there are many meetings after someone dies and other truths learned in the last 24 hours

even if they were cremated and put in their box the day after they died. Apparently the funeral home has an "informative packet" for me which should be interesting and, perhaps, even, informative. At least they got rid of that fucking fountain.

(I seriously don't remember having to go to the funeral home so much even after my stepfather, who had $10k worth of pomp and circumstance, finally kicked it.)

Ok, I guess that’s the only thing I’ve learned in the last 24 hours.

the cardinal at the window

Over the past couple of days a cardinal has been slamming his head into the living room window. We've put up fake owls in the window and he still slams and slams and slams. Intercrainal hemorrhaging would have taken root by now, surely?

Or a broken window, whichever comes first.

Or a broken mind, to wit: I have been swearing at this cardinal because my mother, in the months before her death, had – at least as far as the items I've found and mail order items delivered – become obsessed with cardinals.

The day she died, I opened one of the delivered and unopened packages and found it filled with little chotchke woodblocks relaying messages of something or other about a cardinal being an angel or memory or IDK whatthefuckever, and, given the timing – and in spite of being the indifferent agnostic with atheistic tendencies that I am, I (my stance: if I'm wrong, I'm wrong – and I'm relatively convinced that holy water would melt me like Christopher Lee circa 1965)– suitably, I think, and sans too fine a point, freaked the fuck out.

We've now entered day three of the intercranially-hemorrhaging headslamming cardinal and I am swearing at him still, jesusfuckingchrist go away, youre not getting in, youre not making me feel guilty anymore for being me im free now – or I will be once I get all of your fucking Christmas decorations out of your garage / QVC does NOT constitute generational family heirlooms…

home/time

Long struggled with feeling at home: can count two, maybe three times that I've felt what could genuinely be considered "at home": my maternal grandparents' home at the lake (long since sold), my first apartment in Boston... and... I think (thought) that's it.

(What about when you were growing up, with, you know, parents? Pretty sure that the only times I felt like I was Home in that situation was when I woke up before anyone else and played with action figures under blankets and, later, when I was behind the drumset, making my stepfather's ears bleed.)

But, inside these feelings of Home is the revelation (to me, if to no one else) that "Home" is as much a time as it is a place – or, rather, it's a point in time inside a place, a place and a time at which I feel truly most myself without having to hide it or apologize for it: Home for me is, now, this first chunk of (The) Work, 530, give or take, in the morning, until about 0700, before the first insulin shot, the sweet sweet lifeblood of the first cup of coffee surging through my veins, The Sanctum lit only by a monitor light, a backlight, and the dark mode screen of white on black text to the tune of unobtrusive ambient music, Kirby snoring on the couch behind me, my still-too-emphatic pounding on the keyboard, and the scritch of pen against paper and, while the second, post-run, daylight block of The Work is great too, I do feel like I've gone to work – my day's run being my commute, a circle by which to come back to from whence I came and to see it, literally, in a different light.

For now, though, as of this writing – my adult form of action figures under blankets – I am Home. And Kirby snores on.

a gift for an unknown recipient

In her closet: atop photos and yet another stockpile of colorful zippered containers for whimsy and/or pillows, decorative or otherwise, is a wrapped gift addressed to no one and, given that my mother has been dead for a week, I really can't ask her to whom it's supposed to go.

Further heightening the (tea-cozy) mystery is my mother’s predilection for buying Christmas gifts the January before and half-century birthday gifts when the intended recipient turns 49 if not 48: this could be for anyone at anytime.

And yes, I've opened it: a bunch of cutesy/whimsy - appropriately - cardinals. Apologies for spoilers if you were the intended recipient but know that if this were, indeed, one of my mother’s tea-cozy mysteries, the cat would tell me the answer and all of this would be rendered moot and we would, instead of pondering this mystery, be having scones and drinking tea to celebrate our brilliant detective work while the cat, who cannot drink tea or have scones yet can, apparently, speak, stares daggers.

Alas, the cat isn't talking.

the last three months: an inventory of breakdowns, repairs, invasions, bonebreaks, healings, death, and rewritten obits

Updated, 20220502, to include GIF summation.

To call the last few months trying is an understatement. While not an exhaustive list, these are the events that have, for better or for worse, defined the last several months.

Mid-January: in the first big, titanic snowfall of the winter – which basically made every Friday in January a snow day for K – my 95-year-old grandfather fell and broke his elbow, precipitating a family crisis group text. He has since fully healed and is back in full working order.

Late January: on the first windchill warning of the winter, our furnace and hot water heater blew up. We were, resultantly, without heat until the next day (though my innovations of necessity with blackout curtains, eyehooks, a space heater, and an electric oven made at least part of the house warmer than it would have been had the furnace been operational) and without hot water until the following week.

