This thread is just an unvarnished plea for sympathy. Some of you may recall that I posted a thread last month reporting my husband’s death. I am not having a good winter.
My mom had been treated for some cardiac stuff earlier in the year but we had no reason to think this was imminent. My sister and I were together (at church for Christmas Eve) when we got a call from the hospital saying she’d come in by ambulance. Shortly after we’d gotten to the car planning to drive up to where she was we got a second call to say she couldn’t be revived. She was sixty-eight.
I’ve complained plenty about her on these boards but as my sister put it, “she wasn’t perfect, but she was ours” The truth is the complaints make better stories. There was a whole lot about her that was good, too.
She was very funny, very quick witted. She’d have fit in fine here. She made a lot of sacrifices after she and my dad split up to keep us from having to change schools. She worked hard for a long time and made for herself the kind of retirement she wanted. I wish she could have enjoyed it longer, but looking for the silver lining, I know from conversations we had that she’d have chosen to go suddenly and quickly over a prolonged illness.
She spent her career as an administrative assist and and office manager. She didn’t identify herself by her job, even though she was good at it. (Typed ridiculously fast, and also very skilled at short hand) She was a skilled needle artist and also built, decorated, and furnished dollhouses. She said she liked it as a hobby because it incorporated a little bit of all sorts of skills and crafts; woodworking, sewing, painting, needlepoint.
She preferred cats to most people and had never not had at least one cat since she was about ten years old.
She also did all the interior work on her last house herself (she did it everywhere she lived, but it was less impressive when she was 30 than when she was 60). One concession she made was hiring pros to wallpaper the hallway around the staircase. It was simultaneously a point of pride and frustration for her that all of her patterns match and none of her seams bubbled up or came loose. The only place you see any of that sort of problem is in the area that others worked on.
She was organized and orderly so going through the steps will be fairly easy, and I’m grateful for that. (Also grateful that she named my sister executrix).
These experiences combined are inspiring me to become as orderly and as prepared for my own unexpected demise as it’s possible to become. I want to sit in a comfy chair and sip tea, not sign forms and cancel accounts.
