It was a Thursday like every other Thursday I guess. I had gone into work not very motivated to do anything. At that time I was working for an insurance company in the customer service department as middle management. At about 10 am I was feeling out of sorts and made up some excuse about not feeling well to use to cancel my dentist appointment that I didn't really feel like going to. At 11 I went to a meeting. I think it ended about noon.
When I returned to my desk, one of the service reps popped their head over the partition that separated our desks.
I remember exactly what she said. "Its a women's voice but she said to tell you its your Dad calling."
I took the call and heard my Dad's voice. He said, "Its your Mom. She's gone." And my natural response was "Gone where?" I seriously thought that she had finally left him. Good for her.
Before that second, that day my father had never called me. Ever. The extent of all of our phone calls had been very limited. If my Dad answered the phone I would say "Is Mom there?" and he would call her. If she had to walk far to get to the phone, he would then say one of two things "what's the weather like there?" or "How much is gas today?"
But today he called and said my Mom was dead. I didn't ask for details. He passed the phone to my Mom's best friend and neigbour, Anne. She asked if she should call anyone else and I said that NO, I would call everyone and I would be there as soon as I could.
The details of the rest of the day I can recall like it happened yesterday. I called my cousins who one by one made the one hour journey to my parent's place. I called my husband who met me at home and we made the three and a half hour trip from Toronto. I called my brother who was strangely out wrangling cattle so I had to tell my sister in law.
I muddled through the hundred or so phone calls that had to be made. Each time I told some one that she was dead and heard their condolences and their shock, I barely believed what I was saying. "Hi, its Sandra calling - Darlene's daugher. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but my Mom died today. Yes, it is quite a shock. It was very sudden. We think it was likely her heart."
I handled the transportation for my brother from BC and my other family from Alberta and organized all the arrangements: private family viewing (which I did not attend), cremation and memorial service. I cleaned the house and fed everyone and made it through the five days of post death crap. I cried like I would never stop. But I am the person who you want to go to in a crisis - I am a star under pressure.
Before that day, my Mom and I used to talk every single day. I left home at 17 for University and work and we were never as close as when we were far far away. She used to keep a pen and paper near the phone and she would write down things to tell me when I called.
People used to say how alike we were. How we looked alike and talked alike - which is odd since I'm adopted. But if I showed you a picture of us, you'd say we look just alike. No one told me what a HUGE hole in my day that one missing phone call would leave.
From the time that my parents brought me home when I was 15 days old I was the most wanted kid ever. According to my mother they brought me out of the adoption office and she immediately handed me over to my grandmother - panicking "I don't know what to do with her - you take her!" My mother had only had 2 days notice that she was getting a newborn - I can cut her some slack.
My birth mother (if that's what we're calling her) was only 13 when I was born. I doubt very much that I was the product of promiscuous teen sex. Not many 13 year olds in rural Ontario lived the 60's life of free love. I've often speculate that I was the product of rape or incest but actually it never mattered - it was just a way to get me to my real Mom.
My Mother hadn't been healthy for years. Lets face it, my mother could never have kids. If we go all the way back to when I was 11 - my Mother took me with her to Weight Watchers for the very first time (some time later I will tell you of my ongoing hell of the continuous revolving door relationship with the weight loss industry). I started weighing 135 pounds and I ended up weighing 165. Obviously not a plan for growing children. But my mother gained weight too. We switched to TOPS (that's taking off pounds sensibly) and the same happened there - we both gained more.
She had her first heart attack at 38. I remember sitting in the hospital out of my mind with worry (my grandmother had died of multiple heart attacks and I had just lost my grandfather 6 months before - I was freaked out by illness). In the memory in my head, my Dad isn't there. He was likely home drunk or upset - my memory can't decide. I remember the doctor telling her that she should stop smoking and it would be better to weigh 350 pounds than to smoke another cigarette. She tried her level best to attain that weight and never did ever smoke again.
She was also diagnosed with diabetes right then. No drugs - straight to insulin. I was diagnosed several years later. But wait - didn't I say I was adopted? Yes - its just one of those divine ironies of our relationship. It turns out that my birth mother was diabetic and so was her mother who had died from complications of diabetes (so my birth mom was motherless at 13). Non-hereditary hereditary diabetes was just a coincidence really.
