It's been 6 weeks. An entire month has passed without her in it. Sigh.
~~~
I'm on spring break right now. Instead of relaxing and regrouping for the last 43 days of school (yes, I am counting down), I've been spending my time at my mom's house packing up her belongs and starting to prepare her house for sale.
It's a heartbreaking thought, really. Aside from the memories and people who love and miss her terribly, her life has been reduced to the contents of a 1500 square foot house. The task has been both infinitely harder than I expected and simultaneously easier. It's...
I don't know.
I do know that here I am going through the things she collected over the years while trying to figure out what they meant to her or why she felt like each particular thing was worthy of keeping. I know so many stories behind the things...but there are so many I do not know. How could I have spoken to her every single day, spent countless hours at her house, and yet know nothing about so much?
There are things I've found that have made me laugh. Her insane amount of undies in her drawer, enough where she could have gone months without washing had she wanted.
Yet, she had gotten rid of so many of the clothes in her closet that she had 12 shirts and a few pairs of jeans she cycled through regularly. Not much else was in her closet clothes wise. I wonder if that was restraint on her part. I know she worried about money. Did she not buy clothing for herself because of that? It makes me sick inside to think that could be the reason.
It has made me think about what my own children will find when they go through my belongings once I've gone. Will they wonder why I have so many damn jackets and purses when I always use the same ones over and over? Will they look at the set of pregnancy tests I've kept and be grossed out rather than sentimental like I am? Probably. Sigh.
~~~
My intention was to do the probate of mom's estate myself, saving a substantial amount of money in the process. I purchased a book that told me how to probate an estate in 132 easy steps. At least it seemed that way. I started the process. I completed several forms, but I was just so stressed about it all that I decided my sanity is worth more than saving money. I went to a lawyer - where I found my paperwork was done correctly, thank you very much - and turned it all over to him. The hearing is in May; I'll be moving forward with selling the house once I've been named executor. (I continue to fly solo on decisions, despite the fact that both my brothers live within a mile of her house. I sure hope that changes, but I don't know that it will.)
~~~
Both of my parents requested to be cremated. Their current happily ever after location is my kitchen table. It's somewhat surreal. I'm not all together comfortable with that location, but I am not sure where to put them. They didn't exactly want their ashes spread anywhere, and I'd have to admit the conversations about cremation never extended to what would happen after. So, there they sit.
I did decide that I am going to have a cremains necklace made for myself. (Funny that the thought of wearing their ashes wigs me out so much less than finding a place in my house for their ashes.) I've also decided to make memorial necklaces for the grandchildren as a gift. Of course, to do this will mean I will have to open the urns to extract the ashes, but I am trying to not think about that part.
~~~
We are all still processing the loss. My knee jerk reaction to call my mom whenever something happens or to just talk has lessened some. It is a little scary to realize that something has happened and that desire to talk to her about it didn't come like before. I miss her terribly, but the tears have stopped (for all of us) for the most part. The sadness isn't quite as crushing as it was a few weeks ago. Progress, I suppose.
Ja.son has selected some mementos from mom's house and has put up several pictures next to his bed, which seems to bring him comfort. He, too, is now able to talk about memories and fun times without the immediate welling of tears, although he still does well up from time to time.
Ja.ck's concept of what is going on has been harder to gauge. He is still so young (just turned 6) and he wasn't as close to grandma as his brothers were. He knows and says that he misses her, but we haven't got a lot more out of him than that.
Sh.awn is the one I am most worried about, in particular because he does have an expressive language delay and it is hard for him to articulate the thoughts he has. He has also never cried, even though, he, too, talked to my mom almost daily, and I think feels this loss on a much deeper level than his brothers because of that. When she first passed, any time we talked about it or mentioned her name, he would suddenly state he wasn't feeling well and needed to go to the doctor. Thankfully, that has passed. Now, he will randomly ask where she is, even though he knows the answer, and tell me that he misses her. He even pretended to call her on the phone the other night to talk. That just about broke my heart, I have to say.
Overall, though, we are as good as you could expect in this kind of situation. We're doing lots of talking, lots of snuggling, and we keep on keeping on.
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