Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #29 - Memorial Service part 11 - endings

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #29 - Memorial Service part 11 - endings

Hi Mom, You know me, always making weird connections.

Here's two things in the above photo. On the left is the photo album that I have been assembling of pictures of you. I have a whole blog entry on this subject, so I will save the bulk of my content about it until then. On the left is the last issue of Fables, one of my all-time favorite comic books. Not so much an issue as a book, a graphic novel sized final issue. These things are connected by space, as they were sitting next to each other in my office. But they are also connected by concept as they are both about ending.

And today is an ending, as I am sharing the end of the talk, the EULOGY (still not comfortable with that word), from your Memorial Service.

Speaking of that church in Richland, Dad told me there was a nice soloist in church Sunday dedicated to you with a nice blurb in the church bulletin.

So, the comic book. Fables issue number 150 is the last issue of the acclaimed comic series. It has a fifteen in it (150 is 15 ten times), which connects to you as it's been 15 years since the meningitis that put you on the road to what ended up being your death. And Fables, which ran for 13 years, nearly carried me through all of those years with great stories and wonderful times. I wrote about Fables and my love of it HERE in T-shirt #184, so I won't go into too much more depth here.

I am having a difficult time thinking lately. I read all right and generally speak well, but I find it challenging to follow a train of thought. My thoughts feel shattered yet held in my skull, much like a Smart Phone with its screen shattered, splintered glass surface all held together by a case and phone parts. The phone still works, but the display is fragmented. Duct tape or clamps may be involved.

I am afraid of endings. I almost couldn't bring myself to read the last issue of Fables.

I did not want to come to the end of my talk for the Memorial Service. In writing it, in delivering it live, on that Saturday, and in sharing it a part at a time here on this blog. I did not want to come to the end of it because the end meant I have to try to accept it as an end, an ending. And so by ending, I have to move on to something else, which I am not sure I am prepared to do, not sure that it's something I even want to do.

My analogy here is not perfect because story endings, like with Fables, and your ending, Mom, your death, those are very different kinds of endings. In Fables, when all was said and done, the creators wanted to leave off with an "and they all lived happily ever after" as that is the way Fables tend to end, though not all characters did live happily and for many of them, we must redefine what we think of when we consider the idea expressed by the word "happily."

Your death is not like a story. There is no engineered conclusion, no resolution of plot threads, no just desserts for some characters and open, lack of closure for others. Your death is your death. It came when it came, and there is no more. It was not unexpected but as an ending goes it was not wanted. It's not how we wanted your story to end.

And yet like the story, perhaps I need to explore what "happily ever after" means redefine it, and find a way to live it.

***

This is the LAST bit of the talk from the Memorial Service. It is the end of my talk. It is continued from this part, part ten, HERE.

This collection of memories and descriptions is not enough to accurately paint my mother’s picture, and yet I know she would be happy with these stories. And she would understand our grief.

I know about grieving from living with my mother. Her own mother died of cancer when she was eighteen. She never got over the grief. She missed her mother every day for the rest of her life. She talked about it often. I am much the same. I will think about my mother every day, so many things will trigger the wonderful memories. I will miss her every day. And I will continue to talk to her every day, both out loud and in writing, as I have started a writing project dedicated to my mother.

In closing, like so many who loved her, we have to now begin our journey of grief. The other night when I came home from sitting at my mom’s side, my wife was watching the movie Wild starring Reese Witherspoon (my mother’s favorite actress). It’s a movie about a young woman walking the Pacific Crest Trail as she mourns her mother’s death.
I do not need to take a 2650 mile hike to grieve my mother’s passing. I will do what she always wanted for us. I will carry on, but most importantly, I will spend time with my family, tell them that I love them, and make our family a special thing, and I know she is watching me with pride and approval.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 30 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1508.03 - 21:40