My mother was very funny. She had a lot of friends, especially from those groups of weight loss chicks. She always drove a bunch of people every where they went. Of course all outings centred on food. It was always fun to be with Darlene! She had a great sense of humour, a good hearty laugh and just loved to be around people.
But she wasn't all sunshine. She had been on "nerve pills" to calm her frazzled nerves since she was 16 so basically had been doped up on valium for 40 years. She never seemed dazed but knowing what I know now - she must have been in a little bit of a fog all the time.
She was the world's most unimaginative cook - hated it and was bad at it. Our family tells stories often of her legendary "thickened hamburger". It is basically hamburger, salt, pepper, starch and water and you will have to trust me that you DON'T want the recipe!
She did some funny stuff. She would call me and tell me about jobs posted in the newspaper to work in the restaurant owned by a guy I had a crush on for years. She always assumed that if I would just move back home, work at the restaurant that he would magically fall in love with me and all would be wonderful. She never did know that I'd been sleeping with him on the sly for years.
When I was little, she used to make us wear nasty matching outfits. I have photos (and NO I will not share them) of the two of us in baby blue checked flare leg polyester pants, matching blue patterned shirts with BIG WIDE collars and baby blue sleeveless vest that had giant swans on them. We were a styling Mother and daughter team.
She carried herself well for a 300 pound plus woman. She had a HUGE ass. We called it her "shelf bum". We would joke that she could set little trinkets and collectables on it and display them. She wore two uniforms. One - plain polyester pants with a sweatshirt that had some kind of kitty cat or sparkly thing on it - sometimes it had a turtleneck under it and sometimes not. And two - the same plain polyester pants with a shell (sleeveless tshirt to you and I) and a loud colourful polyester overblouse. This last outfit was accompanied by matching jewellery - earrings and necklaces - equally loud. This is likely where I developed my devotion to the big jewellery that matches each of MY outfits.
She was sometimes mean - just Mom mean - but mean. She would let me wear the same outfit time after time and then say "you're not wearing that, are you? That always makes you look fat."
And she was hysterically funny. As I was going through the planning of the funeral, my aunts, my mother's friends, cousins - just everyone called me. The conversation went something like this:
She was the master of organization. The keeper of lists - in shorthand. The holder together of the family and friends. She was my family's glue.
Once she was gone - we lost our glue. I lost my glue. And a lot of crap happened that she would not have liked.
My Dad fought with her brother a week after the funeral. We had cremated her and buried her above her parents. Then we added a block to the headstone thus creating a family plot. Her brother didn't like that. My Dad told him to fuck off. It was the first and last time he ever told anyone to fuck off. We haven't seen my Uncle since. He didn't even send a card when my Dad died.
There were divorces, weddings and births that she missed. That would have pissed her right off. She wanted to have grandkids more than anything.
For weeks after her death, while sitting at home or at work, I would pick up the phone, dial her number and stop myself part way through. It was almost as if my head didn't want know she wasn't there. And of course, at that point I would burst into tears. Even now 11 years later I am a blubbering puke everytime a Mom dies. Finding Nemo. What dreams may come. Pretty in Pink. (Okay, well the Mom didn't die in that one but she wasn't THERE. )
I haven't yet told you the story of how she died. My father told it about 100 times at the lunch after the memorial service (and there were no pallbearers btw). It goes something like this (although it is better in my dad's voice):
When I returned to my desk, one of the service reps popped their head over the partition that separated our desks.
I remember exactly what she said. "Its a women's voice but she said to tell you its your Dad calling."
I took the call and heard my Dad's voice. He said, "Its your Mom. She's gone." And my natural response was "Gone where?" I seriously thought that she had finally left him. Good for her.
Before that second, that day my father had never called me. Ever. The extent of all of our phone calls had been very limited. If my Dad answered the phone I would say "Is Mom there?" and he would call her. If she had to walk far to get to the phone, he would then say one of two things "what's the weather like there?" or "How much is gas today?"
But today he called and said my Mom was dead. I didn't ask for details. He passed the phone to my Mom's best friend and neigbour, Anne. She asked if she should call anyone else and I said that NO, I would call everyone and I would be there as soon as I could.
