(**CONTENT WARNING: Sudden death; some graphic details.**)
My first experience with death came when I was about 4 years old. We'd briefly had a puppy, Honey -- the only dog we ever had -- who proved to be more of a handful than my parents had bargained for. We'd rehomed her with my grandparents on their farm, who loved animals -- but she was run over by a car, a few months later. :(
I vividly remember sobbing in my mother's arms when she told me Honey was gone, and how she tried to comfort me by telling me that Honey was in heaven now, and that the streets of heaven were paved with gold. I asked Mom if there would be lots of bones in Heaven for Honey to chew on, and other dogs to play with, and she said she thought so, and that made me feel a little better.
Who is going to make me feel better now?
My mom collapsed and died at home, late in the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 1st (New Year's Day), just a few days shy of her 85th birthday.
We got here on Dec. 21st, and had a nice Christmas together, Dh & I set up and decorated the tree (and Mom thanked me and complimented me on it at least twice). My sister & I did much of the food prep, cooking & cleanup (with contributions from Dad, who still fries the fish on Christmas Eve, carves the turkey and monitors the progress of the potatos & veggies. :)
Mom has complained about her sinuses for as long as I can remember, and she's always been a night owl. Since she retired, about 20 years ago, she has prowled around the house for half the night, every night (shuffling around with her cane, these last few years) -- and then languished in bed until at least noon (and often much later). But she was up early the day after Boxing Day, I think, complaining that she'd had a "terrible night." My sister & I took turns bringing her tea and toast in bed, and noticed she had a horrible rattling cough in her chest. She hadn't had either a covid shot this fall or a flu shot (hadn't had one since she worked in the school). After a couple of days of this, my sister threatened to take her to the doctor if she wasn't feeling at least a little better the next day. The next day she WAS feeling a little better (but still not eating a whole lot), but still spent most of her time in bed. She didn't play cards with us on New Year's Eve, or stay up till midnight, I think?
Weirdly, she was up at 7:30 AM when I got up on New Year's Day (!). She sat in an easy chair in the living room for a while and I brought her tea and toast while she watched the Rose Bowl Parade. She dozed on & off through the day, then asked for a glass of Coke and a chocolate chip cookie (! -- that was my mom...!). I managed to persuade her to have a bowl of cereal and a glass of apple juice instead, and got those for her. My sister & her partner had to work the next day and left to head back into the city shortly after 4 PM. Mom hobbled upstairs to the bathroom and was washing up while I checked the supper situation.
We'd used up most of the Christmas leftovers, the fridge was pretty bare, and most stores and restaurants in town were closed for the holiday. It was looking pretty bleak (and my hungry dh was NOT HAPPY), but then I remembered we'd frozen some of the leftover fish we'd had on Christmas Eve. There was enough left for a couple of pieces each for the four of us. I asked my dad how about that along with some baked potatos & veggies for dinner? and he thought that was fine, but said, "Ask Mom."
The door to the bathroom was closed, I knocked and went in, and asked her about the fish, and for the first time in days, she kind of perked up and seemed interested in food. So I closed the door and headed back downstairs to the pantry in the utility room on the ground floor at the far end of the house. I was picking out some potatos to bake when I heard a loud THUMP. Dh yelled at me that it came from upstairs and that I should check on my mom.
I went upstairs and knocked on the closed bathroom door.
No response.
I opened the door -- and saw my mother's legs, on the floor (partly blocking the doorway).
I pushed the door open -- and my mom was laying on the floor.
There was no blood, but her eyes were open, staring vacantly. I screamed and called to her (over and over) and squeezed her hand -- but there was absolutely no response, no flicker of recognition. There might have been a slight movement of her chest at first, but it was soon gone. She let out one long, raspy breath, and then, nothing. Dh & my dad came upstairs. My poor dad took one look at her, started crying, and retreated to his chair in the living room.
I yelled to dh to call 911, and he did. He put the operator on speakerphone and she coached me through CPR while we waited for the police and paramedics to arrive (which took a while, as they serve a large rural area)... but I knew in my heart she was already gone. :( Dh also called my sister (on my cellphone) and told them to come back quickly (they were almost to the city by then). The police arrived first (three guys in three separate cars, one after the other) and then the ambulance, and they worked on her for a while but could not revive her. It is likely just as well. Mom was already so frustrated by her poor physical condition and limitations. She would not have wanted to linger in a life that was less than the one she was already living.
I had to tell my sister when she arrived that Mom was gone. (She later told me they'd had to park out on the street because of all the cars in the driveway, and that every house in the bay had its lights on with neighbours looking out the windows... she called it "the perp walk"...!)
