Today is the sixth anniversary of my mother’s death. I know many people who, even decades later, tell me they think of their deceased mother every day. I confess that I can’t make that claim. While I spoke to my mother nearly every day of my life, this became increasingly difficult in the last months of her life as her heart failure robbed her brain of oxygen. After her death, I had many months of flashbacks to those last difficult years, while also dealing with my father’s grief. He used to talk to and about my mother often, but, over time, his own heart failure erased the memory of her death. Toward the end, he would ask when she was coming to visit him in the skilled nursing unit and all I could say is that he would see her soon.
The photo above is of the memorials we placed at the memorial park where their cremains are inurned. I wrote this post explaining their significance when we placed them in 2022.
On Mother’s Day, I went to visit their resting place and was shocked to find that our memorials had been removed. I contacted the office, hoping that they had been placed in storage but they were just gone.
Alone in the room near my parents’ grave, I cried and told them I was sorry that these special memorials had been lost.
I think that is the only time that I have spoken aloud to my parents there.
My family has been supportive of me as I’ve dealt with the loss of these special and meaningful memorials to my parents. I’ve decided to print a photo of them and put it in a plastic frame to place on the table near their grave. That way, if it disappears, I would be able to replace it easily.
In the post linked above, I wrote about feeling more at peace when we placed the memorial. I think I had come to a place in living with loss where I could set aside the trauma of my parents’ final years and deaths and have better memories surface. I’m not sure if that is the point where I stopped thinking about my parents every day or not.
What I do know every day is that my parents gifted me not only with life but also with the foundation of who I am.
Their legacy is always with me, whether or not I bring it to consciousness.
We had met when we were volunteering at the middle school our children attended. Angie was kind and caring and funny and talented and we became friends, although she had a plethora of friends already. Because we were both doing volunteering and taking care of family, we had the flexibility to meet for lunch and chat or work on committee projects. Because Angie’s good will also embraced family, she got to know my parents.
We thought that, one day, we would become grandparents and have multi-generational hangouts.
Unfortunately, a nagging cough when Angie was 50 turned out to be stage 3 lung cancer. It was a shock because she had never been a smoker. Despite all the best efforts of her medical team, the cancer eventually progressed and took her life at 54.
March 25th was Good Friday that year.
There was a charitable fund set up in her name and, for years, I gave to it every year on March 25th and on her October birthday. The last few years, though, the website has disappeared. I think the fund probably had enough contribution for it to be endowed so its work can continue.
I’ve written about Angie before here at Top of JC’s Mind and even had a poem published about our friendship and her loss.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Angie’s death was followed by the loss of my long-time parish community and the death of B’s dad, the first loss of a grandparent for our daughters.
2005 became one of the worst years of my life.
I fear that 2025 may be even worse, especially when I look at what is happening in the United States as our democracy disintegrates and damages lives here and abroad.
Personally, this will be the year where we figure out what is going on with my health and address it or the year where I have to deal with giving up what I thought my life as an elder would be.
A small problem when people are dying or being threatened or losing family members because Trump/Musk/Vance et al think they can break laws, norms, and ethical obligations and concentrate all power in the executive branch.
I am sorry that I am too weak to be out on the streets for protests and have to confine my activities to online posts and messages and phone calls.
I’m hoping we can turn 2025 around after these horrible last couple of months.
Trying – while mourning for those who have been hurt.
Today is celebrated as Father’s Day in the United States. My dad, known here at Top of JC’s Mind as Paco, passed away in 2021. My spouse B, father to our daughters E and T, is visiting with extended family in Maine; T is with him but I wasn’t able to make the trip.
Because of all that, I wasn’t really planning to observe Father’s Day today but I got an email from my younger sister, asking if I had a hard copy of the photo above. Nana and Paco had this portrait taken at Eastman Studios in Binghamton, New York, after they retired here. I don’t have an exact date, but I’m guessing it was taken in the late 1980s-early ’90s.
I went upstairs to look for it in the two large bags of photo albums and framed pictures that we had taken home from Paco’s last apartment. The first album I picked up was one that my sister had put together for one his last Father’s Days.
Of course, this photo was part of the album.
