I just answered a questionnaire about bereavement for a study. I answered essay questions honestly and it brought things back from 2 1/2 years ago when my mother died. I never thought of it as bereavement. Studying the word it means bereft. I am not bereft of a mother any more than when she lived. So I’ve always been bereft, it’s a constant.
Seeing it is differrent. The morphine, the nurses, the doctor (yea! she rated a doctor), the volunteers, people who bathed her and clothed her while we conducted the vigil yet while she was bathed and dressed we got to go out to lunch.
Many years ago I organized a chorus in college to go to the hospitals over the holidays and sing for the patients. Seeing these patients I cried so much I could barely sing. And that was when people had health insurance and longer stays. Now patients are really sick if they stay overnight and I flew there multiple times to see my mother in the hospital or help her transition to home care.
Our best time together was when I helped her transition in the early years, when I went out to get her tomato juice and a NY Times in the morning and made and froze tons of chicken stock. I cooked good meals that put some meat on those bones and even froze chicken stock in ice cube trays. After my week’s stay, she’d tell my sisters that “Dee used to make it from scratch.” That’s probably the nicest thing she ever said about me.
After she died I volunteered to comply with her request for the eye tissue bank, which meant her body had to go to a facility before being cremated. It was a long questionnaire I had to do by phone a few hours after my mother’s death, then transport arranged and one sibling denied Mom’s request and wouldn’t release the body. It worked out, just a mis-communication on their part. All I can say is have things arranged. Make sure you have a will, a living will, a dnr or whatever you want. My mother did not do so and her children argued over nothing and probably because we were grieving.
I like to think I’m OK but I still think of her often, luckily I try to remember the good times as a kid, when she watched us out at the pool or honked the horn three times to get us out of the creek and home to wash our hands before dinner. Cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 