Itinerant Air-Cooled

My mom died two days ago. I am very relieved that she is free of the sarcophagus of that hospital bed.
Our relationship spanned a continuum from silly giggles to the darkest stoniest thunderclouds, whoa you better believe it.
I loved my mother like a child, as a child, of course with every cell of my being.
I bring her to you today through me. Her love of music and art and beauty courses through my blood every second of every day. Her demand for real excellence, it is in me, too. So is her razor-sharp well-informed politics. Her astonishing sensitivity, which I did not experience as her child, was readily apparent with her bottomless love of our cats and our dogs, who by the way, were well-behaved because that is exactly what you do if you are going to be in her company. I will not even touch upon the shattered sixty year love affair that she shared with my stepfather. I have been blessed by a sharp-edged granite hard gorgeous life, and I have seen true true love up-close. You live on right in here, Mom.
Bye, Mom.

Colin, My condolences on your loss. Free indeed, absent from the body and present with the Lord.

Skip

Colin,

I send condolences and support as you mourn the loss of your mother.

She moves on to the next phase of existence and will now function as your Guardian Angel from the other side.

Peace.

Colin...my condolences and prayers. I’m in CA with my 90 year old Mom who can still drive , fly, and care for herself. I’ve decided she won’t do the latter by herself anymore, so I take the few days of my life to Shepard her between upstate NY and Laguna, soon to be just N.Y.

my mom died this january. i have a complex web of emotions about it, natch, but ultimately, she lived how she wanted to live: lonely reading books. that was her happy place and she transmitted that love of books to the other three people in her immediate family, my dad, my brother and i. she also didn’t really like me as a person much, i think she found me obnoxious, like most parents find their teenage and young adult children. but she was a woman who was raised by men and brothers who came first, who bossed her around, who only expected her to have kids when instead she had two kids and four (five??) college degrees. she was smart, not very personable, minimally caring how she came across to other people, but overwhelmingly concerned about how she came across to herself. i’m still processing but really, she died to me many years ago and i have just been processing this entire life what it means to have parents anyway. to some people, everything. to me...not sure yet.

chachi wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:49 am

my mom died this january. i have a complex web of emotions about it, natch, but ultimately, she lived how she wanted to live: lonely reading books. that was her happy place and she transmitted that love of books to the other three people in her immediate family, my dad, my brother and i. she also didn’t really like me as a person much, i think she found me obnoxious, like most parents find their teenage and young adult children. but she was a woman who was raised by men and brothers who came first, who bossed her around, who only expected her to have kids when instead she had two kids and four (five??) college degrees. she was smart, not very personable, minimally caring how she came across to other people, but overwhelmingly concerned about how she came across to herself. i’m still processing but really, she died to me many years ago and i have just been processing this entire life what it means to have parents anyway. to some people, everything. to me...not sure yet.

I remember once upon a time thinking that the loss of my parents would be unbearable. It is not unbearable.
I had to actively make myself free of my parents many years prior to their deaths. Then I could tell them easily (without it being some deep betrayal of my self), that I loved them. And I did, I do, I will continue to love them, but good lord the road was long and rocky, it really was. I didn't get free until my 50's.
Colin

I was lucky, my parents set me free at 20. I’m a bit horrified at how callously I went into the world without thinking about them, but I married Irish Italian and had family responsibility beaten into me by example.

I was lucky to spend some years in my early 20s on a farm in Alden NY with a family of 12 which was also later very formative

Abscate wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:06 pm

A) free at 20. I’m a bit horrified at how callously I went into the world without thinking about them,

B) early 20s on a farm in Alden NY with a family of 12 which was also later very formative

a) Well, nature has birds falling out of nests, "bye! hope you fly!"

b) Sounds intriguing ... later formative?
Colin