Missing GoGo

One year ago today, I wrote "What the obituary will not say."  Incredibly, a year has passed since my mother-in-law died. In that year, there have been birthdays and holidays and sacraments -- milestones in our lives that she should have been here for. That she was here for in spirit.

At Christmas, I gave each of the kids something I found among Karen's vast collection (the nice, memorial way of saying "basement full of crap") that I thought she would like them to have. Mike's dad had given us baskets full of old sheets -- Star Wars, Super Heroes, McDonald's, Battlestar Galactica, Peanuts -- that his mom had saved over the years. I had a friend turn those sheets into a quilt for Mike. It's a memory of his childhood and a hug from his mom all at the same time.

So now we've gone a whole year without her. Sometimes it doesn't seem possible. We've been sad, absolutely. Sometimes the tears come out of nowhere.

But we've also laughed, recalling stories of her, thinking out loud what she would think or say in certain situations. That's kept Karen alive for us and for the kids. Mike even started a Pinterest page where we've pinned things that remind us of her or things that she enjoyed.

She would have loved to hear all about Annie's first year of high school, expected phone calls after each of Charlie's basketball games and laughed at the funny things Robbie says. She would have questioned my sanity when I dyed my hair blue and given Mike at least 2 tubs of Vaseline for his dry elbows.

A few weeks ago, I was at the national headquarters of Karen's sorority. While waiting for the person I'd gone there to see, I stood in the foyer of the building filled with memorabilia. It was as if I could feel her there. If it wouldn't have seemed weird, I might have pulled up a chair and just soaked her in for a while.

The next day, I was giving a keynote address at a caregiver event. I was wearing Karen's favorite bracelet and sat down at one of the tables to go over my notes. I looked up and there was a pot of pansies sitting in front of me. Karen's favorite flower. She was there. I can only hope she'll be there in the next several months when Annie starts driving. (Heaven help us all!)

I'm not exactly sure how Karen would have us mark this day. Probably with a trip to the children's museum and a dinner of chicken pot pie. And a lot of laughter.

Mom, Karen, GoGo, Friend

Missed & loved.

What the obituary will not say

My mother-in-law, Karen, passed away this morning.

I was home asleep on the couch (thank you tooth extraction) and Mike came downstairs to tell me his dad had just called. "My mom died."

We both sat there, almost in disbelief, taking in the words as they still hung in the air between us. The windows were open and I was aware of how beautiful the day outside was. I took small comfort in knowing that the day of Karen's death was one of sun and loveliness.

My tears were the first to come. They were a mix of relief that she is no longer suffering and sadness that she is gone. I called my parents, who loved Karen too, and Mike went to call his brother and a few friends. And then I turned here.

I've been contemplating how I would handle Karen's death in this space. It occurs to me that there is so much more to Karen than what her obituary will say.

The notice of her death might mention her multiple degrees. But it won't tell you that the greatest measure of Karen's brain was her emotional intelligence. She loved people and she loved making connections between people. I often joked that it would take 20 minutes to leave a restaurant because Karen would invariably stop at several tables to talk with people she knew -- and she knew EVERYONE.  Karen was the physical embodiment of Facebook before Facebook even existed.

Her obituary will most certainly include mention of her civic accomplishments, most notably her role as the founder of the Children's Museum of Evansville. It was her second greatest passion. Her first was her family. She was quick to rise up and defend her children from the time they were small and she knew no greater role than that of grandmother -- GoGo as she chose to be called.

She was not overly religious, but she was unflinchingly supportive of the fact that we choose to raise our own children in faith. And every time she pulled out of the driveway, she would toot the horn twice in front of an elderly neighbor's house and instruct her passengers to "Pray for Alma Baker."

