At least it wasn't on 12/01

I was 5 minutes late for work this morning.

A woman had some sort of seizure on the platform of the Metro. Could have been anything.

Looked just like the way my mother died.

Mom and I went shopping on 12/01/2001. She was 60 years and 6 months old to the day. She wanted, for the first time in her life, to get all of her holiday shopping DONE before christmas. So we left the house early, and hit sales, and such, and then went to Butcherboy to get our months meat, and weeks groceries. She'd been complaining all morning of being tired, but my mother at this point in her life was always tired. She had heart problems out the wazoo. This morning wasn't new or different. We finished up at the butcher, and left, she told me she was going to sit down in the car while I loaded the groceries. Again, nothing new. I turned around to grab some bags, and she made a weird choking/coughing noise. When I turned back, she was grey and looked like she was having some sort of seizure. I bellowed for help, and people came. Someone got her out of the car and tried CPR. Someone else called 911 on my phone. I couldn't do anything, so I loaded the groceries into the car, and cried. The ambulence came, and I called my sister when I found out where they were taking her. She was already dead by the time the ambulence got there, and I knew it. I somehow followed the ambulence to the hospital. I'm still not sure how I survived that particular trip, as I couldn't see beyond the end of the car at that point, and I was crying on top of those vision problems. I remember arguing with my mother the whole way, but it was too late. She'd gone. I called Phil, and some friends who were nearby the hospital.

When I got to the hospital, they led me into "The Room" (you know "The Room", the family privacy lounge where they deliver really bad news in a mostly soundproof room). I turned around, and looked the doctor in the eye and said that we obviously weren't here for tea & crumpets, how bad was it? He told me that they had her on machines, keeping her body going, but that there was no brain activity, and that they had an old DNR order with my name as contact on it. I told them to follow it. Its what my mother wanted.

My friends arrived first, and stayed with me until some family got there. My sister was next, but she knew already too. Then my aunt arrived. She went in to see the body. Then came out and took Elaine to go to the house. By the time I got home, they had told my grandmother, gathered the family, and prepared to take my grandmother away. I didn't know what else to do, so I told Toria, and put away the groceries again.

My aunt and Elaine arranged the funeral. I got rather stubborn about a few things, but for the most part, they had the funeral they wanted, not the one my mother wanted. It didn't really matter. Funerals aren't for the dead anyway. For my pains at trying to abide by my mothers wishes, I got a tranquilizer prescription, and a lot of shit.

After the funeral, everyone went away, and pretty much stopped speaking to me. My aunt called me a couple of times to bitch me out about killing my mother to get at her fortune. I stopped answering the phone after the second time. This was a load of crap, as she left me with a mortgage I couldn't pay, and a whole bunch of bills that I had to answer for. I had to sell the house that my grandfather had built, that had been the only stable home I'd ever had, and move away to the most gods-forsaken part of the world that I knew of (Jacksonville, FL) because we couldn't afford to stay in New England. I had to uproot my life, and my family's life to do this. I sold the house at a loss, just before foreclosure. I paid for the funeral and the bills, and had just enough to put a down payment on a house in FL that no one else wanted. That was the legacy my mother left me. The same legacy that had my siblings (all of whom were in much better financial shape) not speaking to me because I had it.

My grandmother never came back to live with us. Apparently having lost my mother, I was now too untrustworthy to take care of Gram. I was also too untrustworthy to keep any of the family antiques. My aunt and Elaine came and took them all away one day. I didn't fight it. I was too numb to care at that point. I had been raised that no matter what, you stick by your family, and your family sticks by you. And here was said family, stabbing me in the back. The only things I was able to hold onto were the bed my grandmother had given to Phil & I, the table she had given us, and a small garnet heart pin/pendant that she had given to me in highschool. I saved some money on moving expenses, that I then had to spend on new furniture when I got to FL. Most everything was gone to my sisters, because I wasn't trustworthy anymore. Please understand something. For me, those things had no value beyond the ability to say "my great-grandmother sat here and rocked this baby", or "my great-great-grandfather brought this item from Scotland for his wife on one of his trading trips". I'm sure they had monetary value, but I'll be damed to this day if I ever knew what it was. They were my history. Those things represented my family's history, and were something that I intended to hand down to my daughter,w ho was the first born of that generation.

When I went back for the first visit to my sister after the funeral & move to FL, all of the things that I was so untrustworthy to keep were stacked in a random pile in her garage.

I've mended these fences with my sister. We've talked through some of this, and what we haven't talked through, we've just let go (at least I have). I still haven't spoken to my aunt since that second phone call. I have no plans to either. My whole world was crumbling out from under me, and she blaned me for it, and accused me of orchestrating it. All because she had some nutty that she couldn't let go of regarding my father. I'll probably never understand that. I've done my best to let go of this stuff. Apparently I've not succeeded as well as I'd hoped.

Watching that woman on the platform twitch this morning brought it all back. I guess its a good thing I work in an office and not as any kind of first responder/emergency person. Flash-backs would have me raging constantly.

Hope all of you have had a better morning that I have.

Oh, and my mother succeeded. That year, she got everyone's Christmas present purchased except for mine.