May 4, 2020: Earlier That Day

Given that I'm considered an essential worker, initially I was going to the office several days a week for two hours each day to handle tasks which cannot be managed remotely: checking the voicemail on the main switchboard, receiving/processing/distributing mail and the like.

A caller left a voicemail about his mother, who passed away early in March, whose body was MIA until April 9th. I made a point of calling him back, as I didn't want to add to his grief by delaying a response. I called and he was on the phone with his doctor on his landline, and I was calling I guess on his cell phone. He couldn't manage both calls at once and wanted me to call him back. 

I said I'd be back in the office two days later--he said please call me. So, once I arrived home, I sat in my car and called him. Turns out his mom died of COVID19, and was in a nursing home. Yet the nursing home couldn't provide any type of paperwork for her body. There were several weeks he had no idea where his mother's body was and out of the blue a funeral director reached out to him. So turns out the nursing home released the body but somehow doesn't have the paperwork? Funeral homes have licenses and most will require paperwork--a death certificate as well as some release forms from the nursing home or hospital before they will receive a body.

This was the same day when we were all seeing articles online and on the news about the backlog caused by so many deaths--and there was that one funeral home in Brooklyn which had a non-refrigerated U-Haul outside their building loaded with rotting corpses. A horror show to read--I can only imagine how hellish it is for family members.

I told the caller about my own mom who was diagnosed and I told him what I did--contacted the NJ State AG, NJ Health Department, as well as the NJ Longterm care ombudsman. I wasn't sure if there was an ombudsman in NY, but gave him the best advice I could give--from personal experience.

The call was at 7 p.m., roughly 4.5 hours before mom died. 

This pandemic has us all social distancing and isolating, and yet, those of us immediately impacted by it are holding the hands of others while we all go through this.

As of the time I was notified of her passing, I checked the stats (I may have already mentioned this--it's all a blur, and my mental unpacking of the chain of events is not a linear path at this point), and she was the 69,921st person to pass away from this dreaded disease.

Family Fuckery Continues

So--without even so much as extending condolences to me and my siblings directly, a cousin of mom's decided to take it upon her to arrange a "mass" on Faceb**k. Not sure how that works exactly. Also--mom wasn't catholic for the last 52 years of her life. This cousin did not consult with any of us. I probably wouldn't be as upset if mom's sister decided to do this, because well, my aunt was more actively involved in mom's life than this cousin.
Additionally, this blue haired old bitty discovered Faceb**k, she stopped communicating directly with me via emails

Mind you, this cousin decided when dad died in 2008 that she wasn't going to come back east for any more "sad occasions." The last time I saw this cousin in person was perhaps in 2004 or 2005.

Mind you, I went to her exhusband's wake/viewing, as well as his mother's, to support this cousin's sons, of whom I had always been close. Her sons also managed NOT to show up at my dad's funeral too--a detail that truly hurt. The last time I saw the oldest of her sons was in July 2008 when I was in New Hampshire for a conference--and it hurt they couldn't be bothered to support me when my dad died.

This has nothing to do with showing support for us, as we were the children of the person that passed; and it also is presumptuous to think we aren't doing anything to mark her passing--and will do so once the church receives the remains. Again, that would require someone to actually COMMUNICATE. I cannot help but view this with a jaundiced eye, and as yet one more indication mom's mother's family all don't know how to communicate and also have issues with empathy and boundary issues too.

 Also, for someone who writes for a living, I find her use of quotes around the word "comment" to be confusing. She writes for a local rag the farmers read--it's not as if she writes for the NY Times.

Today marks 15 days since mom passed--no personal family condolences extended. Though I have been blessed with extended relatives who check in from time to time--even my acupuncturist sent me a lovely card with heartfelt sentiments written within it. 

So Many Layers

All I can do now is just ruminate. 

I’d be remiss f I did not acknowledge that mom had some measure of cognitive decline, which went largely dismissed by me or my siblings—as the signs were in keeping with a lifetime of her behaviors of demanding much more attention—the neediness. The constant calls. Perhaps awful things said to outsiders, forgetting if she had conversations with us or visits with us. The calls forgetting our birthdays or probably more accurately—what day of the week it actually was. 

I had gotten to a point with her where I was bold enough to acknowledge to her that I knew she was depressed. We had a couple conversations about happiness and how it is a choice. I wish I had been bold enough to ask her about her memory. I knew it all along, I saw signs, but no one else wanted to acknowledge it. 

