Aftermath

I was able to officiate my mom's memorial without losing my composure altogether. In fact, I was cool as a stream until I stepped in front of the assembled. But the moment I started talking, I felt my throat start to close up, and I needed a kleenex. After a few deep breaths, though, I was able to continue. Her jazz vocalist friend Sandy sang one of Mom's favorite tunes, "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me." My younger brother gave a eulogy filled with vivid memories of our childhood with Mom and of her more recent life. He got a few tearful chuckles out of everyone and then more tears. Then we asked another longtime family friend to come up and play. Al, a jazz pianest, sat at our dinner table many times while I was growing up, and he accompanied my mom on countless occasions both at gigs of hers and when she sat in where he was playing. He gave a soulful rendition of "Over the Rainbow." And our city's poet laureate, who became another of my mom's close friends when they met at a widows and widowers support group, spoke eloquently on behalf of them.

For the record, the memorial was open-casket as it had been for my dad. The body did not look like my mom. At my dad's funeral, his body looked like he was just taking a nap. But for this occasion the mortitian gave my mom's face an expression and color that made it look like it was a cousin of hers in that casket. So after the initial glance, I didn't look again. Her body was cremated today. We'll receive her ashes tomorrow and on Thursday we'll take a boat out into the channel and scatter them, along with my dad's and some handfuls of rose petals and lavender, into the swift-moving current. I'm not feeling much about that, for some reason. I'm not feeling much about anything, except a strong longing for about a year off. Everyone tells me that after a while the grieving will start, or that at the holidays I'll be hit with waves of sadness. I don't know.

Now there is paperwork to do. Now there are closets to go through, bills to keep paying, investment decisions to make, so many practical things to take care of. We'll start the first weekend in June, so I have a month back in the Bay Area with my sweetheart. I'm looking forward to that.