dear mom….

i can’t believe that it’s only been just over three weeks since you left this life. this death thing is such an incredible dichotomy. in some ways, it seems you’ve been gone an eternity and i can’t believe it’s been such a small amount of time, and in other ways, i keep looking around the house, expecting to see you there, or hear you yelling at me, or i sit at my desk at work and expect the phone to ring and i am going to pick it up and it’s going to be you on the other end saying "hoi".

i picked your ashes up from the mortuary last week….i can’t even remember what day it was. on friday, they delivered the mini-urns so that each of us could keep you with us. i got 12 of them in case any of the grand kids wanted them or something like that. your death certificates arrived in the mail on saturday…..unexpected and sobering, in some ways again i thought they’d never show up and in some ways i hate it because it’s another reminder to me that you aren’t here anymore.

i talked to a friend of mine who is a paralegal yesterday and she says because we have a deed on file that shows you and i as joint tenants, no one should be able to take the house away from us, which is a relief. i have to file a  paper with the county giving them a copy of the death certificate stating that you’ve passed, and we should be fine from there. of course, that means sis won’t necessarily be on the house, but i don’t know if there’s anything i can do about that. you know i will do right by her.

she hasn’t gone back to work yet. she’s talking today of both going back to the bar to bartend (oh god), or going and applying for a job on a cruise ship. i know you would be rolling your eyes the same i am. she says she has no ties here now, i suppose we and her son have been relegated to the status of chopped liver, eh? we will see what happens with that….

speaking of, dg got laid off last week. before he paid his rent for december and january. sis says she got up on friday to take him to get a copy of his birth certificate so he could go job hunting again, and then he told her he didn’t want to go. i swear, those two are going to be the death of me. it doesn’t seem much that either one of them are too keen on working and i am not too keen on continuing to support them with no help. will keep you posted on that one…..

there have been a million times i’ve thought of you, at least, in the last few weeks. talking things over with different siblings and smiling with rememberance of specific things we did or experienced. i miss you soooo much. in a lot of ways, you were the sounding board and the vent i used to gauge how things were going in my life because i could tell you and you would guide me, being so much more wise than me and having lived so much more and through tougher times, too. now there’s no one to temper me, no one to tell me to think about things before i make a rash decision, and no one to love me unconditionally. d even tried to pull a fast one on me last week, towards the end. i don’t know what’s going to happen with that, but i will do my best to stay the course, even if it should be alone.

the days go on….i have been lazy lately. sis actually mopped the kitchen floor last week…it took every ounce of self-control i had not to say to her "wow, i am impressed….i didn’t know you knew how to mop"….and i totally didn’t mean it mean, it’s just that she’s never done it, ya know? bellydance classes haven’t started again, but the one’s i am doing with the fire group are on-going and things are going good there.

well, i better go pretend to work now.

i love you and i hope that you are at peace.