"Motherhood: All love begins and ends there." - Robert Browning
My house is filled with white flowers, orchids, freesia, roses, lilies and carnations, six arrangements in all. Two of them also have a few pale pink flowers that I cannot name. My mom passed away last week and my friends have rallied around me to comfort me in my grief.
It has been a long goodbye. Mom was in a nursing home for nearly fourteen years before her death last Monday. It seems like I have been grieving forever. So perhaps it is appropriate that we are having what are essentially, two funerals for her. The first and largest was held in Toronto on Friday. So many of our friends came to celebrate her life with us. It was at that service that I delivered Mom's eulogy, probably the hardest speech I have ever made. I remained composed until the very end when I felt myself crumble on the last line. Still, I think Mom would be proud of me for holding myself together until that point.
On Wednesday we will travel to Windsor to give us time to arrange the final details of her second funeral on Thursday. We will have mass conducted by our old parish priest and then take Mom's ashes to the cemetery to be buried next to my dad. I have declined to do my eulogy a second time, opting instead to send the text of it to those few family members and friends who will join us that day.
I am sad and I am tired. Yesterday morning I caught myself wondering what time would work best in my day to go to visit my mom at the nursing home. For just one moment, I forgot that the long goodbye is done.
