My mother-in-law Roxanne sadly passed away quite suddenly. She died from a choking accident in a restaurant. She hadn't been well. She'd been dealing with unexplained pain for about 5 years and was on many pain killers. Awful.
The saddest thing for me at first, was that we were just on our way to seeing her and she was so excited. I really wanted to reconnect. She hadn't seen my kids in a long time. Living so far away from them has been hard. On both ends. I would just hate it if my grand kids lived in another country. I think I'd go nuts.
Is it ok to follow your kids around wherever they go? What if you have more than one and they don't go to live in same places!?
At Roxanne's funeral I was just so glad to be there for my boys. For Andy too. Of course it's hard to understand when your grandma is in a pretty green urn and gets set in a wall. Very hard. But they do absorb what's happening, and I could be there to hold them if they needed it. My relief at being there was almost overwhelming. Thankful. Thankful. So thankful. And in some sense, it added to my goal of creating normalcy for my kids. Things were happening in the proper order. The way it "should" be. In order of age. And although she was very young to have passed, it was still in order.
Roxanne is with her community. Her parents are buried maybe 100 meters away. Her friends from high school live near by. They sang beautiful Ukrainian songs at the ceremony. They had such good voices. It made me cry. They are so nice in this community that they held a mass just for me while I was getting my transplant. What a caring thing to do for a nice jewish girl. And it worked!
Many of them were WW11 survivors or refugees. If you were Ukrainian during the war, your country and families were torn apart, first by Stalin and then Hitler. Many Ukrainians became freedom fighters against both. Roxanne's grandfather ended up in Auschwitz and then Eban Haezer. After he survived that, he was freed by the Americans in 1945. He then wandered around Germany looking for his wife and daughter. They were miraculously reunited and emigrated to the US in 1948. Hard. Hard. Times.
Her friends have more in common with my mother- in-law than we did as her family. They knew her and understood her in a completely different way. In a way that was very reassuring to her, I'm sure.
This makes me rethink the idea of wanting to chase my kids around. Raising kids is so temporary. This is probably good, because It's like this wild amusement park ride. Fun, thrilling, surprising, exhausting. To the point where it can feel like hard work! Right?
And then when they go, (am I freaking out because Isaac's turning 13? Um, yeah) they gotta go! It's just what happens. And you want them to, right? (Wrong). So then who are you back with after that? Your friends. Your husband. Your wife. All your buddies. And that will be a pleasure. It'll be like being back in high school. (Andy thinks I never really matured much further than high school. I take that as a compliment. Those were goods times).
I just watched the movie Amour on the plane from CA to NY. It was really poignant after Roxanne dying. She had been taken care of by her husband and care providers for a few years now. It was beautiful in the movie how their dignity was of the upmost importance to them both. His dedication to his wife being surrounded by kindness and love was chilling. When she cried out in the movie for her mama it made me realize again what being a mama means. Having and needing a mama runs so deep. The nurse in movie said it becomes a reflex to call out for your mother. I'm not saying others don't get deep into the souls of children. They do. But mommies just seem to melt in to every cell. And then, in the movie, when in the husband answered her as if he were her mother...gorgeous.
