and my brother didn’t want to stay.  They wanted to remember her as she was.  And I certainly don’t fault them for that.  I pulled up and chair and sat by her.  Of course she didn’t look exactly like my mom, she was bloated and discolored but she was still my mom.  Sitting with her was one of the hardest things I have ever done but I am so glad I did it.  Again, that is not a slight to my dad or brother.  It is just that for me it brought some closure and for me, it was the right thing to do.  As best I can remember, I am going to write the things I said to her.

Hi Mommy.  You look so peaceful there.  Your hair looks good so I know you’d be excited by that.  I’m sorry for the way I’m dressed.  I can hear you now “is that really what you’re wearing?!” Ariel came and helped me pack and I didn’t think to pack anything that wasn’t lounge clothes or a dress.  And if you had such a strong opinion on my clothes, you shouldn’t have died on me.  Fuck.  Sorry for my language. But you Really have no one else to blame for that other than you.  I wasn’t ready for you to go and I know you probably are sitting there saying “huh. Tell me about it”.  It doesn’t feel real.  It just looks like you are sleeping and will wake up at any moment.  I am not sure how I am supposed to go on.  I am not sure how to carry on without you.  I’m not ready to be motherless.  I don’t know what I am supposed to do with all the love I have for you.  Where do I put it?  Who do I call multiple times a day?  Who do I send photos of roadside potatoes to?  I told Andie.  She’s beside herself.  We all are.  Chris drove me down.  He’s a good guy, momma.  I definitely lucked out there.  I know you did the best you could.  You were a good mom.  And now that I work every day and come home, I totally understand why you got mad when we didn’t take the chicken out of the freezer or clean while you were gone.  I know your main concern is daddy.  I promise to take care of him.  I know you worry about him and truth to tell, I do too.  But I will take care of him and make sure he’s ok.  He’s got a good support system.  And I do too.  We are going to go on without you but I don’t want to.  I never imagined the when we talked on Saturday and I was almost hit by that car that that would be our last conversation.  There’s so much I wanted to know about you and now I will never get that chance.  I know you always thought less of yourself because you didn’t go to college but I will tell you the truth, you are one of the smartest people I ever met.  And I mean that.  Shit momma. Why did you have to go now?  I am really not ready for this.  I could sit here all day and talk to you but I guess I should probably get going.  Save me a seat in heaven and when I get there, we will judge people’s outfits.  I love you mommy.