Like Mom After the Service Ends
WARNING: THIS ONE'S PERSONAL AND EMOTIONAL AND A LITTLE SAD, BUT ALSO NOT
In the past few days my mom has chosen a casket and written a eulogy for her best friend, who had a stroke and died this past weekend. My mom called me Sunday morning and left a message on my cell phone to call her, which meant it was something she wanted to say directly to me. When I called her back she had to say it three times. I couldn't draw the connection realistically between Jill, her best friend, and "dead person". She hadn't even been sick, until the weekend. She's the same age as my mom, I think, 47.
Jill was more than my mom's best friend. Jill's known me all my life and aptly liked to consider herself the "cool aunt" to me and my brother. She's one of the most lively and vibrant people I know. I say that being aware that when people die, the people who talk about them start superfluously using superlatives. But she's deserving; she really was vibrant. A bad mood couldn't stick if Jill was around. Jill sent me bizarre e-mails and hi-tech e-cards (sometimes for the hell of it), called me Honey in a way that was not at all annoying (like it is when most other people call me that), was proud of me for everything thing I did, literally everything. Every year she bought weird toys for me and my brother, often matching. One year she almost knocked over our Christmas tree after drinking too much Goldschlager (pardon me if I misspell). She and my mom spent many weekends together, holding two-person Yahtzee tournaments. It's hard for me to believe a living thing with that much life could suddenly be gone. At the same time I somehow understand why and how this has happened and am not thrashing violently at the heavens for it.
Jill dying has brought two big issues to me. Nobody very close to me has died until now. My grandpa died a few days before I started 4th grade, but I didn't know him really well, maybe because I was young. Grappling with someone close dying is the first and most obvious issue. The second is my view of my mom. In the past few days I've developed vast admiration for her. This is big. From the time I was a freshman in high school through my first year of graduate school--that's a decade--my mom and I didn't get along. In my opinion the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complex and fascinating combinations and one I continue to try to understand better. In two fights I screamed vicious "Fuck you"s at her, which I've always held high on my list of things never to do, a person speaking that way to his or her mom (even if she was being an irresolute bitch).
I was pretty sure I didn't like my mom, and I sure didn't want to be like her. In the past few years, we've gotten along much better, and during this time I've come to see how much I am like her whether I want that or not. My friend Jason once said, after meeting my parents, "I can see how you're like each of your parents: introverted and matter-of-fact like your dad. And crazy like your mom." (He met her on our way back from Detroit to southern Illinois, after he'd been up all night tripping his head off hard. He certifiably has the most contagious laugh I've heard, and when he met my mom he laughed every third word and she laughed to follow and riffed off his jokes in her odd, twisted way, and then more laughing. It was surreal, trippy.) I'll take that. I'll be crazy like my mom, neurotic and laughing at things that aren't socially acceptable to laugh at. And if I ever have to do something as difficult as choose a casket for someone so close to me as Jill is to her and, to top it off, write and deliver a eulogy at his or her funeral, I hope I can have as much emotional poise and grace as my mom has shown. Last night on the phone she read me the eulogy she wrote. It was made of pure, raw, honest heart, and was truly beautiful.
Hats off to Mom. Upon Jill's request, my mom is making sure that the B-52s "Love Shack" will be played after the service ends.
In the past few days my mom has chosen a casket and written a eulogy for her best friend, who had a stroke and died this past weekend. My mom called me Sunday morning and left a message on my cell phone to call her, which meant it was something she wanted to say directly to me. When I called her back she had to say it three times. I couldn't draw the connection realistically between Jill, her best friend, and "dead person". She hadn't even been sick, until the weekend. She's the same age as my mom, I think, 47.
Jill was more than my mom's best friend. Jill's known me all my life and aptly liked to consider herself the "cool aunt" to me and my brother. She's one of the most lively and vibrant people I know. I say that being aware that when people die, the people who talk about them start superfluously using superlatives. But she's deserving; she really was vibrant. A bad mood couldn't stick if Jill was around. Jill sent me bizarre e-mails and hi-tech e-cards (sometimes for the hell of it), called me Honey in a way that was not at all annoying (like it is when most other people call me that), was proud of me for everything thing I did, literally everything. Every year she bought weird toys for me and my brother, often matching. One year she almost knocked over our Christmas tree after drinking too much Goldschlager (pardon me if I misspell). She and my mom spent many weekends together, holding two-person Yahtzee tournaments. It's hard for me to believe a living thing with that much life could suddenly be gone. At the same time I somehow understand why and how this has happened and am not thrashing violently at the heavens for it.
Jill dying has brought two big issues to me. Nobody very close to me has died until now. My grandpa died a few days before I started 4th grade, but I didn't know him really well, maybe because I was young. Grappling with someone close dying is the first and most obvious issue. The second is my view of my mom. In the past few days I've developed vast admiration for her. This is big. From the time I was a freshman in high school through my first year of graduate school--that's a decade--my mom and I didn't get along. In my opinion the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complex and fascinating combinations and one I continue to try to understand better. In two fights I screamed vicious "Fuck you"s at her, which I've always held high on my list of things never to do, a person speaking that way to his or her mom (even if she was being an irresolute bitch).
I was pretty sure I didn't like my mom, and I sure didn't want to be like her. In the past few years, we've gotten along much better, and during this time I've come to see how much I am like her whether I want that or not. My friend Jason once said, after meeting my parents, "I can see how you're like each of your parents: introverted and matter-of-fact like your dad. And crazy like your mom." (He met her on our way back from Detroit to southern Illinois, after he'd been up all night tripping his head off hard. He certifiably has the most contagious laugh I've heard, and when he met my mom he laughed every third word and she laughed to follow and riffed off his jokes in her odd, twisted way, and then more laughing. It was surreal, trippy.) I'll take that. I'll be crazy like my mom, neurotic and laughing at things that aren't socially acceptable to laugh at. And if I ever have to do something as difficult as choose a casket for someone so close to me as Jill is to her and, to top it off, write and deliver a eulogy at his or her funeral, I hope I can have as much emotional poise and grace as my mom has shown. Last night on the phone she read me the eulogy she wrote. It was made of pure, raw, honest heart, and was truly beautiful.
Hats off to Mom. Upon Jill's request, my mom is making sure that the B-52s "Love Shack" will be played after the service ends.
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