The details of the rest of the day I can recall like it happened yesterday. I called my cousins who one by one made the one hour journey to my parent's place. I called my husband who met me at home and we made the three and a half hour trip from Toronto. I called my brother who was strangely out wrangling cattle so I had to tell my sister in law.
I muddled through the hundred or so phone calls that had to be made. Each time I told some one that she was dead and heard their condolences and their shock, I barely believed what I was saying. "Hi, its Sandra calling - Darlene's daugher. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but my Mom died today. Yes, it is quite a shock. It was very sudden. We think it was likely her heart."
I handled the transportation for my brother from BC and my other family from Alberta and organized all the arrangements: private family viewing (which I did not attend), cremation and memorial service. I cleaned the house and fed everyone and made it through the five days of post death crap. I cried like I would never stop. But I am the person who you want to go to in a crisis - I am a star under pressure.
Before that day, my Mom and I used to talk every single day. I left home at 17 for University and work and we were never as close as when we were far far away. She used to keep a pen and paper near the phone and she would write down things to tell me when I called.
People used to say how alike we were. How we looked alike and talked alike - which is odd since I'm adopted. But if I showed you a picture of us, you'd say we look just alike. No one told me what a HUGE hole in my day that one missing phone call would leave.
From the time that my parents brought me home when I was 15 days old I was the most wanted kid ever. According to my mother they brought me out of the adoption office and she immediately handed me over to my grandmother - panicking "I don't know what to do with her - you take her!" My mother had only had 2 days notice that she was getting a newborn - I can cut her some slack.
My birth mother (if that's what we're calling her) was only 13 when I was born. I doubt very much that I was the product of promiscuous teen sex. Not many 13 year olds in rural Ontario lived the 60's life of free love. I've often speculate that I was the product of rape or incest but actually it never mattered - it was just a way to get me to my real Mom.
My Mother hadn't been healthy for years. Lets face it, my mother could never have kids. If we go all the way back to when I was 11 - my Mother took me with her to Weight Watchers for the very first time (some time later I will tell you of my ongoing hell of the continuous revolving door relationship with the weight loss industry). I started weighing 135 pounds and I ended up weighing 165. Obviously not a plan for growing children. But my mother gained weight too. We switched to TOPS (that's taking off pounds sensibly) and the same happened there - we both gained more.
She had her first heart attack at 38. I remember sitting in the hospital out of my mind with worry (my grandmother had died of multiple heart attacks and I had just lost my grandfather 6 months before - I was freaked out by illness). In the memory in my head, my Dad isn't there. He was likely home drunk or upset - my memory can't decide. I remember the doctor telling her that she should stop smoking and it would be better to weigh 350 pounds than to smoke another cigarette. She tried her level best to attain that weight and never did ever smoke again.
She was also diagnosed with diabetes right then. No drugs - straight to insulin. I was diagnosed several years later. But wait - didn't I say I was adopted? Yes - its just one of those divine ironies of our relationship. It turns out that my birth mother was diabetic and so was her mother who had died from complications of diabetes (so my birth mom was motherless at 13). Non-hereditary hereditary diabetes was just a coincidence really.
My mother was very funny. She had a lot of friends, especially from those groups of weight loss chicks. She always drove a bunch of people every where they went. Of course all outings centred on food. It was always fun to be with Darlene! She had a great sense of humour, a good hearty laugh and just loved to be around people.
But she wasn't all sunshine. She had been on "nerve pills" to calm her frazzled nerves since she was 16 so basically had been doped up on valium for 40 years. She never seemed dazed but knowing what I know now - she must have been in a little bit of a fog all the time.
She was the world's most unimaginative cook - hated it and was bad at it. Our family tells stories often of her legendary "thickened hamburger". It is basically hamburger, salt, pepper, starch and water and you will have to trust me that you DON'T want the recipe!
She did some funny stuff. She would call me and tell me about jobs posted in the newspaper to work in the restaurant owned by a guy I had a crush on for years. She always assumed that if I would just move back home, work at the restaurant that he would magically fall in love with me and all would be wonderful. She never did know that I'd been sleeping with him on the sly for years.