Dad asked me to call the minister at Mom's church, and she rushed over. The EMTs had laid Mom on the floor of the room where dh & I were staying (!), and covered her up with an afghan, but I could see the top of her hair sticking out the top, and her foot out the bottom. I took the minister up there and she prayed over Mom with dh & I present. When she was done, I pulled the afghan down a little, but I could see Mom's eyes were still open, so I pulled it back up again. I watched as the undertakers wheeled her body, in a black bag, out of the house, and watched as their van (not a traditional hearse, thank goodness) pulled out of the driveway with Mom for the last time.
Dh & I were supposed to return home on Sunday, Jan. 4th. We immediately made plans to rebook our flights (and were able to do it relatively easily online, albeit at a cost of $400 more than what we'd already paid for our already-expensive tickets...!), and will now be heading home this weekend instead -- two weeks later than originally scheduled. By the time we get back, we'll have been away an entire month! BIL has been checking on our apartment, starting the car to keep the battery alive, collecting the mail and watering my one poor surviving plant.
The next week went by in a blur. I was getting just 3-5 hours of sleep a night (it's gotten a little better since then). I was EXHAUSTED. (I even took a couple of afternoon naps. I RARELY take naps!) Endless phone calls and messages to make and take, kind neighbours dropping by to offer condolences and food. At one point we had something like 6 or 8 dozen buns in the house (!), many of them homemade. (Gotta love small towns...!) We ate some, put some in the freezer, gave some to Parents' Neighbours' Daughter (PND), and my sister and her partner took some home as well.
Notably, one of my best friends from high school showed up at the door on Sunday afternoon, after driving an hour-plus from her home, bearing a couple of containers of lasagna and cannelloni from a deli in the city, as well as homemade banana bread (which was delicious). She stayed for half an hour to chat and then drove home again. And one of my dad's former coworkers brought over an entire dinner one night -- a big chunk of excellent roast beef, mashed potatos, gravy, veggies, homemade buns, and a dessert called Harvest Cake with thick caramel icing that was absolutely fabulous. (My sister remarked that this woman missed her calling; she should be a chef instead of a realtor, lol.) My sister took home some of the leftovers, but there was still enough for another dinner for dh, Dad & me, as well as meat for sandwiches for lunch for a couple of days too.
I could only make so many of those kinds of calls in a day. I called my mom's childhood best friend/matron of honour and her cousin/surrogate big sister (also my godmother), back to back, and that just about finished me off. They both already knew from other people, but I still felt that I should call them, and they were still very emotional calls. Eventually, I asked my dad & sister if it was okay to just post something to social media, and did. I felt badly that some people found out that way, but by then we'd made funeral arrangements, and wanted to get the word out to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
And, yes, we had a funeral to arrange. Dad asked the funeral director if he could come to the house, and he said of course (again, gotta love small towns...). That was a marathon 2-3 hour session. Dad wanted to get the funeral over with as quickly as possible. The medical examiner did not think an autopsy was required, but she did ask if they could take Mom to the city to be tested for flu & covid. That would have delayed the funeral by a few more days, so Dad decided no. So we will never know exactly what happened.
Mom was cremated (the funeral home in town has its own crematorium). My sister & I picked out a nice outfit for her to wear (although we chose not to see her again), and dh & I picked out an urn for her ashes. My sister has taken it home with her, but we will pick a plot or niche at the local cemetery in the spring for her and Dad, and have a private family internment ceremony then, when the weather is nicer. The funeral was Jan. 8th, one week after Mom died. I did not think I had the time or the emotional bandwidth to write and give a eulogy or to organize a photo slide show (and my sister thought pictures would upset Dad more than he already was), so we left most of the service to the minister, and she said some nice things about Mom herself.
I did write the obituary that appeared on the funeral home website and in several newspapers. On an ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) note, you can bet I made sure that "granddaughter Kathleen (Katie)" was mentioned. On another ALI note, one of my mom's cousins offered to send me some photos. I told her photos are always welcomed -- but I was rather taken aback when she emailed me a zip file -- labelled with my mom's name, but in addition to photos she'd taken of my mom, there were photos of her parents and family, including her little grandson. Needless to say, I did NOT need to see photos of someone else's grandchild (and/or the reminder that my mother never had any living grandchildren, not will I have them myself), especially just then...!
Being Christmastime, and winter ( = iffy weather/driving conditions), and lots of illness going around, plus the issues with the border right now (and many Americans not having passports), we were missing a few people who might otherwise have come to the funeral. But there were still 75 names in the guest book, and probably about 100 in all. My aunt/dad's youngest sister came out from the city with her oldest son (my cousin), and a couple of my other cousins on my dad's side, many of whom I hadn't seen in years. My mom's cousin's daughter made the trip over the border from their hometown in northwestern Minnesota. My sister's best friend since junior high came from the city -- I hadn't seen HER in at least 30 years. And I was absolutely floored when Mom's childhood best friend walked into the church hall after the service with her husband! They came all the way from South Dakota to be with us. Our neighbours/best friends from childhood were unable to come, because their sister/aunt's funeral was the same date & time (!) in the city, but the middle sister and her husband took a slight detour en route home and stopped here for about an hour to visit. I hadn't seen her in about 10 years, and that made a hard day better.
