Grief Rituals, Part One

Today is the 6th anniversary of my mom’s death.

My sister lives near where our mom’s ashes are buried, and every year on this day, she visits the gravesite with flowers. I join her in spirit from several hundred miles away, and we both listen to what we now think of as “Mom’s song.”

My mom was a funny lady, a mixture of a socially anxious hermit and an outgoing people person who loved to admire babies at her favorite store, Winco, where she bought Umpqua Rocky Road ice cream. She embarrassed us by dancing to music she heard over the store speakers, or whistling at cute guys with nice butts (if they looked like Tom Selleck, that was a plus). But she mostly stayed home, ensconced on her living room sofa, drinking the same cup of reheated Folgers coffee all day, doing the daily crossword puzzle in the local paper, and watching her favorite shows: the news, morning, noon, and night; The Voice; nature shows on PBS; and the Country Music Awards whenever it came on, which seemed like every week. She had opinions about them all.

Her death was slow, 10 years in the making. She had been a farm girl who smoked from childhood, and it caught up with her lungs in her 60s, when she developed COPD. She had to go on oxygen, the quickest way to quit smoking. She was tethered to the oxygen bottle, with a long hose that could reach any corner of her small house, with a machine that was helping her body to get enough oxygen to keep her functioning. She had a portable system in a backpack she could use to go places, but she always worried something would go wrong and didn’t like to be too far from the big oxygen tank. She was “can-tank-erous” that way…ha, ha. Those kind of jokes would make her smile and roll her eyes. If it was a dirty joke, her eyes would really twinkle. We never knew what she would say or do when we took her out, but living nearby my sister definitely got the worst of it…or the best.

She began to decline the last year of her life, her organs not getting enough oxygen to stay healthy and her brain feeling the effects, too. In some ways she was still sharp and in others we wondered whether we could take her anywhere. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, if you know what I mean. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh, but first you have to sigh really hard.

When it was clear she was near the end, my sister called me and told me I should come if I wanted to see her before she was gone. Of course, I went. When I arrived, she seemed to be comatose, and my sister was playing some CDs of Johnny Cash singing hymns, that my mom loved. I sang along as I sat with her, and at one point asked her if it was okay if I sang to her (I’m not the greatest singer in the world). Mom said the last thing she ever said to me: “Suuuuurrrre.”

She was on hospice care by that time, and we kept vigil with her, propped up on her sofa, where she fell asleep half the time anyway. This went on for a few days. One evening my step-siblings came over along with my niece and nephew and wonderful brother-in-law, and we found a box of old records in the garage, managed to get the console stereo going, and listened to music, dancing and laughing and telling stories about her, while she lay dying on her sofa. She would have loved it.

I was reluctant to leave Mom’s side but as she lingered, my sister gently suggested we go lie down and rest in the bedrooms to give her some space to die. We googled how to help someone who is dying, and one of the things we learned is that people may need permission to go. So we quietly told her that it was okay for her to leave and that we were fine. I slept a little but felt awful for not staying with her, and I had some strange dreams, feeling like there was someone in the room with me (and I’m not prone to have such experiences or even give credence to them, so take it for what it’s worth). Still, she hung on. We were getting low on supplies so I decided to go to the store, just a few minutes away. I was in the meat department when my phone rang. “Carmon, you need to come back right away.” So I did. And she was gone.

My sister and I cried together in the kitchen while my mom’s body lay on the sofa. My brother-in-law, who was ready to do anything to help, held onto us both while we wept, patting us awkwardly on our shoulders, which was the perfect thing to do. After awhile, we went to sit with her, just looking at her face and hands and knowing she was not there any longer. We weren’t in a hurry. She had made all her arrangements, and we knew we could call the funeral home to take her when we were ready. My good friend who knew me since junior high came over and sat with us for awhile. As the sun began to go down, we made the call.

My mom was an avid outdoorswoman until she had to slow down and use an oxygen tank to breathe. Her house was filled with dead animals, stuffed and skinned. One of her favorite items was a hat made out of a fox, with its head the top of the hat and its legs hanging down each side of the wearer’s head. She got a kick out of making visitors wear it and having my sister or niece take their picture in it. So when the man from the funeral home and his assistant came to get Mom’s body, guess what we asked him to do?

He was a good sport. At first, he was appropriately somber, as you should be when visiting a home where someone has died. However, we explained to him the quirkiness of our mom, and he smiled and agreed to wear the hat and let us get a picture. I promised him it would not go on social media, and I have kept that promise. Later, when they took her body, and my sister went home for some much-needed rest, I looked at the picture of him in that fox hat, on my computer, where it was much bigger than on my phone. And I laughed so hard, tears were streaming down my face.

In the background of the photo, with that kind man smiling in my mom’s fox hat, you can see the gurney with her body strapped to it, covered with a blanket.

She photobombed the picture. She would have laughed, too.