That moment will live in my mind forever.
The funeral was…. nice. Not really, sad, lots of memories. During the service I would look at the front table with the beautiful flowers, the photograph of Mom and the unique Jar Urn handmade by me and my kids. But I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t sad. I had been feeling ‘empty’ since I heard she passed. Not that I didn’t want to be sad, but grief is a funny thing, you never know what you are going to feel when, and you never know when a flood of tears or a case of the giggles will suddenly hit you.
So it came to the end of the funeral service and I had been prepped by the funeral director on how to be the Urn Bearer and what to do when they waved me up. I stood, walked to the front table, was handed the Urn. I looked deeply for a few seconds at the photo of my Mom. Trying to remember the good and think something nice. I took a deep breath, turned to the congregation and with my 3 children holding my hand or arm walked slowly near the front of the procession, carrying all that was left of my Mother. About half way up the aisle, I suddenly, finally felt a little sad! For like a split second I got that rush to your head like you get before you cry… ‘’choked up” I think they call it. But I didn’t cry. I’m not sure I really have had a ‘good cry’ over mom this year. When she got really sick and stopped being able to communicate, stopped ‘being her’, about 2 years ago, I cried. I grieved, I yelled at God, but now, well, the essence of Mom has been gone for a while, it’s just that her body is finally gone. And that’s weird, not sad.
As I look back on that day,
on that MOMENT, I am getting choked up. I guess she will always be my Mom and I
will forever get choked up a bit once in a while when I think about that day.
Or the few great memories of us doing things together as a kid. Or the fact
that her grandkids will never know what she used to be like, they only ever
knew the ‘altered’ her and then the non-communicative her. The “what could have been” makes me sad. The funeral was…. nice. Not really, sad, lots of memories. During the service I would look at the front table with the beautiful flowers, the photograph of Mom and the unique Jar Urn handmade by me and my kids. But I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t sad. I had been feeling ‘empty’ since I heard she passed. Not that I didn’t want to be sad, but grief is a funny thing, you never know what you are going to feel when, and you never know when a flood of tears or a case of the giggles will suddenly hit you.
So it came to the end of the funeral service and I had been prepped by the funeral director on how to be the Urn Bearer and what to do when they waved me up. I stood, walked to the front table, was handed the Urn. I looked deeply for a few seconds at the photo of my Mom. Trying to remember the good and think something nice. I took a deep breath, turned to the congregation and with my 3 children holding my hand or arm walked slowly near the front of the procession, carrying all that was left of my Mother. About half way up the aisle, I suddenly, finally felt a little sad! For like a split second I got that rush to your head like you get before you cry… ‘’choked up” I think they call it. But I didn’t cry. I’m not sure I really have had a ‘good cry’ over mom this year. When she got really sick and stopped being able to communicate, stopped ‘being her’, about 2 years ago, I cried. I grieved, I yelled at God, but now, well, the essence of Mom has been gone for a while, it’s just that her body is finally gone. And that’s weird, not sad.
For those who don’t know me, or my history, my Dad died 11 days before I turned 2, so I don’t have any memories of him. My Mom saved cards they wrote to each other, I have their wedding rings, the name patches off his work uniforms a few little things… so I’m going to get one of those big fancy boxes and stick ‘my parents’ in there… all the things mom saved that Dean (step Dad) is finding as he sorts through Mom’s cluttered boxes in the stuffed-full basement. All the things Mom had given me in the past. All the sympathy cards and comforting notes from friends surrounding the death and funeral. All the legal documents. Then, when I’m missing them, or when the kids ask, or when I want to feel sad, I can pull out my box. If only we could put all the things that make us sad in a box.
