Booby-trap

I felt like a wall hit me....a wall of pain....when I opened the door to my parent's house.

I fought to get by it.....then stood in their family room. How could they both be dead? And dead so soon? Not even 90 days have passed since dad's stroke....and they are gone. I can still see their faces, especially my father's.....I can still see us holding hands...and watching TV in his room or going outside to listen to the wind chimes and watch the birds.

All this stuff.....the pictures...the slippers under the couch...the books....the coffee...the microwave.....all belong to people who don't exist anymore.

35 years in this house.....35 years of life and living and memories and it's gone. The lamp they placed on the end table is no longer the lamp my dad liked but just a lamp. The couch from the old outdoor porch is just a couch....the clothes....are just clothes... not the favorite comfy jacket or the warm hat. The people that bought these things, cherished these things...loved these things are gone ...so everything .....even things I know ....feel aloof and alien. My mother's recliner is not my mother's recliner....it has all become past tense...it was her recliner not is her recliner.

I am not doing so well up here... I don't want to poke or clean or go through the house. I often find myself sitting on the bed...or just staring into a room....forcing the idea into myself that both my parents are gone. I wish I could turn my house keys into someone and just walk away....but all this stuff demands attention.....and now even if it's alien stuff....it's my stuff.

I guess it's the last thing I will do for my parents. The distribution of the things they lived with...and cherished. It's so final.....and so disorienting to realize the stuff they loved and cherished is nothing without them.....it's like dealing with a million skeletons.

I'm glad I'll only be up here for a few more days. But I will have to come back ...and stay here a while and move things along.

Maybe it will be easier next time.

This week......

Two car loads.

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Orange, red, purple, burgundy, white, hot pink, even yellow.

Hours after my father died, I asked my husband to drive me to the hardware store.

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I needed flowers.

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I needed to fill all the empty clay pots surrounding my house.

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I needed big...bold ..and bright flowers.....outrageous flowers... an army of color....a defense shield of life....against the dull ivory color of my father's face.

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We filled up the car....driving home with plants in the trunk ...on the seats...leaves dangled over our heads.

The next morning I went back for more.....wrestling a giant Bird of Paradise plant into the Subaru. The plant so big.....the leaves embraced me as I drove home.

I have tried and failed to write my father's obituary.

I have picked through only a tiny fraction of the papers I need to sort.

I have not faxed any death certificates to agencies waiting for the documentation that will officially end my parents' existence in their system.

I have not even made all the phone calls I need to make....unable to dial again....long distance cousins....and neighbors..... to tell them once again.....there's been another death.

All I have been able to do is plant flowers.....pulling withered stems out of pots....and putting fresh greens in..... slowly watering bold arrangements of orange and purple and red.......not rushing.....returning again and again to make sure all the soil is saturated....all the roots are covered....all the pellets of fertilizer are spread evenly.

And sweeping....sweeping all the debris and dust and dried leaves away from the newly planted pots.

This is all I have been able to do this week.
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My mother died last night.

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