It's been a busy week or so. My youngest son's girlfriend is staying with us for a couple of weeks - so two 17 year olds (though she just turned 18) in the house. Lots of energy. I haven't driven in days, they're both getting ready to take their driver's tests. And my second son and his wife just bought their first home, so we all helped them move in - which was fun. The pictures I took of the move and them sitting on the steps with my 8 year old grandson will be part of the family history, talked about and passed down for generations.
You don't realize that, of course, while you're doing that. It's just another day in your life.
But having spent some time recently going through old family stories of my grandfather's life and death, and photos of my own early life and marriages - and even my youngest son's early days only 15 or 16 years ago - I am somewhat stunned now by how meaningful these every day events can be.
Right now I am preparing to attend my first mother-in-law's funeral two states away this coming week-end. The past comes very much to mind - I do not have many photographs of Rosemary, and not even that many memories, not enough.
Whenever someone dies, I find myself sobbing not so much at their passing, but at the things I did not do with them, the things I did not say. It's all about me, still (sigh). Life is so short, and I still don't get it. And a death is about our losses, as well as the losses of the world.
I saw Rosemary last summer, but she wasn't herself. In her 80's she had been suffering from Parkinson's for some time. It had the same effect, after awhile, as Alzheimer's -- it steals away much of the memory and When I saw her, it was clear that the Rosemary I'd known, the person she was, was pretty much gone.
And yet, nobody could mourn that passing. It's an awkward state. She'd known it was coming before she left, and that makes me want to cry, although knowing the woman she was, I imagine she handled that better than most anyone could have.
She was an awesome woman. I met her when I was 19, pregnant with her 18 year old son's child. I have three sons - I don't think I would have been so kind, loving, accepting, funny, direct and genuine in the same situation (and I hope I don't have to find out - only one more to go). I know she wasn't perfect, but she was emotionally healthy, something pretty unfamiliar to me, and I loved her.
Her son and I were, of course, much too young for our marriage to survive under the circumstances we gave it. She included me every Christmas in her mailing of her funny Christmas letter she sent out to friends. She called me to let me know her husband died, though I expect she called me to let her grandson know his grandfather died. She was always there, and I know it was because she loved my ex-husband and my son, not because she thought I was marvelous (though back in those days, so hungry for mother love, I saw it that way). She treated me like I was a good person, when I felt I wasn't. I think she probably was like that with most people. She gave me my first new car in 1978.
She has always been my role-model for what a mother-in-law could be, as well as what a mother could be. I was sad to see that she was there and yet gone last summer - this week as I get ready to go to the funeral, I find memories of her as I knew her popping into my mind.
She had a big toothed smile and a hearty laugh you had to love. I remember and feel both loss and joy for the her I knew, which was just a touch of Rosemary.
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