Another problem, like I said in a previous post, about the final analysis is I don’t know who she was. She was inconsistent and kept me so unbalanced for so long. It was very much like psychological warfare at times. And then she’d be so sweet out of no where. This is what made it especially sad for me, that she did have it in her to be loving and engaged, and then she’d withdraw into reading her books. 

At her best, she had a perverse sense of humor. My best memories will be of her laughing. But sadly her lack of boundaries would often lead to carelessly cruel comments, or laughing at someone’s expense. 

At least if she were cruel all the time it might have been better, then we would have been able to better prepare or protect ourselves. But she had these moments of profoundness that just makes my heart ache—why couldn’t it always have been good? Things were always challenging with intermittent moments of good. 

An example of the good:

One time mom told me that her favorite time of her life was when she was pregnant with us kids. At times she would refer to herself as the incubator, and other times she’d refer to herself as the cocoon waiting for us, her butterflies to emerge. I think upon this now, as she has gone through her own transformation and flying off, hopefully to dad. 

I don’t put much belief in a hereafter. In fact, no. I am afraid of it. Life was difficult enough to survive, I cannot imagine ETERNITY and being reunited with the people whose job was to protect me as a child and did not. However, if there is such a thing as eternity and afterlife—I hope it involves another reality where we are all reunited HEALED and WHOLE. 

I just wish she weren’t so stubborn and afraid—things could have been a lot different. 

I think we both did not understand each other. 

Churning & Frothing

Death doesn't bring with it closure. What it does bring with it, is the finality, the lack of further opportunities to get things right. The fact that, I have to just accept things as they are. Just a note: I haven't gotten to that point in my grief experience yet. 

I have; however!,  gotten in touch with my anger. Everyone thus far has said how funny or sweet or pleasant mom was, and I must bite my tongue because I don’t want to shit all over their memories of who she was to them.

I am angry because of the continued expectation that I participate in the cycle of abuse (EVEN NOW), the expectation that I remain silent about WHO SHE WAS TO ME, the expectation to remain silent because other people’s thoughts or opinions or feelings matter more than mine.

I am angry because I do not know who the REAL PERSON my mom was. We ALL play different roles depending on our audience at the time; however, she was an entirely different person to me, versus how she was to outsiders. Me and my siblings all carry those scars SILENTLY.

Initially, I went through and listened to what voicemails and read what emails I managed not to delete, and then go and read her public facebook comments—each one was SWEET, and the Facebook comments, in particular, are problematic for me, because it only gives the readers one side of who she was.

Now I have progressed to remembering (what memories I have not repressed) every single hateful, emotionally destructive thing she has said to me, and remembering physical abuse—which in addition to my sister’s REGULAR dinner time stabbings, including my own trip to the hospital to get stitches for a laceration on my scalp mom caused. 

All of that churned up from deep within my psyche, all churned up and now frothing on the surface, and unavoidable. I am at least acknowledging the froth. But I cannot even grieve because I still HURT. 

I am angry, thinking of my sister’s C-PTSD and my night terrors, as well as my brother’s bed wetting into his early teens—all of which are outward signs of fucking trauma.

I am angry and sad about how mom pit me and my siblings against each other for decades—and now here we are—fractured/splintered and dysfunctional.

I am angry that mom never got the professional help she needed, so we all could be WHOLE and functional. The idea of meeting her again, if there is such a thing as an afterlife, I want no part of—unless it involves all of us being HEALED AND WHOLE. But really, the idea of nothingness appeals to me. Still. Silent. Darkness. Finally at peace.

And I'm angry at the people who still remain, and whom my silence is still demanded or expected, as they are unwilling or unable, whether immature or not emotionally equipped enough to look upon the past critically, and at least take some measure of responsibility for not protecting me and my siblings at a time when we were too young or vulnerable to fend for ourselves.

May 15, 2020

Thanks to the pandemic, a huge backlog has been created for funeral homes and crematorium.

Mom died on May 4th; however, her cremation was scheduled for May 15th. I have no knowledge on whether it went according to schedule or not.

I was not in charge of the arrangements. Had I been included or involved, I would have had the remains FedEx'd to me, and we could make arrangements according to our own timetable, and have a proper funeral when it is safe to do so.

Instead, the remains will be sent to the church where dad's remains are interred at the memorial garden there. As soon as the remains are received, there will be a burial with not more than 10 people in attendance. There will be no funeral in the church. Perhaps something religious will be done when we bury the box of remains. 

The idea of a repast afterwards is out of the question as well, as we all will still be social distancing at that point. The virus hasn't just DISAPPEARED. It's still out there lurking for all of us. 

I am hoping that as the date comes closer, and if the weather will allow it, I will buy a bunch of sub sandwiches, and perhaps we can go to a park nearby and have a picnic. But that's a big perhaps.

