No More Plastic Wrap and Moving On

No More Plastic Wrap and Moving On

On January 26, my dad died.
Thirty-seven days later, on March 4, my mom died.

Grief descended on us long before their passing. With the ravages of Parkinson’s disease and stomach cancer prevailing, our family felt the tide pull away. We sensed the ebbing of their time here.

On their front porch, on each side of the doorway, two pots of ivy guarded the entryway. One died in January, the other simply faded, a subtle yet undeniable metaphor for my parents’ passing.

It is the natural course of events for children to lose their parents. At ages 67 and 70, Mom and Dad left far sooner than I anticipated. A dear friend of the family, Betty Malone, referred to us three kids as orphans at my mother’s memorial service. The word, in its brevity and definition described exactly how we felt. Orphaned.

Yet, we understand that our grief, while deep and extraordinarily painful, is not the only grief in the world. Everyone loses someone, eventually, to death. There are blessings to be found in the relief of suffering, in a return to our loving Maker, in finally securing that understanding that surpasses all understanding. We who are left behind have to grieve, but we do not have to wallow in it. We can choose to rejoice, in time.

My dad hated plastic wrap. He cursed its very existence. He never won the battle of the tear strip. He claimed it never stuck when it was supposed to, and always did when you wished it wouldn’t. Of all the things that occurred to me when I said goodbye to Dad, plastic wrap emerged as just one of the many insults of life that he would no longer have to fight. When I see plastic wrap, I think of Dad.

My mom loved peanut butter crackers. Ritz, creamy peanut butter and a tall glass of milk were her standard indulgence on Sunday evenings until the cancer took her taste away. A master in the kitchen who tantalized our taste buds with rich, complicated Southern recipes, her love for something as simple as peanut butter crackers evokes memories of Mom that both comfort me and make me want to hug a jar of Jif.

If we are smart, we will grieve like little children. They ask the hard questions outright. “Where did they go?” and “Why?” and “How can we live without them?” They find the answers, too. “They are in heaven.” and “Because God needed more angels.” And “We will see them again some day.”

My niece Anna Kate pulled it all together for us. She discovered Dad’s glasses on a table after he passed away.

“Oh no!” she said. “Paw Paw forgot his glasses!” There he lives, in the memory of his grandchildren, still needing his bifocals to work crossword puzzles. Nana, no doubt, is smiling. She knows he doesn’t need them anymore.

An anonymous quote says, “Do not be afraid that your life will end. Be afraid that it will never begin.” Mom did not fear death. She missed my dad. They started a new life together back in 1961. I like to think they started another in 2007, without plastic wrap, with plenty of peanut butter crackers and the knowledge that here on Earth, they were loved more than words can describe.

I am trying hard to move through the grief, to rejoice in the kind of life they taught me to love. While I falter on a daily basis, there remain solid footholds for the future:

In the splendor of the daffodils, camellias, and daylilies Dad loved.
In the crisp coolness of autumn that my mom cherished.
In music that we savored and books we devoured and stories we told with sidesplitting laughter.
In the memories made by a family cultivated by two people defined by kindness, compassion and love.
In the lesson they exemplified, that God is good, all the time, even when you have to say goodbye.
Especially when you have to say goodbye.

Grief, Never Good

Update...

My mom, Mary Chapman Long, passed away March 4, 2007 due to stomach cancer.

People use the expression "good grief." There is nothing good about it. It is miserable. Grief, in all its twisted stages, proves to me that you can never fully understand how very much you love and care for someone until they are gone.

But...there is comfort and joy in the fact that my mom no longer fights with stomach cancer. She did so courageously, with every intent of winning. We enjoyed the blessing of more time than she would have had without that fight. Her time to leave this earth came, and we were there to see her off.

They died within 37 days of each other, Mom and Dad. Certainly, that is not enough time to grieve for one, then lose the other. We were extraoardinarily close, deeply attached and our family continues to struggle with weekends, the time we almost always gathered at their home in Poplarville to eat, laugh and enjoy time together.

People warned us that Easter would be difficult. Really, not so much more than any other day. If there is any time of year that should remind us of the release from suffering into unbridled happiness that God promises, Easter is it. And the chocolate helps.

As I grieve, I try to mine the memories of our our lives together. I try to recall those moments in time when I felt most loved, when I laughed hardest, when tears came in a flood and finally receded, only to leave me stronger, wiser and glad to be alive.

Mom and Dad. A pair of one-of-a-kinds. Much loved, much admired by so many people.

Good grief, bad grief, I miss them so very much.