sweet little things that have come to me in flashes

maria eugenia velasco gave us a key to her house. the whole time mom was at sibley, she wanted us to have a comfortable place just a few miles away. we never used it...but we always knew it was there. she was there for us.
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maria brought us two grocery bags full of comfort food when we were camped out at the hospital.
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carolina velasco heard about maria's giant bags of junk food. soon afterwards, she came by the hospital with fresh fruit and healthy snacks to counter the comfort food maria had brought. she came in and sat with us and was bright and sparkly when we were all catatonic.
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maria and carolina's mummy reached out and hugged me as i walked down the aisle behind mummy's casket on the way out of the funeral. it was beyond sweet to see her and mr. velasco there. and when she whispered in my ear, "i remember how i felt when i lost my mother," it was terribly moving.
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kara's parents came, too. and at mummy's wake it was funny because they asked how i knew the browns. (they ran into friends who have a homes near both their maryland and maine homes) and i explained that mummy was a brown. it reminded me how small the world is.
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mike and carolee beck were there and cari lynn, too. mr. beck kissed his fingertips and pressed them on mummy's casket when we were walking out of the church. both mike and carol lee were so connected to mummy. i think kaki proctor was there, too.
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i tried really hard to find the right "casket spray" for mummy. i went to a florist in gaithersburg and gave them my dream list of flowers. hydrangea were on the top. the florist explained that i couldn't get hydrangea that would look good at that time of year, so i ended up getting something that looked like a bad thanksgiving centerpiece.

a fed-ex package came to the house a few days after mummy died. it was a package of live hydrangea from gabrielle that kara (or maria) put in a vase in the middle of the table in the sunroom.
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i don't remember exactly who did it...it was all a blur. but i do remember that kara and maria came over one night and helped me put together the cds for mummy's funeral.
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when we went to st. patrick's, i was supposed to pay the church and the organist and the tenor and i couldn't fill out a check correctly. and then sheila o'donnell came and took the check book out of my hands and listened while i spelled "petrucelli" and took all of that weight off of my shoulders.
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when i looked at the altar, there was the most beautiful flower arrangement i had ever seen. it was sooooo mummy. and it was full of live, fresh hydrangea. it was from her cousins, the browns.
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penny coppola (mummy's college roommate) called us on the night mummy was dying. i was laying next to magee on the floor while she was talking to penny. i could only hear magee's side of the conversation but the love that was coming out of the cordless was palpable.
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kara's mom drove all the way out to mom's house after everything was over and everyone was gone and brought us a full, family sized meal and an activity blanket that missy loves.
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when we were going through it, we were consumed by it. and all of our attention was on her. it is only now, when all of this time has passed, that i am remembering these simple, beautiful, loving gestures.

it is amazing that something simple like taking a pen and a checkbook out of someone's hand can make a difference. and more and more of these moments come back to me every day.

i've shifted from crying to smiling (for the most part). we have been blessed.

once again, it has been a while since i have written. i've almost completed the move to los angeles. i have sold the berkeley bungalow and the boxes in l.a. are almost completely unpacked .

i'm two months into the new job and i've rescued a new beast.

did i mention that fang the wonder dog died at christmas time? he was 14-1/2 years old and his arthritis was awful. when i called magee to tell her, she reminded me that we thought we were going to lose him last march so all of the rest of the time was a bonus.



he was a glorious beast. losing him almost on the anniversary of losing mummy really sucked.

next christmas, i am going to wrap myself in bubble wrap and tuck myself in the corner of a closet for the duration of the holidays in hopes that i don't emerge with any more loss before the new year starts. i will say this...after losing mummy..losing fang was nothing. it's not that i didn't love him...he was glued to my side for years and years and i found him to be incredibly sweet and very grounding...but mummy's death was so monumentally painful that losing fang was easy in comparison. it's not that it didn't hurt...but my capacity for hurt was stretched so far by the death of mummy that i barely felt the death of fang.

the new beast is quite different than fang. fang was a genius...but a curmudgeon. i think scout might be an airhead. she is so purely joyful and friendly that i am still a little surprised that we found each other. she lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared.





i brought her back to the east coast last weekend and we spent the weekend with maura and missy at the beach house.

missy is magical. she also lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared. i sometimes find myself "armchair quarterbacking" some of the more trivial aspects of her care...but i am not in maura's shoes and i can't help but marvel at the essence of maura's mothering skills because missy is purely joyful and unconditionally loved (even when she bites).

the monday before my return was really lovely. maura and i stopped off at aunt mary anne and uncle jude's for lunch on the way home from bethany beach. uncle jude's new kidney is fabulous because it has given him back the energy he needs to be his mischievous self. i didn't have to go to the bathroom and cry when aunt mary anne hugged me...but her eyes did catch me off guard a couple of times.
i can't say the scales have permanently tipped in one direction or another because this is all still very much a bumpy ride...but on monday the scales were tipped more towards feeling the comfort of seeing mummy in aunt mary anne's eyes and tipped away from the striking feeling of loss that could have come from the very same sight.

we had dinner with aunt jane and uncle john, buzzy, liam and seamus. the boys are growing like weeds. like maura, buzzy has effervescent parenting skills resulting in magical children.

i spent the last night of my trip at mummy's house. this time, i couldn't find her shoes.

now, i am back in los angeles. i have almost finished unpacking boxes. in the back of my head, i think i have been dragging out the unpacking process...because finishing the work of upending my life over the past four months means that i will have to face this question: "what's next?"

i made all of these changes so i could have more time for myself...and, frankly, that is a scary proposition.