Thrifting

I think I'm thrifting to find my mom.

In the past two weeks since she died I've been to six thrift stores. And even for an avid thrifter like me that's a record. Some of it is because I have the time - I've had the past two weeks off of work and no mom to take care of so I've been free to do whatever I want.

But I think it's more than that.

I've been looking generally for clothes when I hit each store - shirts, jeans (a pair of Lucky jeans for $19!), shoes, really anything. But I've also been looking for a dress for the memorial service.

I have a black dress that I picked out of my closet a few months ago as my designated funeral dress. It's one my parents bought me when my whole family went shopping together at the H&M in San Francisco, when it was still new and before there was a store in San Jose. I don't wear it that often, which I thought was good, in case I didn't feel comfortable wearing the dress again after the funeral, and it had a connection to my mom. All in all a good solid dress choice.

But in the past two weeks I've found myself almost frantically searching for a new (well, new to me, since I only buy clothing at thrift stores) black dress. Or black top and black skirt. Heck, even a grey dress would be fine. Even if I only have a few minutes in a thrift store I grab all the black dresses that might be in my size and try them on, though I can already tell that at least half of aren't really my style.

I still haven't found a black dress. And I've run out of time and thrift stores to look through. And maybe it's good. Because I think I wasn't just looking for a black dress at these thrift stores - I think I was looking for my mom. If I had ended up finding a black dress it might haven given me some wild hope that if I just looked hard enough I could find her too.

Flowers

Today I ordered flowers for my mom's memorial service this Sunday. My dad was going to do it, but he's been in a lot of pain these past couple days, so I offered so he could rest for awhile.

I walked over to a local flower shop, on a mission to order two arrangements - one for the altar and one for the table when people arrive and sign in (apparently you have a guest book for these type of things. Who knew!). My dad gave me specific instructions - the one for the altar should be two feet long, and they should both be spring colors.

So I go in and explain what I'm looking for. I said everything my dad told me to say, but the person helping me is confused about the altar piece, so she had me look through this book of flower arrangements. She pointed out arrangements to go on top of caskets, and arrangements that rest on big easels, and she showed me all different sizes and styles and colors. She asked me tons of clarifying questions, and I kept trying to answer them as well as I could, but I was overwhelmed with all the choices, and all the decisions that had to be made about something that I thought would be easy. I wanted to scream "I don't know! I've never done this before!" but instead my eyes started to well up.

By this point she was just as confused as I was so she called over her boss, the owner of the shop. I explained what I needed and the owner understood it right away - she knew what I meant when I said I wanted an arrangement for the altar. We finish all the paperwork, and I paid for the flowers and got out of there (though there was a little more confusion when I paid for my mother's funeral flowers with her credit card. Maybe paying for things with your dead mother's credit card looks a little shady...).

But I did it. I ordered flowers for my mother's funeral, and I did it all without breaking down in sobs in the middle of the flower shop (though I was pretty close. If I hadn't had some time to pull myself together while the worker got the owner, the poor flower shop workers would have had to comfort a crying woman). Now on to the next thing on the list of "things I'd never thought I'd have to do." Here's hoping it's something a little more pleasant than ordering funeral flowers.

Close my eyes

For the last few days every time I close my eyes I see my mom the way she looked when I went in to see her after she had died.

I see her head turned to the side (in the last week of her life her right side didn't have any more strength to keep her head from turning). I see her mouth slightly open. I see her left hand just barely hanging over the edge of the bed, like it had ever since she fell asleep and didn't wake up. I see her not moving, and I miss her shallow breathing, her chest quickly moving up and down. Everything was too still, to silent. Even the light, the same light we'd had the whole time she was in bed, seemed more garish then when she was alive.

When I went in to see her, to say my last goodbyes, I kissed her forehead, held her hand. They felt cooler than they ever had before. I wiped the gunk that had collected in her right eye (that happened a lot in the last few days) and closed her eyelids a little more - they were slightly open, and looked a little creepy, so it felt right.

Later, when the hospice nurse came, she reminded us about my mom's rings, so I took took them off her finger. It was harder than I expected, and I had to use some lotion to help slide them off. Her skin felt even colder.

I don't want this to be the memory that's burned in my brain. I don't want this to be the mom I see every time I close my eyes. I want to see her laughing and smiling, full of life. But instead I have this.

Maybe it will fade.