I believe my mother's death is enough to have fractured my family. I have received condolences from a couple first cousins of mom's; however, none of MY first cousins, my more immediate relations, have bothered to extend condolences. Not one single card has been received from them. Not even a text or an email or a call. 

Maharajah's office sent us a lovely bouquet and a gift certificate for food delivery; and another friend from his office sent us another bouquet; and our dear friends sent us a gift basket of snacks. Whereas my office hasn't done anything. No card. No flowers. A couple people who are close to me called and texted, and two dear friends on their own sent me candies and a gift certificate, but the powers that be at the office have done nothing. So it's all been quite informative. But that's okay--at least the management is consistent.

Even a person with whom I cultivated a friendship with for 17 years, or who I considered a friend, who this time last year let me know she's really not a good friend for saying some shit to me that was oh-so-familiar to me, the type of shit my mother would say. I injured myself very badly, and here it is a year later, and I am still not 100% recovered from it--and it is doubtful I'll ever get back to 100%, she said, "At least your husband took you on vacation." She later on let it be known she's jealous of me, so that was sadly informative too.

This person left a voicemail for me--and of course, if there's one person in the world that I do not feel like being vulnerable around, it's this person. In the body of her voicemail she said something to the effect of, "regardless of what happened, she's still your mother." As if I need someone to police my emotions--I've had a lifetime of that very thing. I sent her a terse text, "Thanks for the call, I don't feel like talking about it."

May 4, 2020 FB Post

Here is what my sister posted to Faceb**k:

So why the hostility towards the end of the post? We have close relatives who are idiots who voted for Trump, who have been boo-hooing about how all this is a hoax and how sheltering in place and wearing masks etc is against their constitutional rights. 

The wildest thing here is, the idea that up until recently, mom rarely even left her room; and she hadn't left the nursing home in almost three years. She didn't have to leave her room to get corona virus, somehow it traveled from China to Europe and somehow ended up on the filthy hands of the people "taking care of her." In fact, she knew the virus would find her.

Despite the estimation of three days, and despite taking in no water or sustenance, somehow she hung on for EIGHT DAYS. 

She died alone and afraid, and before the morphine and ativan cocktail silenced her to sleep, she was screaming for my dad. She might have abused me, but I survived it, and might, quite possibly be thriving in spite of it--but had the pandemic not been part of our new reality, I like to think I would have wanted to be there holding her hand, as they gave her the morphine. But sadly all of those shoulda, woulda, coulda beens are all a moot point.  

May 4, 2020

My sleep has always been problematic. Always a night owl, and for a good lot of my life, I've also endured horrible night terrors. Little did I realize this was a byproduct of abuse and trauma.

The COVID19 pandemic has not helped my sleep at all. I found myself sleeping at odd hours of the day--if I sat still long enough, I'd nod off. I had a hard time staying awake when I wanted to be awake, and I had a hard time falling asleep when I wanted to be asleep. 

So I decided to watch Cracked Up, which is a documentary on Darrell Hammond's abusive childhood--something he is still grappling with as an adult.

No one takes the gold in the olympics when it comes to abuse--it's so subjective and awful for each of us that has to endure it, and as horrible as his experiences were, there were parallels between his upbringing and mine.

And at long last, while watching this documentary, late on a Monday night when I should be asleep, I got to the very core of my anger and rage for the last 51 years. WHAT SPECIFICALLY I've been angry at:

The expectation and demand that I continue to participate in my abuse by remaining silent that it even took place--silent because of fear of reprisals, recriminations, more abuse using shame and scorn. 

Then the call came through at 12:30 a.m. (Tuesday morning) that mom took her final breath at 11:30. 

May 1, 2020: Meditation

As the lilacs started to bloom, I thought to myself of how they always are in full bloom and most aromatic by Mother's Day. 

We have a family story--one I won't share. It's very specific; however, I always think upon lilacs and mothers day as a result of that story.

I meditated, but not upon the outcome, but of an end of her suffering. Whether that meant she lives and finally gets the care she needs, or her physical body dies and she's released from the prison her body had become. 

Ever since this great silence with mom started, I wondered if I'd know an answer of how this all sorts itself out by Mother's Day. Should I send a card? What if she wakes up and there's no card? I held off a bit. As of this time, I still had the three spare cards I bought a couple years back, as I always found Mother's Day cards to be the most complicated cards to buy as I never wanted to perpetuate her delusions of what kind of mother she was, yet, I still wanted to send a card. Like I said, complicated.

The lilacs were beautiful this year.