And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
So I’ve had a difficult time coming up with something this week. It wasn’t a week where awful things happened that I had to climb out of; it was a week that wasn’t bad, but where nothing really stood out as making me happy. These kinds of weeks are actually more difficult, when it comes to this blog, than the weeks where something bad happened.
And when I thought that thought, I immediately scolded myself. My mother-in-law, Michael’s mother, died last week. Another death, and another significant being gone from my (still alive) life. Kathie, I scolded, how can you think nothing bad happened? Your mother-in-law died!
Michael’s mom was fabulous. From the moment I met her, we clicked. She loved thrifting, I love thrifting. She loved Michael, I love Michael. We both have (had?) a wicked sense of humor and she could just send me rocking.
One Christmas, she gave my oldest son present after present of Green Bay Packer themed things. Each one more ridiculous than the next, which was appropriate for someone who was obsessed (then) with the Green Bay Packers (now, it’s the Milwaukee Brewers). But the kicker, the final present, an itty bitty thing…was what looked like a miniature toilet brush, but was intended to scrub out your belly button.
I laughed so hard, I literally fell off the couch.
Of course, the funniest thing happened later, when I discovered that my most gullible child took the present seriously and actually tried to use it. It broke.
So I totally loved my mother-in-law, and she was a great example of anti-mother-in-law jokes.
But every time someone told me or posted to me or sent an email, expressing their sympathy, I always said thank you…but I felt like they were feeling sadder for me than I felt for myself.
So of course, I began to ruminate on this.
And here’s the thing. My mother-in-law was 91 years old. She’d lived an incredible life. How many people do you know who actually ran away as a teenager, joined a circus, performed around the world, caught malaria, and ended up on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show as a contortionist? How many mothers-in-law out there have photos of themselves in front of a television camera, where she’s standing on her hands, her arms erect, her body and legs straight overhead, her knees bent, and her feet resting gently on her skull?
At 91, my mother-in-law was so ready for the next step. She was in in-home hospice, in a hospital bed in her living room. She apparently had blood clots making it difficult to breathe, cancer, and heart issues, and the doctors said, “There isn’t anything more we can do.”
She also firmly believed she would be meeting up with her husband and her youngest child in Heaven.
When I was told that she was gone, the first thing I felt wasn’t loss and sadness. It was relief. For her. I was happy for her.
So the ruminations continued.
Michael was only 59 years old when he died. He was finally in a job that he loved, a job where he felt indispensable and needed and respected and, maybe a weird word for a professional job, but treasured. He was in full stride. But a passenger van interrupted that stride. He survived for five more months, but he was confused. He was in pain. He was having to relearn things that he didn’t understand why he had to relearn them.
There are three big moments during that time that I relive over and over and over again, and that I will never forget.
- Opening his eyes with purpose for the first time after the accident, while I was saying goodnight to him. His eyes immediately shifted to me, and then both his arms opened.
- The day he managed to walk up to our third floor and out to our deck. He sat outside in the sun and open air for the first time since the accident. He looked up at the sky and smiled, then turned the smile to me.
- Day 3 in hospice, when he suddenly opened his arms to me again and pulled me into a hug that had me dangling over the bedrail. We set off the bed alarm. “Michael!” I said. “The alarm is going off! You have to let me go!” He hugged me tighter and said, “I will never let you go.” He then went silent and he died two days later.
With the other deaths I’ve experienced in the last two and a half years, there are similar stories. My cat, Muse, had a stroke and died the day after her 20th birthday. My cat, Jake, had a stroke and died the day after his 18th birthday. But my cat, Cornelius, died at only 8 years old of cancer. And my cat, Cleocatra, died soon after her second birthday of feline leukemia.
There just is no comparison. Some deaths are just so wrong and unfair. And some are a relief to the person, and to those who love them. But all of them reverberate with loss.
I have absolutely no idea where I’m going with this.
I am so happy that my mother-in-law experienced the amazing life that she did. I am so grateful for the way she took me in, and treated me as her own. And, as awful as it sounds to say, I’m glad she died and is no longer in pain or misery, and I hope she’s where she so dreamed of being. To have a significant death be a moment of happiness feels odd to me…but, to use a phrase I absolutely hate, it is what it is.
But my rage and overwhelming sadness at losing Michael continues. As I was getting dressed this morning, my cat Oliver jumped up to sit by me. He is the remaining half of the duo I called The Orange Terror Twins From Different Mothers. Our new cat Poe has helped, but Oliver and the rest of us are still deep in missing Cleo and angry over her sudden departure. I looked at Oliver, scratched his head, and asked, “Oliver, do you think I’m ever going to be okay again?”
He smiled as only a cat can, and bumped his head in a hug against my arm.
Mom, I’m so glad you’re not in pain anymore. And I’m so glad you had the life you did, you circus-joining contortionist, you. I am honored to have had you in my life, and you remain there as well. If you see Michael, please tell him…well, just tell him.
And yes, that helps (weirdly). Despite. Anyway.