Alternate reality

Sometimes, instead of falling asleep, I fall into this dream, this story I've created unintentionally in my head.

In it my mom is already gone, and my dad is the person who dies. But it's not a slow, quiet death - it's a violent death at the hands of a killer, a part of some huge plot (because my dad is of course some sort of super sleuth working for the good of mankind) to overthrow the powers of good in the world.

It happens in England, and they don't catch the guy who set off the bomb that killed my dad. So we're in the middle of this investigation led by a savvy British female detective who is both amazing at solving crimes and at comforting and caring for my sister and me.

I've fallen into this dream a number of times instead of falling asleep, and every time the details of my dad's murder are the same, but I enter into different parts of the story - tonight we found the killer's associates and we're interrogating them to get answers, last night was just the explosion. Sometimes I get stuck in this alternate universe - I'm aware that I'm there, I'm aware that I'm not asleep like I should be, but I can't get out of the story - it feels so real.

I don't know why this is the story that keeps playing in my head. There may be some hidden meaning to it - fear of loosing another parent, remembering the violence and suddenness of the original stroke, or maybe simple proof I watch way to many crime solving shows on TV and that I really like British sleuths (...ahem...Sherlock).

Whatever the reason, sometimes it's nice to live in this alternate reality - where the entity that killed my parent has a face and a name, where I have someone to blame. Where we're being proactive and figuring out the puzzle of death instead of just having to sit in grief.

The box

I was going through some stuff from my parents' (my dad's) storage unit, and I wound up with a box of old papers and paper bags that I need to recycle. I was sorting in the living room, and I left my box of recycling there, towards the edge of the room so it's mostly out of the way.

But I keep looking at it, and every time I do I think "I need to move that box so mom's wheelchair can get by." And then I remember that now I can leave the box there as long as I want, because my mom won't be coming through the living room in her wheelchair anymore.

So I leave the box there, because it's not in the way. But I really leave the box there because I'm too tired to deal with it. But really I leave the box there because every time I see it I forget for a moment that my mom isn't just in the other room. Every time I see it I have this feeling, this hope, that my mom will be here, in the living room with me, if I just wait for her. And that split second of hope, of forgetting that she's gone, is worth the pain of remembering, every time I see the box, that's she's not here anymore.

Coffee table

When my parents moved from our big old Craftsman house to a two-bedroom condo they gave away a lot of furniture and housewares. Some of my friends were the happy recipients of a lot of what they gave away. Whenever I go over to my friends' apartment I eat out of my childhood bowls, drink from what used to be my ice cream mug and sit on the leather couch that feels just like home.

Today I was hanging out with these friends - eating out of their (my) bowls, lounging on their (my) couch, my feet up on their (my) coffee table. And this memory struck:

My mom was hemming some pants for me - a pair of jeans I had bought that were too long, as most jeans are. We were being meticulous about the hem - they were going to be a little shorter in the back, so the hem wouldn't drag on the ground, and a little longer in the front, so they wouldn't look geeky. (My mom was an expert jean seamstresses. She taught me what she knew and I sometimes patch and hem jeans in exchange for homemade scones.)

Because the hem was so complicated, and because I was so picky, my mom had me stand on our coffee table in the living room so she could see the hem more easily and so she could more precisely pin. I remember my dad watching TV and being confused as to why I was standing on the table in his way. I remember my mom pinning the jeans, having me step off the table to test them out, and adjusting the pins a few more times until we were both satisfied with the future hem. I remember prancing around on the table - this was the one time I was allowed to stand on it, so I wanted to make the most of it.

I'm glad my friends still have my parents coffee table - it means that every time I visit I'll picture me dancing around on the table with my pinned up jeans and I'll see my mom watching me, laughing.

Melancholy

Some days I feel the melancholy, the ennui of grief. On these days I glide along, feigning interest in everything. On these days I mostly want to curl up in a ball and sleep for a long time (but the sleep doesn't come).

Some days are a little lighter - I can laugh, I'm inquisitive, I want to read a book or watch TV. On these days I need to let myself be lighter, and keep myself from manufacturing sadness. On these days I let myself watch Community or Parks and Rec, instead of forcing myself to cry while reading my memoirs about death.

Each day, each mood is valid. Each is a part of "the process," part of the ebb and flow of grief. Though I certainly wouldn't mind if "the process" was a little more predictable.