'In the toughest moments, it’s hard to imagine giving one more ounce of yourself away.'
and barely ate them. We drank wine, without joy. By the last two days, which we did not know at the time would be the last two days, we finally found the courage to say, “Mom, it’s OK now. You can go.”She died on Sunday. That morning, my father and sisters and I walked into the room together to be with her one final time. Those moments are a blur to me now. What was said, how our bodies moved through space. It’s an impression, vague and yet full of sorrow.
Eventually, we had to call the hospice nurses and Lev, the funeral director. As devastated as we were, we made sure to tell Lev that he’d better bury our mom with her blonde wig on, or else. A Texas belle to the end, she hated losing her hair, and she would not just haunt us but kill us in our sleep if we let Lev bury her without that wig. Lev completely understood.
There’s a tradition in Judaism where, after sitting shiva, which is the weeklong mourning period, the family goes outside and walks around the block together. It signifies the bereaved reentering society. It’s supposed to happen a week after the burial, but we’re not exactly traditional, so the morning my mom died, my dad said he wanted us all to go outside and walk around the block, in keeping with that tradition, sort of.
We stepped outside. I held Cole in my arms, and, together, we walked. Rows of old live oak trees canopied the streets. I’m not sure what anyone said during our walk, if we said much of anything at all. I think we were mostly silent. It takes much longer than a simple stroll for loss to settle in, if it settles at all. It’s still settling around me, nearly five years after that walk below the oaks.
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