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We lay my mother to rest in Franklinton in the family cemetery, near the dairy farm by my grandparents’ old house on Thigpen Road, near her older brother Dale, and his youngest son Carey, and right in line with my Mama Mae. Patsy’s home at last.

I vowed to mom when she was alive that I would speak at her funeral service but I went to sleep on Tuesday night and woke Wednesday morning dreading the service. My sister had called me a murderer at the hospital because I had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order for my mom. [Mom had entered the hospital with a living will that I learned very quickly didn’t mean “shit” according to the head physician – you have to specify exactly what your desires are otherwise they are subject to too much interpretation.]

I know my mother’s desires were not to live tethered to a ventilator, with a feeding tube in her stomach, her lack of dignity on public display day after day. I know this. I would have signed a DNR earlier but I could tell my sister wasn’t ready to say goodbye. But after five months and three Code Blues, I knew that not signing one was cowardly and so I went in and signed. The administrator told me, “About time, if this was my mother and I had waited this long, she would have come back to get me.” A family member called and asked me if I had really thought about it enough.

We met with the rabbi before the service who didn’t know my mother and again I felt good I had come prepared to speak on her behalf. My friends, who had become her friends, lined one side of the aisle while my family was on the other. My older brother flew into a rage because he was trying to wrest control of a situation that was already in no one’s control, but in the end I knew he was in pain, because while my mother was not his biological one, she was his mom too. Then my sister got up and got to me when she said that mom was her best friend and after she passed she wanted to be able to call her and tell her. Haven’t I had that feeling over and over again – wanting to call my mom. And then I stood up to speak. While at the podium, my sister turned around to my family saying over and over that I had killed mom. That is when Tatjana moved to sit among friends.

In the end, the family looked more like a loosely knit group of old lovers who were more in pain by association than not, and I knew that with my mom’s passing, the last vestiges of what had held this family together were now buried deep in the red dirt ground of Franklinton, Louisiana.

But like all doors that close, the ones that open are surprising. My aunt and uncles were so supportive they gave me a new lease on my mother’s side of the family. My niece who got up to speak on my mother’s behalf did so with such heartfelt emotions, I was in awe of who she has become. And my younger brother who was there to calm everyone down proved that all the men in my family are not rage machines. Last night when friends gathered at our house to toast my mother’s life I felt I was truly with my loved ones. Then later when my sleep was again broken by nightmares of me calling out to my mother over and over and T held me close and soothed me, I realized that my loving cup runneth over.

And to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, rest in peace Mom, we all loved you in our own nutty ways.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:45 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.