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Friday, April 28, 2006
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A few random observations:
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Well, It's all done. Tuesday we got through my mothers funeral and for the most part, our job is finished. And while it was the expected conclusion of a lengthly phase of her and our lives, there is a certain finality about seeing the backhoe and the truck full of freshly dug dirt heading towards my mothers burial plot that goes down a bit hard. Not beacuse any of it was tragic or a surprise, but just because. But all in all, I'm glad that I will leave this all behind me with no real regrets for things left unsaid or undone. It was time.
Over the last few days, it again occured to me that in most ways, we lost my mom several years ago. I have had the task of handeling or assisting in the final affairs of a few people (though thankfully not many) in my life. But this was distinctly different in that there was no necessity to sort through the typical mountain of belongings that we tend to leave behind when we die. Materially, she left very little beyond a few changes of clothing, her hair brush and just about enough money to conduct her funeral. Not because she was impovershed, but simply because she had little need of anything else. Nearly everything else had been given to someone else who could use or appreciate them. I see no tragedy in that, it is simply the way it was. She did of course leave behind all of those priceless intangables that we keep with us and that help to make us who we are, if we make the effort to value them. I hope that when I die, I'll have done half as well.
These inevitable events are amazing in their ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, in terms of the people who surround you. Some folks go to extraordinary lengths to help or just be around to support you, for no reason other than that they care. Others who ought to be there, simply are not. I have been walking around with my eyes open long enough that that neither surprises nor angers me, but it somehow seems worth noting. Also worthy of note is what treasures my wife and kids are. Of course I have always known that, but days like the last few are very effective at filtering out the noise of day-to-day life that tend to distract you from those sort of obvious truths.
In a similar fashon, another small thing that has been sitting in front of me for a long time, today jumped into focus after having seen it many times before. A while after my mom moved into our house, we would occasionally find scraps of paper on which she had made repeated attempts to practice things like writing the alphabet or signing her name. Her normally very neat writing was now uneven, crooked and child-like. It was apparent to her that those things were slipping away and she was, I suppose, trying to hang on. While preparing to make some calls today, I was going through the notebook that she kept all of her phone numbers in. In doing so, I came across something I had seen many times before. I think she was practicing to write out a birthday card to someone. Scrawled at an angle across one of the pages amongst backward numbers and letters was this:
Goodbye Ma, we all love you too.
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thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 6:20 AM
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