When I was little, she used to make us wear nasty matching outfits. I have photos (and NO I will not share them) of the two of us in baby blue checked flare leg polyester pants, matching blue patterned shirts with BIG WIDE collars and baby blue sleeveless vest that had giant swans on them. We were a styling Mother and daughter team.
She carried herself well for a 300 pound plus woman. She had a HUGE ass. We called it her "shelf bum". We would joke that she could set little trinkets and collectables on it and display them. She wore two uniforms. One - plain polyester pants with a sweatshirt that had some kind of kitty cat or sparkly thing on it - sometimes it had a turtleneck under it and sometimes not. And two - the same plain polyester pants with a shell (sleeveless tshirt to you and I) and a loud colourful polyester overblouse. This last outfit was accompanied by matching jewellery - earrings and necklaces - equally loud. This is likely where I developed my devotion to the big jewellery that matches each of MY outfits.
She was sometimes mean - just Mom mean - but mean. She would let me wear the same outfit time after time and then say "you're not wearing that, are you? That always makes you look fat."
And she was hysterically funny. As I was going through the planning of the funeral, my aunts, my mother's friends, cousins - just everyone called me. The conversation went something like this:
I don't want to upset you dear (dear is optional) but your Mother
always said that she didn't want pallbearers at her funeral.
Yes I know, she didn't want people sitting around after the funeral
talking about how heavy the coffin was.
That's right - and she doesn't want to go to Joe's Funeral Parlour
(names changed to protect the innocent) either.
Yes - I know - she went to school with Mrs. Joe and she doesn't want
her to see her in her underwear.....
She was the master of organization. The keeper of lists - in shorthand. The holder together of the family and friends. She was my family's glue.
Once she was gone - we lost our glue. I lost my glue. And a lot of crap happened that she would not have liked.
My Dad fought with her brother a week after the funeral. We had cremated her and buried her above her parents. Then we added a block to the headstone thus creating a family plot. Her brother didn't like that. My Dad told him to fuck off. It was the first and last time he ever told anyone to fuck off. We haven't seen my Uncle since. He didn't even send a card when my Dad died.
There were divorces, weddings and births that she missed. That would have pissed her right off. She wanted to have grandkids more than anything.
For weeks after her death, while sitting at home or at work, I would pick up the phone, dial her number and stop myself part way through. It was almost as if my head didn't want know she wasn't there. And of course, at that point I would burst into tears. Even now 11 years later I am a blubbering puke everytime a Mom dies. Finding Nemo. What dreams may come. Pretty in Pink. (Okay, well the Mom didn't die in that one but she wasn't THERE. )
I haven't yet told you the story of how she died. My father told it about 100 times at the lunch after the memorial service (and there were no pallbearers btw). It goes something like this (although it is better in my dad's voice):
Darlene went into the bathroom right as Price is Right
started. I was sitting in my chair and fell asleep you know.
Next thing, I wake up and hear the end theme music for Price is
Right. I think, Darlene'sbeen in there a long time. I
should take her a magazine. So, I
picked up the flyers and I took
them to her - and there she was,
dead. On the toilet. So I
threw a towel over her and
called 911.
My mother would have been suitably horrifed. First because she died on the toilet and ick - who wants to do that (it was sudden cardiac death - her weight and her heart and her diabetes did eventually get her). Secondly that my Dad told the story to EVERYONE he met, for years and years.
I've often wondered if my Mom knew she was going to die. The night before she did die, we had talked on the phone (of course) and she had give me this big speech about how she had always done exactly what she pleased and had never lived her life wrapped in cotton wool because of her health. Weird at the time but after words appropriate. In the weeks before she died, she had made me set up pre authorized payment for all of her and Dad's bills and given me her sewing machine for no reason. BUT, the reason that I think she didn't know, was that there was one peice of eldeberry pie left and she loved eldeberry pie - she never would have left it behind.
My kids are at a funny age now. They've seen pictures of my Mom -and they will say things like "Is that your Mom? She's dead." Very blunt and to the point. When they ask me how she died, I tell them she died from a broken heart. Its true kind of because I know that on that normal Thurday my heart broke too.
2 comments:
Very nicely written and very touching, Sandra.
Sandra,
You have such a gift, not many people can write & have the reader feel what they are going through.
I will be dropping by here more often.
Chelle
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