I spent some time going through it. It begins with photos from Nana and Paco’s youth and their wedding in 1954. There are photos of my sisters and me growing up, our home, extended family, and travels. Later, there are photos of them with their grandchildren and finally photos of their great-granddaughters.
So, I did get to spend time with my dad today and see his smile – multiple times.
Today is observed as Memorial Day in the United States, set aside to honor all those who died in the armed services.
One of our neighbors has turned their front yard into a memorial for the day with small flags in rows and a sign listing the last names of those killed in recent US military actions, starting with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Remembering them and all who have died in service of the United States today and hoping for peace and comfort for the families who grieve their loss.
Also, praying for peace so that no more deaths will be added to those already suffered over the centuries.
Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. He was the first of B’s and my parents to pass away. I wasn’t blogging or writing poetry then; it took years for me to process enough to write about his death. This poem was first published by Eunoia Reviewhere in 2016. As it happened, he was the only one of our four parents that we were able to be with at the moment of death.
The Last Night ~ ~ ~ by Joanne Corey
Hospice told my husband what to expect as his father’s death approached, skin mottled, eyes open but unseeing.
Crush the morphine, mix with water, spoon into his gaping mouth every two hours.
The death rattle started, unmistakable, though we had never heard it before.
We did what we could, smoothing his hair, holding his hand, another dose of morphine.
I prayed the rosary silently, lacking beads, counting the decades with my fingers.
When he quieted, breath slow, gentle, we woke his wife of fifty-one years.
She lay beside him that last hour.
Breaths shallower, with pauses between, longer – longer still – until, near dawn, no next breath comes.
We switch off the oxygen concentrator. Silence heralds his absence.
A quick update while JG is napping and ABC is enjoying her first ever trip to the cinema with her parents. Also, while I can almost see mid-range things like computer screens before my second cataract surgery tomorrow.
Things have been very busy here. Daughter E, son-in-law L, and grandchildren five-year-old ABC and two-year-old JG have been visiting from London since April 2. It’s great to have them here, enjoying typical things like playing outdoors in the yard or at the park or indoors at home. We went to Easter morning mass together and had an indoor egg hunt afterward, with leg of lamb for Easter dinner. Uncle C from West Virginia was able to make the trip up for E’s birthday last week.
Our biggest family event was Friday into Saturday when my younger sister came up along with her family. We got to meet the significant others of our niece and nephew, as well as their dogs, which led to lots of cuddles, laughter, frolicking, and shrieks from ABC and JG.
When we knew that our London contingent was going to visit, my sister had organized a memorial for our parents, known here as Nana and Paco. The last time E and her family had been here was shortly before Paco passed away. Distance and the pandemic made it impossible to gather again until now. We started our observance outside the building where Nana and Paco’s cremains are inurned. My sister had arranged for military honors for Paco, who served as a US Navy SeaBee during World War II and the Korean Conflict. There was an honor guard and a 21-gun salute using WWII era rifles, prayers, the playing of taps on a trumpet, and the folding and presentation of a large United States flag. We were grateful to all the veterans who came out to honor Paco’s service so long ago.
We went inside to visit the niche and see the memorials that we have placed there. Then, we went to the room that was reserved for us at the hotel where my sister’s family was staying. In the photo, you can see the folded flag in its special case.
My sister had organized our remembrance, which included music, pieces that our niece and nephew had written as children, poems from me and daughter T, a photo book that my sister had assembled, and lots of personal stories from everyone who knew Nana and Paco. It was wonderful to be able to share all of this with the more recent additions to the family. We were sad that our other sister wasn’t able to make the trip to join us. but we thought of her often over the course of the day. After our sharing time, we had lunch together, including one of Paco’s all-time favorites, lasagna. We also enjoyed one of Nana’s favorite desserts, tiramisu.
So, things have been very busy here, but they were complicated by the fact that I had cataract surgery on my left eye last Tuesday. Everything went well. My far vision was clear by the next day but my mid- and close-range, as expected, are taking longer to develop. My newly implanted lens is an advanced design that addresses vision at all distances plus astigmatism. There are healing issues to consider plus the visual part of my brain needs to adjust to the new conditions.
The other complicating factor is that my right eye has been functioning without glasses. It can really only see clearly at very close range, so things like reading and using a computer have been very difficult. I’m managing this post because my mid-range in my left eye has improved enough that I can see my laptop screen with an enlarged font.
