goods and heroes

thoughts

I must admit that I am feeling a little hesitant and a tad self-conscious with this post. Not sure what the tone of the post after I posted that my Mom passed away really ought to be. So I think I am going to just go with my gut on this one and try and be myself and share a tiny little sliver of the somethings happening in the last week or so.

Well, basically, it's an odd and relatively mundane thing that happens when someone you love very much dies. Life around you still goes on. The kids still need to be fed and bathed and you get a postcard that your Saveur subscription is just about over and dogs still bark out the window and dirty clothes pile up. Cars honk, leaves fall gloriously from the trees, you walk by a condo and you smell garlic simmering. The checkout person at the little produce shop gossips in Spanish to the checker on the other side of you as she scans your apples, pears and bananas. You get an email from school saying lice has appeared in a certain classroom. You try to make chocolate chip cookies and end up with puddles of oozing dough and try really hard not to cry because crying over chocolate cookies at this time would be really stupid. You walk to the bus and rejoice in it, you go to birthday parties and pumpkin patches and a harvest festival. You walk to school and kick leaves. Your son starts a list of how many decorated Halloween houses he see and is currently at 158. You curse someone in traffic since you are running late to a meeting and they are in your way. You eat lukewarm Ramen straight from the pot and it tastes superb. You do a late night run to Target for diapers and walk the aisles like you're in slow motion. You clip you nails on the bus even though you know you shouldn't.

But in the middle of all of these things . . . you get a card. Or twelve in one day. Or someone at work stops and puts their hand on your elbow and says how sorry they are. Or you walk into your neighborhood bookshop and they stop the registers, get off the phone and get off the computer to come hold you, tightly. All three of them. Your gorgeously sensitive husband with a terrible cold is fuzzily aware that you got up, packed lunches, changed diapers, filled cereal bowls and then takes one look at you and says, "It's okay to go back to bed." And you do. Your neighbor (that you want to know better) locks your gaze in the narrow hallway as you prepare to carve up pumpkins, hands you a foil-wrapped burrito and asks questions about the mom she never met. You get emails from across the globe and a call from a college friend driving to Fresno, CA and she didn't even know you were born there. People you know are extra kind to you and you feel it and you appreciate it on a level you never thought you would. And even though it is hard, you know it will get easier and you know you will be okay and you even know it's okay to miss someone like crazy.

And then you go and you buy a jar of hot fudge from Margie's, since your mother adored Margie's and was adamant that you should only ever have real hot fudge (not chocolate sauce!) on ice cream. And you put it on the dresser that was your mother's mother's, your Grandma Ruthie's. And you decide two things. To make a bit of a shrine to your mom, since you want to and you know she would love it. And also that you will leave the hot fudge on the shrine until your mom's birthday on November 6th and on that night the whole family (and maybe a few friends) will enjoy hot fudge sundaes. After a hearty but simple supper of really good soup and excellent bread and salty butter.

And so it is.

 

(Thanks for indulging the second person action, it was just easier that way.)

remembering

Thank you to everyone for all of the thoughtful kindness and sympathy you have sent my way. The cards, the emails, the phone calls, the food, the words of encouragement, the gifts in my mother's memory (such as five eucalyptus trees being planted in Australia) all of it has been so amazing.

Here is a link to her on-line obituary, a few of you have asked about it.

We will be hosting a memorial service on Sunday, October 25th at Syl and Lyle's farm. It will be a small-ish gathering and pretty simple in its essence. Mainly we just want to remember my mom and allow people to share their thoughts and emotions. 

I have started a list of things I do and want to remember about my mom. It's a very straightforward list at this point, like a laundry list. But it has been so good for me to keep it. For example, her never wavering love of butter. How she would tuck a spring of mint in her bikini top when we lived in Fresno. Polishing her white nurses shoes with white shoe polish for a quarter. Her ancient red wallet held together with a thick rubber band, the kind they use on broccoli at the supermarket.

It's just this quiet way for me to cope. But also to remember.

sally

My mom passed away last Tuesday, at about 8:30 in the morning with my brother Richard and my sister Jen at her side.

I might post more thoughts and images about this later, or maybe not. But just know that I think my mom's passing was just as it should be and we of the Tawse clan have been surrounded by tremendous support and kindness.

One thing I would like to share. I am so thankful that in the late afternoon on Tuesday when we were collectively full of so many different emotions and energy levels and just an awkward jumble of thoughts and feelings, we all headed to the Pueblo Nature Center on the Arkansas River.  And we just started throwing rocks in the water. My Mom told me about 15 years ago when we were up at the cabin in Beulah that when she was frustrated or scared or really ticked off, she'd go find some rocks and just toss them over and over. If she threw enough she might start thinking about the rocks and not the other thing on her mind. So we went to the river and we tossed rocks. We chucked them. We held them in our palms. We even smelled them (they smelled salty). We didn't say much. But then we started skipping them and we even had a bit of fun, trying to see who could get the most skips and find the flattest, rock for skipping. (I think my niece Em and my dad tied at seven.)

I am so glad we did. And I think my Mom, wherever she is, would be glad too.