I will be listed among her survivors, but no amount of column inches in the newspaper can begin to express how much I loved her. She has been part of my life for more than half of my years (that's what you get when you marry young). And she was my champion in my roles as wife and mother. She leaped to my defense on the Blue River when Mike was hollering at me to "look for the V" from the front of our canoe. She paid to have nearly 100 pounds of unfinished laundry carted out of my house to be washed, dried and folded by the dry cleaner. More importantly, in the recent years when our marriage has been tried, Karen stood by my side and reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

There is no way that the newsprint will be able to convey her laughter. It's one of the things I will miss the most. She'll no doubt be laughing from heaven when I say that her first question at the pearly gates is probably "What's for lunch?"

And no paper in the world would print that her favorite curse word was "F*ck," generally used in triplicate when something went wrong.

The obituary for my mother-in-law will not begin to describe who she really was. And I've probably done a miserable job trying to capture it here.

So I'll just leave it at this: Her name was Karen. And she was loved.

Linking this up with this week's Pour Your Heart Out.

Unprepared

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with a neurological disease about six years ago. From the beginning, we've known that it is terminal. With every passing birthday and holiday, I've considered that there won't be many more of these.

Yet her death seemed so far in the distance. It was easy to think that when she was just a little unsure of foot. It was easy to believe it was so when she was living at home and keeping her weekly beauty shop appointments. Even when she moved to a nursing home two years ago, it seemed so far away because she was still so vibrant, just physically impaired.

Last Christmas, I thought about what gift to give her. She loves pictures of my kids -- her only grandchildren -- so I considered a photo calendar...until the reality hit that she likely wouldn't live to see the smiles of their printed faces for each month of this year. (We went with a digital picture frame instead, which has brought her hours of joy.)

I try to place my calls to her room when I think someone might be there who can answer the phone and hold it up to her ear, allowing me to tell her tales of the kids' antics and accomplishments, as if it were one of those long and winding talks we used to have when we both were home watching Oprah. Though now the conversation is one-sided.

Since Mike lost his job a month ago, he's taken advantage of the free time and gone to see his mom several times. Each time he's come back and reported the latest devastation of her declining condition.

And now, we've come to a point where we are not measuring the remainder of her life in months, or even weeks, but in days. And I am unprepared.

Grandma is not a dirty word

A story in today's Boston Globe talks about how many baby boomers love being grandparents, but don't love the traditional "grandma" and "grandpa" monikers that come with the role.

Now, I am not a boomer. In fact, I am the child of boomers. But I consider the titles "grandma" and "grandpa" to be honorable.

When I had my first child, and my parents first grandchild, my mother couldn't wait to call herself Grandma. She told me that she felt she'd earned it -- this from a woman who just four years earlier had given birth to my youngest brother. Still, as the parent of a then preschooler, she was not scared off by the word "grandma."

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the word. Her own mother was never "grandma" to my husband and his cousins -- they call her "Buck." My father-in-law had already declared "Poppo" as his grandparent name. So we were quite scientific in how we chose a name for our kids to call their grandmother; we went down the alphabet>:

BoBo
CoCo
DoDo
FoFo
GoGo...GoGo, that's it!

My mother-in-law will tell you a few tales about how the name came to be, but now you know the truth.

I understand the need for alternate names to differentiate between sets of grandparents; I grew up with a Grandma and Grandpa and a NaNa and PaPa. And I suppose that it's each person's prerogative to decide what they want to be called.

But some of the names cited in the article and included in The New Grandparents Name Book just don't sit well with me.

"Sonoma" and "Napa" for grandparents who are wine lovers. In that line of thinking, Mike and I would be "Jedi" and "Scrabble."

"Bubbles" and "Pebbles" conjure up images in my mind of flighty women who might be delivering singing telegrams or else making balloon animals at birthday parties.

So when it comes to be my turn to be a grandparent (in no less than 16 years or so, kids), I'll proudly be "Grandma" and I'll expect a sweatshirt that allows me to tell it to the world.

(Note: This is a little bit of a cheater's post -- I posted it here earlier today.)