so much has happened since i last wrote.
we went to the hospital and maura had her baby, missy. margaret kathryn (missy) was born at 1:46 that day. 9lbs 11oz 21-1/2."
maura had asked me to come into the operating room with her for her c-section.
i dressed up in scrubs and sat in a stool next to her and held her hand while they went in for missy.it was pretty incredible. missy came out screaming.
what a miraculous day. to be able to help my mom leave the world in the morning and help my niece into the world in the afternoon, was an incredible gift. i am so thankful for that gift.
as soon as maura heard the baby scream, she burst into tears. i kept telling her "she's here. she's here." and she understood that i was talking about mummy. i told her that mom had to leave that morning, because she wouldn't have been able to see our new girl if she were still trapped inside her failing body.
i really felt her there with us.i made it through the birth and part of the closing up before i had to leave the room and faint.
maura had them put the all-access bracelet on me so i could see missy at any time, so i went into the nursery while they were checking her out and cleaning her up.
i was standing there, stroking her leg, when i heard "how sweet it is to be loved by you" on the nurses' radio. that was the song i was singing to mummy the night before.
we kept getting signs.
when the nurses switched shifts at night, one of them came into maura's room and wrote their names on the dry erase board. they were "margaret and mary-anne" (my mother and her sister's names)
missy looks just like maura. she is perfect. sometimes i call her "formerly" because she was originally going to be named "celia" after me and sometimes she just squeaks...and i call her "mouse."
we brought missy home on friday. mom's "viewing" at the funeral home was friday night.they asked us for an "outfit" and we put her in a flannel nightgown with a black watch plaid and fuzzy pink socks with pig faces on the ankles. we told them not to "tart her up" because she rarely and barely wore make up. they asked us to send a picture of her hairstyle and we laughed out loud. we said "get it wet and let it dry...that's her hairstyle." they did a really good job.
we decided on a closed casket . we left it open for the family and then closed it when the rest of the viewing started because mom's appearance has changed drastically since october.
we stuck treats in, under her pillow before we closed her up.
they gave us two rooms and they were packed. people were spilling out into the hallway. missy and i stood by one of the doorways and greeted people as they came in.my mother believes that a funeral is a celebration of a life. she does not like us to wear black. we wore bright colors, and when people started to get a little quiet, i walked our baby by to brighten things up.
the next morning, buzzy came down with the boys and they got all dressed up in their suits and we went to the church. all i had with me was a black suit, so i wrapped myself up in a beautiful multicolored silk scarf that my mom got in italy a million years ago.
my mother has a thing about strange socks (hence the piggy socks) and we each picked a pair of her socks to wear. mine said "pig heaven" and had pigs with halos. magee's had hippos and maura's had pigs. we wore boots, so they weren’t as apparent as the ones that buzzy and the boys wore with their suits. buzzy’s were halloween socks, seamus had christmas trees and liam's had cars. she would have loved it.
the funeral was lovely. perhaps a little too calm for my tastes. i tried to get a gospel choir...that would have made it perfect, but instead, one of our grade school classmates, a tenor, sang for us.
the only moment that almost brought me to my knees was afterwards. we were outside the church and the pall bearers were carrying her to the hearse. and the sight of my mother being carried by six young men who loved her dearly was so sweet to me that it still makes me cry when i picture it.
buzzy carried her along with our biological cousin's timmy, philip and eddy and two of our three soulmate cousins johnny and lea.
when we got to the cemetery, her brother ned joined them to carry her to the grave.
we have a pretty healthy attitude towards life and death. it is rooted in our catholicism and it has been shaped by my mother's own feelings about it. the cemetery is a comfortable place for me. we used to do our under-age drinking there when i was a catholic schoolgirl. i took a grave digger to my senior prom.
the grave side service was lovely. they had chairs set up for us, but we had her brother and sisters sit in them instead, along with aunt jane and elly and miss maura.
we handed out "party favors" at the church. they were little booklets and cds with her songs. she would have loved them.
it was hard to leave. but we did.
aunt mary-anne had a lovely reception at her house and then we went to aunt jane's for dinner.
it was a beautiful day.
when i got to aunt jane's, everyone was in the back yard playing a strange version of touch football. (we call it "carty ball" because every time the carty boys start to lose, they change the rules) when johnny's wife said something about it, they teased her and said "don't be so linear." the carty boys have been amazing constants in our lives.
aunt jane has fed us almost every night since mom died. we've had no fewer than 14 people at the table each time. it has been bittersweet since mom used to always be sitting across from me. but it was much more sweet than bitter. (except when aunt jane discovered that the boys had hollowed out her angel food cake when she went to slice it for dessert.)
when we sat down to dinner, aunt jane leaned over and whispered to me that she had told lea that day that she was supposed to go before mom. and lea said that aunt missy needed her here to take care of us and that while it was so hard to lose aunt missy, it was so good to have three new sisters.
our day, yesterday, was spectacular.
my mother would have loved it.
and i won't say that i wish she had been there, because it felt like she was. at one point, during the funeral, i pulled her wrap tightly around my shoulders and for a brief second, i felt her hands rubbing my shoulders as if she were standing right behind me.
now we go on. and i think this is going to be the hard part. 2006 really sucked. i wish i could be more articulate about it...but i can't find a better word than that. but i think my need to write about everything is passing, so i will move on quietly.
i want to thank you for taking this journey with me. your thoughts and prayers and e-mails really carried me. they meant the world to me and to my mother.
i know she thanks you, too, for taking such good care of me.
