C: A Passing, A Gathering


I feel wistful.  At age 68, I am now truly an orphan.  My parents have been gone several years now, my father-in-law, too.  This left my mother-in-law to reside next door to me, in her own little abode.  She and I, single women out in the country, did well together.  I would work too hard all day, usually stopping in to see her a few minutes before plopping down exhausted at my own home.  Sometimes I would guiltily slink past her little trailer, too tired for conversation but knowing she had been alone all day and feeling I should have spared her that few minutes of companionship—selfish me.

She has been gone a couple of weeks now and I have not yet felt any authentic mourning.  I am not sure what that will look like, as I am a fairly stoic person, but I feel it looming around behind me as I go through each day, as if it will overtake at some unexpected moment.

As I was shopping for groceries today, the thought of her absence came, probably because grocery shopping was something we usually did together, often stopping for lunch and a slightly-naughty “it’s five o’clock somewhere” adult beverage afterward: she a martini, me a margarita on the rocks. 

Oddly, today what I thought to myself is: “I miss feeling guilty!”  That made no sense.  Who would miss feeling guilty?  I had to ask myself about that.

Not only did I suffer guilt when I selfishly introverted despite her isolation, but the last nine months of her life she was cared for in a nursing facility.  I felt guilty about that; felt guilty about not visiting
 her as frequently as I knew she wanted. 


I hasten to add that she never tried to make me feel guilty.  She always greeted me with a welcome.  But I knew that she was not the happiest she had been in her life, and I simply did not have all it took to correct that.  As I think about that here, now, I feel absolved.  I don’t think it was meant for me to correct it.  It seems like end of life is for one to work out on one’s own, with God, alone--never mind that others who love you are around...ultimately, it is you and God. 

I miss feeling guilty because I no longer have someone who needs me and means enough to me to make me feel guilty.  The absence of that dread feeling is proof that I am, truly, an orphan.  I have my son, so now it’s my turn for someone to feel guilty about me! The mantle has passed!

The family, is scattered.  We plan to gather in a couple months to celebrate her and, with that celebration will be thoughts, celebration and honor of other loved ones who have gone before.  For my generation, our minds will be on our missing parents, mindful that their passing means the loss of generational lore we will find ourselves musing with no one now to ask.

I have been blessed by my parents—both my own and my in-laws.  They all came with baggage, to be sure, and I am carrying some of that with me, too (probably more than I can know).  But of them all, I know this: they never abused me, they always encouraged me, they did the best they could.

So, the family will gather in her honor and in honor of those who have gone before.

And being who I am today, I had to write a poem about that prospect:

The Clan Will Gather
A matriarch is gone, the last of her generation
Family will assemble from across the nation
To pay honor and tribute to one much loved
Thinking of others who greet her from above
Mourning her passing, the loss of their sage,
Now for their history turning to those of a new age.
They will sense her spirit, today light as a feather,
In honor of their heritage, the clan will gather.

For anyone who might like to know her, her blog is still up: www.immigrantdaughter.blogspot.com.


-C

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