Major League of Life

For once, I have nothing to say. 

Correction, I actually have so many thoughts whizzing around in my cranium that it is all in a cluster and nothing will come out.

My head hurts.  A swirling vortex.

These past two weeks have been filled with soaring highs and followed with weighted lows.  The All-Star pitcher of the Major League of Life knows how to throw some wicked curveballs.  You saw me post "RIP Mom" last week, so you know that smack dab in the middle of my beach frolicking and memory making with my family; my mom died.

SCREEEEECH.  Curveball.

We tidied up the remaining day of vacation and headed home to return to the dugout - to strategize the next moves, and what plays would be forthcoming in the pending innings of the Major League of Life.  My mother's oldest daughter, my half-sister, flew in less than ten hours after we arrived home and walked into our unpacked suitcases, dustbunnies and peeling skin.

I will not lie and say everything went smoothly with my sister here.  Cleaning up after a deceased relative is never on the top of anyone's bucket list.  Add some family dysfunction, some conflicted emotions, and SOMUCHSTUFFPACKEDINTOATWOROOMAPARTMENT.......and well, you find yourself trying to run the bases and get to home plate.  You run circles around each base and you still find yourself in circles with home plate no where to be found.  I find myself still trying to process some of the raw emotions of some of the things that transpired these past few days and since I cannot find a way to emulate them quite nicely, I will refrain from elaboration.

Expecting the absolute worst of the situation because my mother was not a planner, I was pleasantly surprised by two very small pieces that my mother did accomplish.

SCREEEEEECH.  Another curveball.
 
By day three of the insanity, I found myself wearing thin........my patience, my threshold, and with me nearly on the verge of tears from the diverse range of emotions coursing through my veins.  My phone rang and said, "Unknown".  I do not like to answer the phone when it does not tell me who it is, but this time I figured it was one of the upteen places that we had called for my mother's affairs.  However, the sweet voice on the other end of the line was calling about my father.

 SCREEEEEEEECH. Wait. What? Another curveball.

My father passed away two years ago on March 19, 2011.  Because my father donated his body to science, they took him immediately upon death and we did not have a formal service because we were told UMASS Anatomical would let us know when they were done with him and we could hold a service then.  We did a memorial ourselves in the meantime, but there was never that sense of closure. 

As I propped my elbow up on my mother's dusty television set amongst the hoarder chaos of her material things, my head starting to shake back and forth slowly.  No.  Not now.  Really. 

I listened as the lovely woman on the end of the line informed me that they are holding my father's memorial service in his honor, for the gift of his body to science, on May 4th (like NEXT WEEK MAY 4th!).

My parents were married just shy of 40 years.  With the multitude of illnesses and overall poor health they were in at the time, the four years they lived with me took its toll on everyone, including them.  My mother moved out, angry at me and even angier at my father.  Over the next year she proceeded to divorce him.  My father moved out a few months after my mother because he needed more care than I could afford to him at the time; as I was just diagnosed and thrown into the scary vortex of cancer treatments, surgeries and pre-natal care.

(SCREEEEECH.  Historical curveball back there!).

40 years of marriage, memories, and my childhood........somehow fell apart.  I chose not to focus on all of that because I have focused on MY healing these past four years.  After all, I have my own family now and they need me.  My husband, my three children.......they needed me more than my parents did.  I needed me the most.

I confidently thought I had grieved for the loss of my parents when they moved out; and again when they divorced.  I had an idea of what little grief there would be when they departed from the living. The reality is I had no idea of the actual range of emotions that flooded with the news of their deaths.

So, I sit here and try to digest; despite the turmoil and chaos of the past few years, both of my parents are now gone.  Even stranger, or ironic, or purely meant to be, is that I will really be saying my final good byes to them BOTH and within a couple of weeks of each other.

Taking that curveball and going to display it on my mantle.  Going to release the pressure of that massive swirling vortex over the next few days.

Another chapter to be closed in that Major League of Life.