Late February: my mother twisted her back. And decided – in spite of my (and others) pleadings, protestations, and outright explosions – to neglect caring for herself. The straw, the camel.

Late February (also): our refrigerator died and I herniated a disc in my back to go along with the multiple bulging discs in my spine. Refrigeration returned the week after.

(continued after GIF summation…)

February - April: a mouse invasion turned into a rat invasion (thanks to new holes in foundation drilled for new venting for hot water and heat) which turned into me a brutal rodent hunter, a skilled stuffer of potential entrances (broken glass and plaster make for an effective deterrent), and avowed fan of locktite tupperware or its reasonable facsimile. The dogs were utterly useless in any of my huntings.

Late March-April 26, 2022: two ER visits in a row after two falls with my mother led to her hospitalization for malnutrition, dehydration, and a few worrying things. Those worrying things eventually snowballed into the revelation that her liver and kidneys were borked and that her cancer had mestastasized without any of us knowing about it given that she refused to be scanned for two years. Whether she knew about it or not remains – and will remain – an open question. She died on the morning of April 26, was entombed (a new word I learned in all of this) on the morning of April 28th, back at home with her husband. I will not be visiting as I refuse to visit or mourn anything to do with that stepfathering cocksucker.

(In the middle of above: I got angry about the current situation and put my fist through the electric range. Oven = replaced. All appliances now new.)

Yesterday morning: I rewrote her obit, a private one, not in the paper (as per her wishes, which I countermanded in this private fashion because it's an in thing among the elder generation to clip obits, part of their process of processing), before sending it off to the printers for my grandfather (not the one who broke his elbow), to go along with his little keepsake of her ashes (she fit in the cupholder on the drive home) so that he could mourn her without visiting aforementioned stepfathering cocksucker for whom we were possessed of nothing but loathing.

This morning: oven, fridge, furnace, hot water heater continue to work. My back still fucking hurts. Grandfather still healed. Mother still dead. And here I am, executing final wishes and such.

The next three months: fuck if I know.

i wish i could come up with something for you to do to help but i cant right now sorry

Throughout this process of my mother's death, both before and after, my inability to ask for help stands: the currently most-frequently asked question of me, "is there anything I can do to help?" is, on the surface – and, probably, to most normal human beings with a functional brain –, an honest, earnest effort on the part of those who genuinely do wish to do something amidst a situation in which no one knows how or what to do.

But, by asking me if there's anything they can do to help – and, in spite of best intentions –, they're adding a task to my already not-insignificant task list. Indeed, in cooking, it's far easier for me to do everything myself than to parse out my process into pieces that someone else could do, no matter how much the help may help; I'm so used to shouldering everything myself that I am woefully unequipped to ask anyone for anything let alone find something in the miasmatic GTD process of admistrative death following corporeal death to delegate.

To wit: It took a near breakdown during the process of my uncle's death by glioblastoma to be willing to have it be my idea to go to a therapist; it took me holding a knife to my wrist to decide that medication was probably a good idea last summer; and, in the last week, it took four tries before I was willing to send a text to ask a cousin to check in on my grandfather the day after we learned that his daughter was going to die and I never did send a text asking a friend and/or an aunt if they had a guide, or "literature" about what to do after someone dies...the list can go on and on.

And it probably will.

my favorite part of processing the death of a parent is when others tell you how youre going to feel...

... because, clearly: all parents are the same, products of a GIVER-factory that spits out perfect carbon copies of individuals engineered precisely to serve in the role of parent and any deviation thereof is considered a manufacturing flaw...

... because, clearly: all factory-fresh carbon parents come packaged with a user manual handed to you on your way out the womb, down the chute, Superman and Marlon Brando crystalline plantings, and, in subsection 52.6, "Shutdown," you'll find step by step guidance through those five stages, towards the peace at the end and that mythological shit of the bull, closure...

... because, clearly: subsection 52.7 of the Brando crystal gives guidance to the entire fucking world on how to help others process the events of 52.6, to help them get back on the step-by-step because that's the plan and that's how things are supposed to go, step-by-step, in linear perpetuity...

... because, clearly: all relationships are, as with aforementioned parental carbon copies, the same, down to the minute, to the year, to the age you started mourning them before they actually departed this mortal coil therefore befitting such an aforementioned linear perpetuity in which a leads to b leads to c...

