#3 and like that....she was gone

my mom passed away at 7:55 this morning. the hospital called me at 7:42 and told me i needed to come because she was close. i didn't even make it into the car by the time she had passed. her doctor met me in the hallway on my way to her room, hugged me tight and told me she had died.

i laid coins over her eyes to pay the ferryman, i closed a heartstone into her hand, and i helped the nurses clean her up and prepare her for what little organ donation she could do, what with the cancer having invaded nearly everything.

i then did a heavy amount of retail therapy.

i still have to notify my mom's internet friends. i know the island grapevine has gotten the information to everyone. mom didn't want a memorial, so i'm debating whether or not to have one anyway. i'm ordering custom memorial cards with this stanza:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the windowpanesLicked its tongue into the corners of the evening,Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,And seeing that it was a soft October night,Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

i'll use the photo in the background of my blog on as the picture, plus a photo of her on the back w/DOB and DOD. i also want to get memorial seed cards. i'll be scattering part of her ashes in the seas, but for the other part, i'm thinking of getting this cookie jar in the cobalt-purple finish, and using it for the urn. i can hot glue the lid on. i'm not paying $625 for an URN when any closed container will do. and this is her speed. plus the potter is right next door to my store.

i haven't even been in maine 3 months. it'll be 3 months on the 9th. i wish i'd had longer with her. i wish i'd stayed longer at the hospital yesterday, but i was so sure i'd be bringing her home today, i figured we'd have time then. i wish i could have been there to hold her hand when she crossed over, but one of the nurses was. i'm glad she was never in any pain, and never really uncomfortable. i'm glad she kept her sense of humour the whole time. she was never down, never depressed, never upset. she was positive the entire time. two days ago she said to me, well when we thought i could fight it, i was fighting it, i guess i don't have to fight anymore. i'd already been seeing some of the signs of impending death by then - the tough time breathing, the refusal of food and fluid, the hallucinating (she was insistent i was in her hospital room at 3am one morning, and then again the next day that i'd been outside in the hall, talking).

maine has a service where you can pre-pay for the cremation, and they take care of everything. i'm so so so glad i sent in the check to them the day i had the ambulance take her to the hospital. when my dad died, the whole service and cremation and everything cost $7,000. when my step-gramma died it was $5,000. the prepay was only $995.

all of the sudden, i'm a home owner. i've had no real education in owning a home except the 4 years we lived in culpeper and owned our house. i got to see how much money had to be sunk into fixing this and that, and vowed i would always rent. now the time has come tho that when something goes wrong, i'm the one who has to fix it. i'm not sure how to go about home ownership, i guess it's like anything else and i'll learn on the fly.

my thoughts are, understandably, all over the place. it still hasn't sunk in. i keep thinking that she's just in hospital and she'll be coming home soon. once all the medical equipment is gone, i know it'll really start to hit me.

RIP Linda Elizabeth Taylor-Bailey 4.30.40-9.7.12