Life After Marie

Today, I sit down to write about what life is like after the death of my mother. In short, it feels a bit empty in some ways, more open in others. The peaks and valleys are not as dramatic as the were on April 20, 2012 but they are still rolling along.

There is no real manual for this transition. Ronni likes to refer to is as the year of living stupidly. In the past seven weeks I have lost driven with the parking brake on, lost my ability to remember the names of people I am introduced to, burst into tears in the grocery store whilst passing the pudding I used to buy for mom and forgotten more birthdays and events than I care to admit.

The moment I found out about mom dying I wailed from the depths of my soul. That moment is etched in my cells. Sitting here, typing, remembering, exposing the raw nerve, listening to my heart and my head has me drenched in tears. During my years on this planet I have never felt anything as profoundly painful or deeply ingrained.

My mom talked about her death and what I would do for roughly 23 years. At least once a month she would ask me what I was going to do. After the 10th year or so I started to respond " I am going to have a party" because in my head, we visited this issue every 4 weeks and the answer was the same every time so... For those of you that knew my mother this may not be entirely surprising that my mother was obsessed with her death only in regard to the funeral arrangements.

Planning a funeral for a parent sucks!

When my mother died, I called my aunt, cousin and uncle to let them know. My Cindy immediately drove up from Park Ridge and came to the hospice center where mom had been in her last days. She brought along with her a box of family photos. We spent the majority of the evening of the 20th going through the box. This act of remembering life so soon after death may be the only reason I can function today.

We sat in the living room, her with her boxes, me with mine. We share so many memories even though we are a decade apart in age. We both have photos of some guy named Jerry, he is either in a dress or clearly intoxicated. He is not related to anyone in our family. Nobody knows what happened to him. He is just the guy that was at lots of family weddings and picnics, sometimes in a dress.

As we went through the pictures we found at least two dozen of my mother in swimwear. My mom really loved the beach. Mind you, we only went to a beach twice in my life, but mom was clearly a beach bum prior to childbirth.

But I digress....

My heart aches

It pulls

There is a void

A cavern has appeared where a once a full well of life once dwelled

It hurts

What has come to me as that for all those years of mom asking me what I would do for her funeral what happened in the end was we did the solemn mourning that we discussed the first ten years and then we threw a party in her honor.

That party was yesterday. It blew my mind. It was the 1st Annual Marie Schlagel Memorial Jello Mold Competition. My family members are well aware of the Jello mold phenomenon. We served her some of her favorite things, tacos, margaritas and jello molds. In this modern era I thought we would have very few competitors and the entries might reflect an art that I thought had been lost. In truth, people brought there A games to this and truly honored her memory in so many ways.

The greatest gift from this party was hearing the story behind each mold. Most people asked a parent or elder for advice on what to do and how to accomplish the task at hand. What a lovely unintended consequence of the day. One person spoke about going to the store to find an appropriate mold, being a bit like a fish out of water, stopping two older women who then began to weigh the pros and cons of each vessel and whether or not it might work for their intended mold.

Many people asked their mother for either a recipe or advice on how to fix a misstep in the creation process. What a lovely memory for them. It also reminds me of the fact that I cannot ask those questions ever again. I know each of you has heard that life is fleeting and blah blah blah, life life to the fullest, carpe diem, you have seen the poster, the movie, you have read the book and on and on and on.

What the books really should say is the following:

You will never ever have enough time or patience to ask all the questions for which you desire an answer.

So please, in honor of your soul, go ask them a question today. Now! Right Now!

 

Take those memories, get out the form, pour the mold and let it set in your soul