The Burrow

Going into her apartment is like ripping off a bandaid, exposing the raw wound to the cold, fresh air once again. She's not in the blue recliner just inside the door, nor is the blue recliner just inside the door, anymore.  I pick up a fallen t-shirt and remember the cruise on which it originated.  I turn to remind her how much Daddooooo didn't want to go to Alaska, and how she prevailed in the end, and how he insisted that he'd had a terrible time, all the while regaling us with stories of ice floes and more food than you could shake a stick at.... and she's not there. She's inside my head in a way she wasn't when her body was still living down the road.  Why I could ignore her then but cannot now? Is her spirit that confused?  Is it stuck on a cactus thorn?  She just can't seem to leave me alone. I watched a young man with a bandaged foot maneuver the mobile shopping cart through the aisles at Target and I turn to laugh with her about the time she to...

Big Cuter and I, ably assisted by Elizibeth and her access to The Firefighter's truck, delivered most of G'ma's furniture and furnishings to the-happiest-family-in-Tucson-right-now.  I found them through a classmate at The Humanities Seminars program down at the UofA. The father, a member of the wrong tribe, spent nine years in prison in Rwanda. After his release, he and his wife and three of their five children escaped to Malawi.  Two sons had managed to flee earlier; they lived abroad, wondering.   After nine more years in a resettlement camp, they were chosen,  by the IRC ,  to start again in Tucson. Do you know the International Rescue Committee ? Their website draws you right in: Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein.  It's barebones, which is fitting since only 5% of their funds  go to administration .  The benefits offered to refugees are not forever entitlements.  This family was looking at eviction in Januar...

And it's all stuff.   Anything remotely valuable or marginally sentimental was distributed when she left the East Coast for Arizona.  What she had left were trinkets.  They made her smile, especially since someone else dusted them twice a week.  Somehow, they've taken on new importance since her death.   A $10 small river rock painted with a blue bird's face was claimed by several relatives across the generations.  The gorgeous glass paperweight was on everyone's list. I received emails and text messages and picture-grams with circles around the items that absolutely had to be sent so that G'ma could be remembered. Apparently, the crewel work pictures are stretched on important frames; I am not to release them from their bonds. There are many reasons families should live close to one another.  Having to ship 6' long framed stitchery is only one of them. It's not as if I can throw them out, of course.  They are my mother's creations,and he...

My thoughts won't stay focused.  I begin to opine about sequestration, and I wonder how I'd explain it to G'ma.  I listen to a fascinating four minutes on health care costs and consider that post on where does the money go  which I've been trying to write for a year or more and then I devolve into thinking about how much G'ma's broken leg cost the insurance company and Medicare.  I wander into the room where TBG is watching talking heads and I burrow into his chest for a hug and a kiss. I miss my mommy. The post you read yesterday was written the afternoon before she died.  I had it scheduled as a buffer between remembrance and reality.  I just re-read it.  I don't think I could write that right now. It's an olio for sure, but one without G'ma.  Since she died in her sleep  two Thursday's ago, I haven't had three thoughts in a row without my mother poking herself into the stew.  In the grocery store, every second customer is a moth...

She got her wish. She went to sleep and she didn't wake up. ***** I was there the night before, bringing brownies for the caregivers, making sure she was in a comfy, flannel, Lanz nightgown, turning down the lights, kissing her cheek. Every tiny movement caused tiny little ouch 's and so I chattered over them, trying to distract her.  I told her about my phone call with Gladys, her oldest friend, and the memories she shared of horseback riding and skiing and driving in the days when girls didn't do those things and the caregiver smiled at me as I said, "You're not really hearing any of this. You're not really here at all, are you, Mommy?" We were both stunned when the wraith-masquerading-as-my-mother looked up at me from the bed and said "Nope." Not one to give up on a responsive moment, I went right back at her. "Do you know where you are?" "No,"  she said, bemused. "Is it okay?" And whether she said...

Esther Tamara Rukasin Annis Born February 19, 1923 Died December 5, 2013 A smart, thoughtful, interested and interesting woman. A loving grandmother and mother and aunt. She is wallowing in chocolate, Hershey's kisses on the side,  watching Christina-Taylor jump in mud puddles. Listen in to the conversation: "You're getting filthy, sweetheart!" "It's fun!" "Come, have some chocolate.... take more... don't be stingy with yourself." Peacefully,in her sleep, surrounded by her memories and supported by Hospice and staff and family, she left this world and is now reunited with the woman she used to be.  Sad but not tragic, her loss leaves a void to be filled with good books, loving children, and more photographs than any family should ever collect in ten lifetimes.  She will be missed and remembered. ***** I'm taking a funeral hiatus for the next few days. The Burrow will feature a series of...

Does anybody really know what time it is? That is not only a lyric from an old rock and roll song that I never much liked, anyway, but it is, apparently, a valid scientific question. At least the Science Channel thought enough of the question to film a really cute Brit flying around the world with his camera crew and his accent that was made to be imitated and his search for time. I wish I had seen this when my younger brother was in high school. Frugal with his time as well as his money, he saw no reason to be in the building before his first period class. Homeroom, he felt, was optional. The attendance lady saw things in a different light, and their on-going tussles are the stuff of legend. " Mrs. Lemon, the hairdryer wouldn't work and it's humid outside and you know how Little Sister gets when her hair's not right so I couldn't leave until I'd fixed it." She'd sigh, and hand him his Late Card. He'd dutifully fill in the next empty line with his...