TheBanyanTree: Casket Shopping

[Monique Colver]

I don’t know about you, but this does not rank up very high on my list of
Fun Things To Do.

So here’s the situation. Mom is fading fast. Really, what else is there to
know? I drove over to Montana from Washington yesterday (was that only
yesterday?), my brother and his wife were supposed to get in last night but
thanks to the vagaries of traveling by air, they arrived this morning by
train from Spokane. (It doesn’t rhyme, but it looks like it should.) My
sister, the marvelous nurse, has been here for a couple of weeks and is
taking care of Mom in a way no one else can, since my brother and I are
useless at this sort of thing. Oh sure, I’m fabulous at holding the hands of
dying people and pushing their wheelchairs around, but when it comes to
actually treating them? I’m useless.

So here we are, all three of us, with Mom and her husband Jerry, who has
done a marvelous job of taking care of her up till now.

Last week Jerry’s oldest daughter, Kathy, was here visiting, and Mom felt so
good she proclaimed a trip to a local casino was in order. Can you imagine?
Most days she does well to sleep, maybe have an Ensure, and then sleep
again. Going upstairs to sleep in her room was becoming too much, so the
downstairs couch, which also turns into a bed when one isn’t looking, was
put into service. This way she could lay in her bed while an early
Thanksgiving could take place around her. This was a couple of weeks ago,
when my cousins were here, along with my sister.

But a week ago she went out to a casino and was out for two hours at least
and had a marvelous time.

Less than a week ago.

Today she can’t speak, except vaguely and we’re not always sure what she’s
trying to say. She can’t get from here to there, she can’t turn over without
help, she can’t make her wishes known, she can only lay there in bed, in
what used to be the guest room because it’s on the main floor since she
couldn’t be gotten up and down the stairs anymore, and put up with us
bumbling family members.

She laughs, in a sort of way that someone might mistake for some other
emotion, if one didn’t know her as well as we do. She smiles, when she sees
someone, and sometimes, when something unexpected happens or her mind brings
her back to where we are, she smiles, and it’s that smile that has never
changed, the smile that I’ll always remember. Mom, just happy that the three
of us are here in one place at the same time. That hasn’t happened in a very
long time.

We have other siblings, the three of us, but our Mom has just three children
of her own, and we are it. She has other children, step-children and in-law
children and half-children and cousin children (my cousins, not hers), but
only the three of us are ones she gave birth to, and the three of us share
that one undeniable link.

I held her hand today, while she lay there with her eyes half open, and I
stroked her hand and marveled at the softeness of her skin. I asked her how
she did it, kept her hands so soft, and she smiled at me.

I told her she was beautiful, and she smiled at me.

I told her how so many people love her and wish her well and how lucky we
have all been to have her in our lives. And she smiled.

This afternoon the three of us, and my sister-in-law Nancy, and my
stepfather, headed to the mortuary while a thoughtful neighbor sat with Mom.
This after thoughtful neighbor already brought us food, plenty of food for
people who hadn’t managed to think of something as inconsequential as
feeding themselves. We picked out a casket, with Mom’s husband telling us it
was up to us, we could decide, and so we did. We went for wood, we thought
she’d like that best. We each of us picked out the keepsake ceramic ornament
that would start off on a corner, one each, of the casket, then be given to
us before burial. Four corners, three children and a husband, how convenient
for the numbers to match. She’ll be shipped, when the time comes, to
California for a service and burial. The plots had been purchased years ago,
so it’s just a matter of getting her from here to there.

And why not back again? Why not, I want to know? Some trips are only meant
to be one way I suppose.

I looked into her eyes today and she looked back, and she smiled, and I
smiled back at her, I can’t stop smiling when I look at her, even though I
won’t be able to do so for very much longer, and there’s still so much life
inside of her it’s hard to believe she can be taken from us so easily.

We had differences, once, and people ask me if I’m okay because of that. And
I tell them that none of that matters now, it hasn’t mattered for months
now, the entire issue of mortality can make the differences seem so
inconsequential that disposing of them is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

I told her today that she always loved us just the way we were, and she
never ever tried to get us to change to be more in line with what she
wanted, and it’s true. She always loved us just the way we were, and why I
never realized that before is rather astounding. And I told her that we love
her just the way she is, and we always will.

We don’t know how long we’ll have her with us. She may rally again. She may
not. How can anyone tell? So we wait, and we make her comfortable, and we
tell her we love her.




-- 
Monique Colver