... because, clearly: the only opacity is clarity // the only questions are answers // the only simultaneity is linearity // the only complexity is simplicity // the only wrongs are right(s) // the only humanity is deification // the only flaws are perfections // the only

an observation upon watching my mother die at 0925 yesterday morning

In the final act of dying of natural causes the body (based only in what I could observe from my vantage point of that fucking hardback chair that held my ass for the third deathwatch vigil in as many days) takes however much time it needs to die: there's no such thing as a quick (natural) death, the internal, physiological process of dying measured in hours or days or weeks being "quick" only when balanced against the timeline of life in its entirety.

(I have my doubts that the mind/spirit/whatever has anything to do with it (waiting for the right moment, etc etc) but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for my faithless / faith-challenged heathen self.)

Life is, after all, our universal terminal illness; it is death’s only prerequisite.

draft of a letter i may or may not distribute to my mother’s friends and family as her death draws near

First off, thank you for all you've done for my mother over the last few years. I've known we were on borrowed time since she was diagnosed with cancer in 2013: I was able to give her an existence – you were able to give her the life she wanted. Know that I truly appreciate all that you've done.

But I also need to lay out some boundaries as we move through this situation.

I have, over the last ten years, put my own health, mind, marriage, career, and spirit at considerable risk doing everything humanly possible to keep my mother, your friend, your daughter, your cousin, your whatever, alive and healthy. I have been at her beck and call, heeding each of her demands, realistic or not, as best I could. I have done all of this because it is the right thing to do – because it is the job that needs doing.

And right now, my job is to see to it that her final wishes are followed to the letter; to see that her body is delivered to where she wishes it to be; that her life be erased, bit by bit, in accordance with her last will and testament; and, finally, to give her father, my grandfather, the best life possible in whatever time he has left.

Let me be clear: once she passes, my central concern is the well-being of my grandfather. No parent should have to live through the death of a child but this is life: it is chaos and it is pain; it joy and it is sadness; it is day and it is night. I will do everything I can to be the pride and joy that he's called me for all of my 40 years and help him through however much time he is here.

While it is my job to see that her life ends, both physically, and legally, as comfortably as possible over the coming days and weeks, it is up to you to keep her memory with you.

There will be no funeral service, no obituary in the paper. She will be cremated and her remains will be put alongside those of her husband. This is the letter of her last wishes, and I will honor them as such.

However: after some time has passed (read: let me get her apartment cleaned out, legal stuff taken care of, and find my own equilibrium), if you would like to organize your own thing / celebration of life gathering, you are more than welcome to do so. Please know that, while I will wish you all well with this and endorse, fully, all you want to do, I will have no part in the organization or execution of said gathering. I must move forward.

Further, while I respect, understand, and appreciate your grief, I must ask that you, a.) allow me the space to not only execute the considerable administrative tasks that lie before me but to process the extremely complex emotions I'm processing in these final days with my mother, and b.) not use me as a willow upon which to hang your own grief or your frustrations over your lack of control over the situation: while I have the utmost empathy for you, I am not – CANNOT –, nor will I serve as, your chaplain, therapist, or shoulder to cry on. What I can do is grant your grieving process as much empathy and caring as I can muster in this inordinately difficult and, for me, emotionally complex time; I ask only that you grant a similar respect to the boundaries of mine.

Thank you again for all you have done for her.

Best,

Tyler

things i've learned, realized, and/or accepted over the past several days of watching my mother die

Writing this in 15 minutes while I wait to hear back from the nurse with probably news of the inevitable.

• Hospice people are very nice and utterly delightful to talk with. Listening to them describe their work is beyond fascinating.

• I'm not as allergic to cats as I thought. I'm looking forward to having a cat again, even if it's for a shorter time frame than is standard (He's 12, after all).

• My stance on life and death remains the same: life is chaos, death is order. In death, we are restored to order; until then, it's all chaos.

• While resilient, the body is quite fragile – some more than others, and some by their own mistakes, foolishness, and misplaced faith in their own capacities.

• It’s been borrowed time since 2013 - and little of it was particularly good.

• My bedside manner sucks but I get the job done: the coming days and weeks are the curtain call on a role I've had to play – parent to a parent – for 25 years.

• I can, indeed, put my fist through an electric stovetop.

• I’ve spoken to more people on the phone in the last few days than I have in the last ten years and I'm still not a fan.

• I don't owe anyone anything.

• I am not sad though I won't rule out the possibility once the dust settles. Too much whirlwind, external and in-. Many complicated feelings.

• There will be many, many Christmas ornaments, QVC chotchkes, and tea-cozy mysteries to donate. Should you require any, hit me up.

• I still hate cleaning cat litter. Don't suppose I can teach a 12-year-old cat to use the toilet, can I?

Im sure there will be more but this is the most processing I can do right now. Also: Kirby is eating a plant container. Beautiful day, though. Supposed to hit the 80s and then drop into the 50s by next week. How are you? I'm fine, thanks for asking.