Tomorrow morning, I will have the cataract surgery on my right eye. I anticipate that my far vision will be really good by Wednesday. I’m hoping that my mid-range will continue to improve with my left eye so that I can easily see my score to sing a gig with Madrigal Choir on Friday night. I think it will help to not have the distraction of a totally blurry right eye, as I have now. Fingers crossed.
I must say that my ophthalmologist, Dr. Daniel Sambursky, is amazing. He has developed advanced techniques using lasers that give superb results. Spouse B had cataract surgery with him five years ago and has enjoyed his new vision, only needing glasses for very fine print or low light conditions. I’m looking forward to that, too. I’ve worn glasses since I was six. I admit it is a bit strange to see myself in the mirror without them and it will take time for friends and family to get used to seeing me without them.
Eventually, I’ll get around to changing my headshot…
Like many people, we have a coin jar at home. When our daughters were young, when the coin jar was full, I would roll the coins and bring them to our credit union for deposit to the girls’ accounts.
That was a long time ago now, but I still have a coin jar. I didn’t fill it very fast in recent years because I would only take coins out of my wallet when it got over-full. I used to do a lot of my everyday shopping in cash, so I would spend my coins. Since the pandemic, though, I seldom use cash, so I’m not accumulating coins.
I was concerned this spring because there was a coin shortage caused by lack of commerce and I was anxious to find a couple of 2020 pennies. Two of my long-time friends have penny boxes that I gave them for their birthdays. The idea came from a book for children titled “The Hundred Penny Box” which had a centenarian who had a penny from each year of her life. Each year, on my friends’ birthdays, I would send them a penny for that year.
My friend with a May birthday had to take an IOU, but I was pleased to pay cash at the grocery store self-checkout one day in late June and receive three shiny 2020 pennies in change. I sent a (very belated) birthday card to my first friend and had a penny to send to my friend with an August birthday on time.
I used to supply pennies to two other boxes. One was a birthday box for my friend Angie, who passed away in 2005. (If you search her name, posts will come up about her here at TJCM.) The other was an anniversary box for my parents, known here as Nana and Paco. We added the last penny to it last year, a few weeks before Nana passed away.
Someday, I may make a penny box for B and my anniversary. Maybe in two years for our 40th. That was when I gave my parents theirs and they wound up making to their 65th.
This morning when I arrived at Nana’s room a little earlier than usual, she was still in her nightgown.
It was the one from her honeymoon to New York City.
When she had wanted to change to short-sleeve nightgowns, I had found this pastel one folded up in her drawer, so I pulled it out and Paco brought it over to her. When I was there next, Nana told me she was afraid it wouldn’t fit because it was from her honeymoon! Apparently, she had not worn it much and had kept it in her dresser, because it looked almost like new. I showed her that it was the same size as another nightgown she was wearing, but it has hung in her closet for weeks without her using it.
I am not sure how it came to be that she wore it last night, sixty-five years after her wedding night, but the poignancy of it took my breath away.
I hope that she was comforted by it last night and slept well, wrapped in remembrance.
After B’s mom, known here on the blog as Grandma, passed away almost two years ago, one of the things we inherited was her teacup cupboard and most of her teacups, some of which she had collected over the years and some that had come to her through her mother and aunt.
While some people collect objects just to look at them, Grandma made use of her collection, choosing cups to use for coffee after Sunday dinners, birthdays, and holidays in the Vermont home where she lived for decades.
She had distributed a few cups to younger family members over the years, but kept most of the collection together, moving it to the senior living community near us a few years before her death.
After she passed away, B’s brother and his family chose a few teacups to remind them of Grandma, but dozens of them set up residence in our dining room, stacked in the white barristers that Grandma had used.
One of the special happenings this holiday season during L’s visit has been a series of evening teaparties with L, E, and T enjoying tea and treats. They have been working their way methodically through the cupboard, starting with the top shelf and using each cup in each stack as it presents itself, along with its matching saucer, of course. They have been brewing loose tea – from an Adagio Teas sampler that E bought for T as a Christmas gift – in a teapot and using Grandma’s china tea strainer to pour into that evening’s cups.
It warms our hearts to see Grandma’s granddaughters and grandson-in-law using her cups together.
Joanne Corey 