As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
For those who have buried their parent, or buried both of them, it is different in the first and the second. The first is more shocking, while the second is the one where there is no one there anymore, to at least ask stuff in which the reply is so dumbass that you regret ever asking.
There has been little to rejoice about in mom dying the day after Thanksgiving in it has been a series of bad things on top of another or disappointments. The evil that murdered her, also appeared in the form of a predator that started killing things around here, and was about to kill our cats, before God intervened and killed that problem.
So it has been a matter of glimpses of something positive at times in all the crashing emotions around here. It is not the way to enter Christmas, because the emptiness is not going to be the chair, but the emptiness is being deprived of a mother who acted like a mother and not the trial we had.
This post though in the working through of death in the holidays, as Sandy reminded me that this is the first Christmas without her Mom as she went to Heaven 11 month ago, in something we share, in something I actually enjoyed the other night as we were sorting through piles of papers that mom had horded to increase global warming when they are burned.
I found two old letters in a pile of things, which I did keep. One was from Aunt Gusta. You would have had to have known my Grampa's sisters to know what these fossilized women were like. I always called them the China Dolls, as they looked breakable. None of them weighed over 100 pounds. All were about five foot tall and they were all ancient.
Gustsa was short of Augusta, and we called her Aunt Gustie. She lived in Chicago and I have no idea how she ended up there. She mentioned about being the last girl alive, as only Herman was alive in her brother who was called Happy. They came from Prussia while it was still a kingdom and actually were the first settlers who opened the west. She mentioned that two of the children died in Prussia, and I imagine after the wars and the Polish genocide of all things German that those graves have long been ploughed under.
Each child was responsible for one item. I remember one had to carry the bean pot on the ship, as they had most meager belongings.
On our wall I have a picture of Gustie's father in a horse hide coat. He looks every bit the eastern European hardiness and virtue.
She was 94 when she wrote the letters and was frail in falling down. She was living with her daughter and son in law, and children. She was most interested in those kids and mentioned about meeting the five of us, which I do not remember. I only remember seeing the China Dolls a few time when Gustie came back for a visit. She had the most clear and distinct Prussian accent to her English with the most clear blue eyes with like high clouds in them.
The other letter was from Uncle Milton, who I never met. He was writing to tell my parents that Gram's sister had died. He was a most interesting gentleman as in the 1930's he had a fast touring car with a straight 8 engine to outrun the police, as he hauled moonshine in Minnesota for the mob bosses there.
He was as kind as a person could be. It was endearing to read of how he took care of his wife when her heart was failing. My dad died of the same thing she did in congestive heart failure. I though do not take after that fat side of the family.
What made me smile was Aunt Leona was in the hospital and they had sent Milt home to rest as he was old, and he called her up, and she asked him if he had supper, he replied, "Yes Maw, I have eaten." That was about the last thing she said to him, as she went into a coma in the night, and then for the next 12 hours she was fading.
I think she had a bleeder inside, and her heart stopped a few times, until it finally gave out. He though was with her to the end and was most concerned about Gram being told as I think this might have been before I was born, as she had thyroid cancer that almost killed her in a spider goiter they cut out which was wound around her heart, and her heart stopped in removing it.
I know when my sister died, when they told Gram, that was the last time she spoke as the stress was too much for her. She breathed through a whole in her throat. I forgot about that until now, in Gram had this metal pipe that she inserted and this like fancy door knob which had a hole in it that she breathed through so you could not see the hole. I used to watch her clean it as it was fascinating to me all of these strange things.
It helped a great deal with all the shitty living relatives I have left, to have touched the past and to have read about such genuinely good people. Then again these were Christians who went through hell most of their lives and knew death a great deal. Gustie would never talk about what went on in the old country. She would always defer and say to ask the other kids. That did little good as they were too young or not born yet. Whatever forced them out of Prussia, which forced all those peoples out of Europe was something that most would never talk about in the horror of it all.
Actually if mom had saved letters like those I would have enjoyed piles of correspondence to read. She just kept a few, from people I did not care to read, or from her mother which I did keep, but that woman was so toxic that in order to get the mother to behave toward the end I would harangue her by saying she had turned into her mother, along with telling her if her dad would appreciate how not nice she was being now.
I know people do not write letters any more, but this morning one of the people who lived by my beloved Uncle had sent us a card about mom. I made sure we wrote them a note back which will probably surprise them as I remembered when Grampa died their Mom was at the hospital as a nurse and said he passed without pain, and they were always making sure my Uncle was ok in the winter. I wanted them to know that I knew their kindnesses to my family and I have not forgotten nor will I ever forget. Too many times the rich phone it in with a few dollars and want credit. The real neighbors are the ones who make sure they check on someone who is old when they are not going to get anything out of it.
I do wonder if Gustie and Milton will get an added bonus in Heaven, because their good letters gave me something peaceful in all of this and they should get credit for it whether here or not. I could feel their serenity which is so different to edge everyone has in these descending times. It was nice to touch an America which was and to know that I did have relatives who were the kind I always hoped I did have, and only Beaver Cleaver had on TV.
I believe everyone when they go through these things discovers things in passing that means something to them to give them some peace. Mine thankfully was in some old letters, and there are probably more around here, as I have not gotten into the closets or chests yet to find what in this world was stashed in them.
A very Merry Christmas with Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men, even if the peace is in a few pages of paper and the good will is toward those already in Heaven.
Nuff Said
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