Tomorrow will mark the one-year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s death. This week I’ve been mulling over what I might write about her to mark this milestone. I had no time to process her passing and write about it because I was immediately thrust into the trauma and chaos of my own mom’s last illness and death, but Carol was an important person to me. She was always loving and welcoming, and I can count only a few times when we disagreed or were at odds.

I’ve thought a lot about grief this year, trying to feel it without being undone by it. Trying to understand the process and work with it to heal. I like this passage about mourning, from George E. Vaillant’s book Aging Well: “Counselors sometimes forget that the psychodynamic work of mourning is often more to remember lost loves than to say good-bye. The primate brain is constructed to retain, not relinquish, love…. No one whom we have ever loved is totally lost. That is the blessing, as well as the curse, of memory. Grief hurts, but does not—in the absence of conflict—make us ill. What is more, just as rivers expose buried geologic strata, so may the erosion of living uncover life-saving memories of love, formerly obscured by pain, resentment, or immaturity.”   

In my experience, once I’m past the initial searing pain of loss, remembering loved ones does bring comfort and joy.

Our family all has favorite memories and stories about Carol. She loved to share “life lessons,” and every one of us has been on the receiving end of these. I especially enjoyed her quirky humor, her eagerness to help others, as well as her spirit of curiosity and adventure. She loved to travel, and it was at her suggestion that she, my husband, son, and I rented an apartment in Manhattan in 2007 for a quick Christmastime getaway, one of our happiest family memories. My husband traveled to China with her in 2006, and she and I took a two-week trip to Greece, also in 2007.

Carol in Greece

She also taught me to value and respect things of the home, to remain a lifelong learner (one of the last gifts I gave her was a book about physics for the layperson—she was fascinated by the subject), and being around her so much for the last years of her life made me realize how little we understand and respect our elders here in the U.S. She made me kinder.

Last night I came across the following on Instagram. It made me think of her—she absolutely would talk to anyone and she had a spirit that embraced life fully, the good and the bad. I think she would fully agree with these sentiments:

        Darling, go ahead and just love your life.

        Take pictures of everything. Capture the

        moments, big and small, that make you feel

        alive. Tell people you love them. And mean

        it- truly mean it. Talk to random strangers.

        Learn their stories. Do all the things that

        you're afraid of and stop playing small.

        Stop being worried about all that

        can go wrong when the only thing that

        matters is all the magic that could go right.

        There is so much life to be lived. So much

        love to receive. Open yourself up. Bloom.

        ~ Alysha Waghorn

This post is for Larry, Mary Lynn, James, Sarah, Richard, and Sam. I love you all, and I wish you comfort and healing today and every day. We miss you, Carol.

She passed away April 8.

“It’s been a great ride”

When I first arrived, she knew who I was and could respond with a few words or a facial expression, and she could hold my hand. Every day I came to the nursing home where she was being cared for, spending most of the day by her side. This was one of the most emotionally grueling things I’ve ever done, but I wanted to pour into her some of the lifetime of love she’d given me. I had plenty of time to reflect on our relationship, cry, begin the grieving process, and try to say everything I needed to say before saying good-bye.

The staff found a comfortable rocker/recliner for me, and I positioned myself where I could look out a window. My mother-in-law always said it helped her during hard times to find a patch of blue sky to look at, and I found myself doing that often.

One of the nurses showed me how to find soothing music videos on YouTube, and every day I chose a new one. The music calmed me, and perhaps my mom, too.

I’d leave every day wondering if I’d see her again. By the end, I’d lost my mom in every way that mattered and all that remained was the shell of her body. Still, the finality of her death crushed me.  My heart still breaks at the idea of never being able to hug my mom again.

One of the last pictures I have of us together

My mother taught me to love books, to sew, and to put aside doing chores when you’re exhausted and need to recharge. She read me bedtime stories and took me horseback riding even though she was afraid of horses. She was proud of me and didn’t try to change me, even when she didn’t understand me. For so many years it was just the two of us (my parents divorced when I was three), and it wasn’t until I was a mother myself that I realized how challenging it must have been for my mom to support us financially and take care of me at the same time. My father didn’t live in the same town and it wasn’t until I was older that I was able to spend significant time with him.

When I moved to Florida, we didn’t get to see each other nearly as much as we wanted. I missed the everyday simple pleasures of being able to meet for a meal or go shopping together, and as she got older, I hated being across the country from her. She had troubles and challenges in life, but she’d tell you, as she told a nurse, “It’s been a great ride.”

