Tag: death

Month’s Mind

Yesterday, there was a memorial service at the senior community where my parents and, until recently, B’s mom live. They hold one every quarter for residents who have died in the previous three months; this time, there were eight.

This service marked the first official commemoration of Grandma’s death. She did not want to have a wake or funeral; there will be a graveside service later in the spring back in New England.

By coincidence, the service was almost exactly a month after Grandma’s death. It made me think of a Month’s Mind Mass, which is from my Catholic faith tradition. Grandma was not Catholic and the service was not a mass, but it was comforting to me.

The service was the first time I have been a bit teary. I have been so busy concentrating on doing everything that needs to be done and on supporting others that I haven’t really done much mourning myself.

Reaction to loss follows its own path…

Four weeks

Today marks four weeks since Grandma died.

The time has passed in a blizzard of paperwork, phone calls, sorting, packing, and hauling.  As if to add to the surreal sense of time, we had a springtime siege of cold weather and snow, following a winter that was much milder than usual. Had Grandma been alive, she would have heartily disapproved of the turn in the weather. She liked things to proceed in an orderly fashion and was inclined to take inclement weather as personal affront.

One of the hidden blessings in all the sorting and cleaning out has been that we came upon so many reminders of her life. Photos from the decades of her life, including a newspaper clipping of her modeling a fur coat back in the fifties. Playing board games with our children. Writing the weekly menus in calligraphy so that she could stay in practice. Her favorite authors and movies. Her love of decorating for every possible season and holiday, including three drawers of candles in a range of colors to match the decor.

We reached a milestone yesterday. We turned her cottage back over to Good Shepherd Village so that they can ready it for the next resident. Grandma has been the only person to live there, as she moved in shortly after the community opened in fall of 2009. It was bittersweet for B and me to walk in for the last time, having stripped it back to the bare walls and floors, looking much the same as it did when we first saw it.

The window treatments and the dents her furniture had left in the carpets were the only visible reminders that Grandma had made her home here near us for her last six years.

bubbles

Note:  I wrote most of this post last Tuesday, but just got back to finish it in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

It’s a week today since Grandma died. The shock is diminishing and we have carved out a few bubbles of not really normalcy but times when we could focus on something else.

Saturday was my dad’s 91st birthday. B and I took Nana and Paco downtown to meet their youngest grandchild, our niece S, at the bus station. It is only a short jaunt down Interstate 81 from the campus where she is a first-year. We went to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, then back to Nana and Paco’s apartment to visit for a bit before we had to bring S to catch her bus back to campus. Paco’s three other grandchildren called during that time, including a skype call from our daughters E and T. It was our first time doing a group call with them. When Paco was growing up, if someone had told him that one day he would be able to communicate with his grandchildren in Syracuse and Honolulu at the same time, he would not have believed it.

Of course, we had not forgotten about Grandma during this time of focusing on Paco’s birthday. After we finished all visiting together on the skype call, B and I went into another room to talk with E and T about how things are going with them as we continue to deal with Grandma’s death. We also discussed trying to schedule a time for the burial later in the spring, which involves trying to work around several commencement dates and long-distance travel.

Another bubble of focusing on something else was Easter vigil on Saturday night. Although the liturgy deals with death and resurrection, it was a way to focus on belief and faith, rather than on my own little recent experience of death.

The third bubble has been the time spent trying to complete my first week of the MOOC I am taking. I was a good student back in the day and apparently my inability to skip out on assignments is still there. I honestly don’t know if I will be able to keep up, but I managed to complete the first week on time.

 

Shock

On Monday, I posted about some re-prioritizing I was doing here at Top of JC’s Mind as I prepared for a busy spring.

Somewhere, the Fates were snickering behind their hands.

Monday afternoon, I wrote poetry with my friends at Sappho’s Circle. Just as I was preparing to drive home, I got a call from B. He was at the hospital, waiting while his mother, known here as Grandma, was in the heart catheterization lab. She had had a heart attack.

