A Passage

 Mom died July 16, 2021. There would be no chance to grieve for days to come.

 

https://www.myers-mortuary.com/obituary/Barbara-Griffin

Each ensuing day felt like a year as we went through the rigors and chaos of planning and carrying out the funeral and burial. Now, just 11 days later, it seems impossible that was all nearly two weeks ago. There were some real challenges with just organizing the program for the funeral -- the logistics of working with 7 other siblings and large families all around. Further complicated when we had everything nearly set and we learned we had to move the funeral up a day or delay till the next week due to a state holiday that was celebrated on Friday (we opted to move up a day), and everything had to be reconfirmed or changed. We somehow did it. And by somehow, I mean by sitting at the computer, on text, on email, on phones (both mobile and landline) for 16 hours a day for several days running. On Sunday, I never even got dressed.

My sister and I met initially with the mortuary where mom had made arrangements for her casket, funeral, and burial, but had not given us any clues as to who should do what at the funeral itself. I ordered the flowers, wrote the obituary, and pulled together and arranged photos for the online slide show which was also shown at the mortuary during visitation. I worked out the program with some help from siblings. That part was challenging, with people unsure if they could be in town, and many wanting to be pallbearers but few wanting to speak. In the end, we had a really nice mix of speakers, musical numbers, prayers. The sister who was helping with the program was also working full-time and ended up needing my help to follow up on items while she was at work, including making arrangements with a bagpiper for songs we wanted and what time to be at the cemetery. I also coordinated with our officiator who was from mom's local Mormon ward but also happened to be an old high school friend of mine, going over what we needed him to do in conducting the funeral and the topic of his remarks.

It sounds like I did it all. I did a lot. But each of my siblings were making their own contacts with their family members and coordinating back with me, and I was the primary contact for the mortuary. So I didn't do it alone--everyone had a part. My older sister headed up notifying extended family. My brother's family arranged a family luncheon for after the funeral. Some siblings found photos for the slide show. But I did pull it all together in the end. It was so much work, in fact, that it was hard for me to have time for grieving or even accepting that our mother had gone.

The day after the funeral, I crashed. I was numb and trying to come to terms both with losing mom and wondering if we had honored her well. I began thinking of things I should have mentioned, should have done. I didn't do much for four days, trying to make the mental and emotional transition, trying to find some equilibrium. Now, on day five, I am starting to function and getting ready for some sense of normalcy and routine -- starting with cleaning my house which has been badly neglected. I'll give myself some slack as enter a new phase of my own life. There is still much to do.

I wrote the following rather light-hearted reminiscence and posted it to Facebook. It's all true. Click on the link above to read the obituary, watch the slide show.

*****

I'll tell you something about my mother a lot of people don't know: she was a computer geek. It's not so strange for a woman to be sharp at computers. Except for her generation. She was born in 1928. She got her first DOS-based personal computer when I got mine sometime in the 80s. I worked for a small computer company and we dealt in mainframes, but eagerly awaited the advent of affordable personal computers. Mom and I taught ourselves DOS, word processing, and dBase by watching programs on public television. She wrote little database programs and mastered file management; later graduating to spreadsheets and specialized software, Windows, and more advanced uses. She was sharp and really did get it. She used her computer every day and upgraded to new ones as time went on. In her work at the IRS, she was often called on to participate in computer testing and training. At home, she made crafty things for holidays, grandkids, church. She had no fear of technology and bought apps, printers extra drives -- all kinds of goodies. If I were to criticize one thing, it might be that she ran disk cleanup way more than necessary (haha). I think she was ready to upgrade to Windows 10 when we deemed her a little dangerous on the internet and had to implement some curbs. And as cool and surprising as this little story is, it's just one of many things that my mother mastered in her lifetime.

 

It was with heavy hearts we buried my mother today surrounded by all of her children and many of her large family. She had the funeral she wanted -- a big, traditional Mormon service. The service of mostly grandchildren speaking, singing, praying, and participating as pallbearers was so lovely and she would have been tickled pink. We even had a very fit young granddaughter as a pallbearer who performed her duties in high heels. Mom would have loved it, as well as the bagpiper who played Going Home, as she had requested (and made us all cry).

 

You can read a little about my mother in her obituary at the link above, and watch a really wonderful slideshow of times of her life there, too.