One last loving act

I think my mom performed one last, loving act as a mother. My friend Kerri arrived on the afternoon of April 8 to spend her spring break with me, and no more than an hour later, my mom was gone. I don’t know how I would have coped if I’d been alone and I think my mom waited until my friend was with me.

As I went through some of her belongings, I found old date books filled with dinners out, church activities, and family visits, and literal drawers filled with cards and letters from loved ones. I found notebooks with lists of goals, art and craft supplies, and file folders with decorating ideas and places she wanted to go. (I do the same thing: fill notebooks with ideas and folders with cut out pictures and articles!) I found awards she’d won in 4-H, lists of books she read in high school, and a medal from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. My mom loved to dance, and I like to think of her dancing again now that she’s no longer in pain.

I have more family articles to sort through, and more memories to explore as I begin the task of living without my mom. I am slowly looking at a few of these at a time, to avoid being swamped by grief. Recent memories like playing cutthroat games of chicken foot dominoes, and older ones, like the day when I was a teenager that she came home driving a brand new, electric blue Camaro, a gift she'd given herself. 

I’m home again briefly before we return for a graveside service next month.  The last thing I can do for my mom is to fulfill her wish to be buried with my stepfather.

I miss my mom already. This Mother’s Day will be painful, since I’ve lost two of my three moms this year. Even when grief squeezes me like a giant hand, or my eyes well with tears at odd moments, I know that even though it hurts, I was lucky to have Judith Allen Weingarten as my mom.

*One of my friends used this phrase when I told her my mom was declining and I was going to be with her. I thought it perfectly described the situation.

1. Appreciate what we have. Stop and look at what we’ve just achieved or received. Take it in. Isn’t it wonderful that we have this thing we have longed for for so long? Bask in the feeling and say a little thank you to the universe. It’s very easy to get caught up in the details, both good and bad, adjust to the new reality, and forget the work and sacrifices it took to get what we wanted.

2. Don’t make comparisons with others. Since I came to horses as an adult—and a none-too-athletic one—my skills have grown more slowly than the young girls I often ride with. If I compared myself to them, I’d become dissatisfied with my experience, when what I have is all I ever wanted. If I compare my marriage, my relationship with my son, or my career with others’, I can become discouraged that what I have isn’t as outwardly “good.” Every person has his or her own abilities, challenges, lucky (or unlucky) breaks, and so on. And what we see from the outside is rarely the whole story. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

3. Keep growing and learning. So we have this new thing/relationship. Now what? Is that the ultimate? How can we enhance and improve whatever-it-is? Growing and learning are what life’s all about. To return to my relationship with Tank, over the past 10 years I’ve spent most of my time learning, from the simple things (how to groom a horse or post a trot) to the more complex (how to “speak horse” or use tiny movements of my body to control where he goes and how fast).

Since it's an anniversary, will there be (carrot) cake?

• Scheduling things to look forward to—lunch with a friend, date night, a day off.  
• Keeping busy with my normal routine, and even throwing in a few extra activities. That way I don’t have time to sit and mope.
• Allowing myself to feel sad or lonely when those feelings come over me. I acknowledge my feelings, then let them go. Soon enough, more positive emotions replace these negative ones as I revel in not having so much responsibility for another person.
• Not concentrating on the full scope of the change (he’s gone—maybe forever!), but enjoying the smaller, positive details (the kitchen is so clean after dinner!).
• Talking with those who are going through or have recently gone through the same change, including my husband. I have several close friends whose children have left home for college, and I ran into a volunteer at my library bookstore who just took her daughter to college last week. We spent a few moments comparing what situations made us teary-eyed before wishing each other luck with the transition.

I was preparing another Link Love post for today, but that will have to wait. We’ve had another death in the family, this time my stepfather, and I’ll be flying out to California to help my mom.

My stepfather, Ron, married my mom when I was in college. He was good to and for her, and always kind to me, too. (I’ve been fortunate in stepparents—my stepmother is a gem.) Ron loved life, was extremely active—going to the gym early in the morning and working in the yard. When my mom needed to move north to care for my grandmother who had Alzheimer’s disease, Ron willing left Southern California where he had lived for many years, to live with my mom in her childhood home and support her in her care of Grandma. He loved USC (the University of Southern California), travel, drinking good wine and martinis, and smoking the occasional cigar with my husband. We will miss him at our family celebrations.

Fishing on the Sacramento River

With my mom in 2011

My baby turns 18 today. I do not know how that is even possible.

Poor woman. Doesn't know what she's in for.

Happy birthday, Nick!