My sister and her partner returned to the city this week. Dh & I have been keeping Dad company, playing cards every night, doing jigsaw puzzles, etc. Making sure he's eating. Poor Dad. :( They bickered endlessly -- but 65 years of marriage is 65 years of marriage, you know? We're pretty confident that he can manage most things by himself, short term, anyway -- he's slowed down a lot in the last year or so, but he's generally in better shape than Mom was, and he has some really wonderful neighbours who look out for him/them regularly as it is --but (much to our relief) he is planning to put the house up for sale within the next year, and find something smaller/easier to keep up, likely within one of the local seniors housing developments.
Needless to say, dh & I will be back here a few more times than usual over the next year, helping him out, and helping my sister and her partner with the huge cleanout that will be necessary before a move takes place. We've already started: Dad asked us to put away Mom's personal things, which we did right away. Then we spent a couple of afternoons emptying out the night table and sorting through the contents, as well as some of the contents of the drawers and closet in the room where I sleep when I'm here. There were LOTS of books, and we packed the best into a box and took it to the local library to donate to their sale table. We also gathered up all of Mom's coats and jackets from three or four different closets around the house (Mom collected coats & jackets like some women collect shoes & purses...!) and took them to the local thrift store. I also emptied out Mom's drawers in the bathroom vanity, and tossed a LOT of stuff from there. (Umpteen half-used tubes of lipstick and cover stick... eye drops, nasal spray, ancient tubes of Benadryl cream, etc. etc.). (Not just one, not two, but FOUR almost-empty bottles of Jergens body lotion, anyone??) We want to go through her closets and make at least an initial cull of her clothes, before I leave.
Monday was my birthday -- my 65th birthday. (I am now officially a senior citizen!! and I will be receiving my first Old Age Security payment from the federal government next month!... eeeekkkkk....) I keep saying that one of these days, I'm going to spend my birthday on a beach somewhere. I thought for sure I'd do it for my 60th, but that was during covid, when everything was shut down and no one was going anywhere. Obviously this birthday wasn't it either. It wasn't the birthday I wanted or imagined -- but this is where I need to be right now. It was, as you can imagine, a pretty low key day. My dad did not remember!! -- and I told dh not to remind him. I knew he'd feel bad about it. Of course he remembered today -- Mom had written it on the calendar that sits beside the telephone. I told him I didn't feel in a party mood anyway, we had more important things on our mind, and that dh will take me out for dinner or something when we get back home. I did get some lovely messages via text, email and social media, and my friend who stopped by to see us after the funeral -- who will turn 65 later this year -- called me and we talked for an hour.
Back to the opening of this post: Mom told me when I was little that the streets of heaven are paved with gold. In my mind, I've decided that if there is a heaven, it looks a whole lot like my Grandma's kitchen (only a whole lot bigger) -- and Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, my uncle (who died in 2024) and all the aunts, uncles and cousins we've lost are all gathered around the kitchen table, laughing and talking and drinking coffee from a pot that's endlessly percolating on the stove, just like they used to when I was growing up. And they're just waiting for the rest of us to join them.
That gives me some comfort.
As I said in my 2025 Year in Review post, "Life is short, and tomorrow is not promised. I am more and more aware of this with each passing year."
Hug the people you love; tell them what they mean to you, spend that time with them. You will never regret it.
*** *** ***
So that is why I have not been present here lately. Not a great start to 2026. :( We've been busy since we got here on Dec. 21st -- I don't think I even opened my laptop until a few days after Christmas! -- and obviously our stay here has been longer and more eventful than we had planned. I do intend to publish my Year in Books soon, and possibly my Year in Blogging (both drafts in progress). I'd already started drafting a "Right Now" post for early January; I'll probably combine that and do a double post for December/January in early February.
One more thing: my family has played Kinsmen Jackpot TV Bingo (from Winnipeg) for more than 50 years now, at least since I was a teenager. My parents have continued to play every Saturday night, and whenever I'm here, Dad will buy extra cards & I'll play along with them. We had cards for last Saturday's game -- and I WON. The initial jackpot was $60,000+; after 50 numbers it dropped to a guaranteed $10,000. Which doesn't mean that I/we will get $10,000 -- there's usually several winners every week, and they had already declared at least one by the time we managed to get through on their phone line. Last night, we learned there were 24 winners, which means we'll each get somewhere in the vicinity of $400+. It's not $10,000, but it's something! (Either Mom was pulling some strings, wherever she is now -- or she's really pissed off that I won the minute she left the picture, and she missed it all. ;) )