I was not far from the hospital and got there as quickly as I could to wait with him.

The cardiologist was able to remove the blood clot that had caused the heart attack; there was no need for a stent. The nurses got her settled into the cardiac intensive care unit and we were able to spend several hours in her room, as she gradually woke from the sedation and B and I answered dozens of medical history questions on Grandma’s behalf.

We left the hospital at about 8:00 PM, with Grandma stable and resting under the watchful eyes of the ICU staff. We all expected a few days in the hospital, maybe a short stay in rehab, and then back to her cottage at her senior living community.

We didn’t sleep well. At 6 AM, B’s cell phone rang. Grandma’s blood pressure had dropped, but they had been able to raise it back to an acceptable level. Then, she became short of breath, but it was difficult to address it. They might need to put in a breathing tube as a short term measure. We dressed and headed to the hospital. It turned out that, as we were en route, Grandma’s heart had stopped.

We waited near the nurses’ station as they continued efforts to revive her, but they were not able to.

Less than 24 hours after her heart attack, Grandma had died.

Shock.

There just isn’t any other word for what we have all been feeling since that moment. Everyone that we have had to tell, everyone who has spoken to us, we are all in shock. “But I just saw her at the movie on Friday.”  “But she was here Monday morning, after her PT session.” “But she was at dinner with her friends on Saturday.”  No one quite seems to be able to wrap their brains around the fact that death can be so quick.

Everyone is grateful that there was not a long period of pain and suffering. It was one of the things that Grandma had feared the most. She loved her cottage in the retirement village and did not want to leave it to live in the Health Center. We are grateful that she did not have to do that.

But we are still in shock.

And we are sad.

B and I have been doing our best to talk to people and deal with paperwork and start sorting and make lists and not miss anything that is important to do.

It’s been less than 72 hours at this point, but it feels so much longer. I have to remind myself what day it is.

And that it is Holy Week for most Christians, including my denomination.

As I write this, it is very early on Good Friday morning.

I had tried to sleep, but couldn’t, so I got up to write this.

Before I go to bed, I want to go to the website for my friend Angie’s memorial fund. It has been eleven years since she died. In 2005, March 25th was also Good Friday.

I don’t quite understand why I am not crying.

It must be the shock.

“The Last Night” in Eunoia Review

I have a new poem published today in Eunoia Review.

It is entitled “The Last Night” and is about witnessing the death of a loved one.  I wanted to warn people who may be in a vulnerable place regarding loss so that they can make an informed choice about whether or not they would like to read it.

I would like to thank Eunoia Review for publishing this poem and invite you all to follow them on WordPress. They publish two new poems or pieces of short fiction daily so you can always find something interesting there.

You can find “The Last Night” here:  https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/the-last-night/

Please feel free to comment here or in the comment section on Eunoia Review.

With thanks,
Joanne
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January.  Join us!  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/13/just-jot-it-january-13th-sacrifice/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here.

Saying Good-bye

I am thankful that a hospice newsletter that I was reading referred me to this article entitled:  How to Say Good-bye When Someone You Love Is Dying:  Regrets and Lessons From Grieving Survivors.

I am also thankful that it isn’t information that I need to use right now, but I am grateful to be able to store the link here in this post for a time in the future when I will need to be reminded.

 

Again

This is not the post I wanted to write today.

But the 355th mass shooting in the United States this year happened yesterday.

Mind-boggling. Averaging more than one a day.

And that horrible toll is dwarfed by the total number of those killed and wounded by guns in the United States through gang violence, organized crime, domestic violence, road rage, all manner of crimes using guns, hunting accidents, suicide, and at-home accidents, including a heart-breaking number of incidents of children accidentally killing a sibling or friend when they find a loaded weapon in their home.

We need to stop this level of violence.

There needs to be much stricter licensing of guns so that people who use them for hunting or target shooting or other legitimate purposes and who know how to properly store and secure a firearm continue to have access, but people who are violent, mentally unstable, or engaged in criminal activity do not.

