Post 2871 - A Death In The Family

My mother died earlier this evening.

After I finished the previous blog post, I called her. She had been sick with some kind of flu. She sounded disoriented, the way someone who has a high fever can sound. But she didn't have a fever. She had been given some antibiotics and some other things.

Anyway, I spoke to her. She told me that she had got the latest Frank today and had read my column. We rang off, for what turned out to be the final time. I called my older sister and told her what I just told you. She called Mom and then called me back, reporting that she had heard Mom sounding worse and that I was perhaps worrying for nothing.

I tried to call my mother a second time, and there was no pick up. Maybe she was in the washroom. Called back a few minutes later. Nothing. Called a third time. No response.

Shortly after 9pm, I got a call from a nurse or something from the nursing home, who reported that my mother was nonresponsive, and that they couldn't find a pulse. I told them to do whatever they had to do. I called my sisters, and then waited. By 9:20 or so, the nurse called back to say that she had passed.

The last couple of hours have been a flurry of phone calls to my sisters, to other relatives, and so on. I have been doing it all by rote, as if I were reciting my times tables or listing the exceptions to the "i before e except after c" rule. I haven't cried. I am not denying reality. I know that my mother is dead. Maybe I am in shock to the point where it hasn't sunk in yet. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know.

In the morning, we will pack up the car, and the cat, and drive down to the Valley to begin to prepare for the funeral. We will sit around and talk about our mother, and gradually the news will hit that she is gone, and that we have to move on.

A couple of years ago, she asked me to deliver the eulogy at her funeral. I will do that. After that, maybe I will give myself permission to cry.

I just don't feel it yet.

Bye for now.

Bevboy