Some kinds of weapons and ammunition should not be available at all. Guns designed to only kill people, like assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and bullets that are designed to inflict extra damage on human victims should be off the market for the general public.

I know that some readers are probably saying, but the second amendment of the US Constitution says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. I would ask those people to consider the whole amendment:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The sentence structure isn’t used much in modern English, but it is a translation of the Latin ablative absolute structure, which means that the first clause is the basis for what follows it. At the time it was adopted, the United States did not have a standing army, so the militia was meant to defend the country in case of attack. For this reason, keeping and bearing arms was not to be infringed.

That is not our current situation in this country. We have a large standing military force, as well as National Guard units and local police forces. Gun regulations for the average citizen do not violate the Constitution.

We have restrictions on gun ownership now in place, based on age, criminal record, and other factors. We restrict the types of weapons people may own. No one thinks they have the right to have an anti-aircraft battery in the backyard or a nuclear weapon in the garage, just in case they need it.

It is time – well, past time, but better late than never – for Congress to act to restrict gun violence.

Too many people have already lost their lives. We must not stand by and watch even more killing.

Remembrances on Sunday

Today would have been my friend Angie‘s 65th birthday and I just sent a contribution to her memorial fund. In the brief note that I sent to her family, I noted that I can’t imagine that Angie would have “retired” because she was all about love and service and would not have stopped doing that. I am honoring her memory today and remembering her family and friends who have been without her physical presence for over ten years.

As it happens, two of my college friends lost their mothers this month, one unexpectedly and one after a long period of illness, so I am sending thoughts and prayers out to Sally and Tricia, their moms, and their families.

Two friends are dealing with a sudden medical emergency with their loved ones. One’s husband’s life was saved by emergency open heart surgery. The other’s asymptomatic brother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at his first screening colonoscopy at age 50. Both men are facing a long road to recovery and I am holding them and their whole families in thought and prayer as well.

Yesterday, I attended vigil mass at St. Joseph’s, which was the long-time church home of my friend Marcia, whom we lost to ovarian cancer several years ago.  Last month was ovarian cancer awareness month, with several big fundraising events. There has been some progress in detection and treatment since Marcia died and I hope that the advances will help her descendants to lead long, healthy lives.

It’s a quiet Sunday morning. Soon, B and I will head up to Good Shepherd Village to visit Grandma, Nana, and Paco with an extra measure of thankfulness.

New poems published!

The fall quarterly of Wilderness House Literary Review (Volume 10 #3) is now available for free online. I have three poems in this edition and this marks my first publication in a literary journal. So exciting!

WHLR includes art, essays, fiction, poetry, and reviews. My poems are accessed through the link for my name, Joanne Corey, in the poetry section, which is charmingly arranged alphabetically by first name instead of last. I hope that people will peruse the issue, but the link here for my name will open the pdf of my poems. The link that begins this post will go to the most current issue of WHLR, but the link to my poems should be permanent.

The three poems are:
“(Not) the aunt I remember” which is based on my aunt who passed away earlier this year
“Fifty-four” which is in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the death of my friend Angie 
“Downy” which is about a woodpecker in our backyard.

I’d love to hear any feedback you have on these poems. Please feel free to comment here, on Facebook, or by email for those who know my address. (Sorry but I don’t want to make my personal email public.)

– JC

Memories of Peter

Last May, our community lost a wonderful friend and musician, Peter Browne. I wrote about here and here.

Now that September is here, we are missing him again. At Binghamton University, Harpur Chorale, which Peter had directed for many years, has begun the semester under the direction of a talented local music teacher who earned her master’s in choral conducting at Binghamton U. a few years ago.

Yesterday, I wound up having an extended conversation about bladder cancer, which what took Peter’s life so unexpectedly.

Today, I put on the car radio in time to hear the last movement of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony.  I immediately thought of Peter playing this piece with the Binghamton Philharmonic at the Broome County Forum.

All reminders of Peter and how much he is missed.