LESSON LEARNED?
My daughter had to leave her home fast in the middle of
January/February; wintery weather. Well,
it was actually just a room in a house she shared with her brother and sister
in law, but it was packed. Clothes and books were strewn all over the floor and
bed along with empty food wrappers.
Roaches in the millions were crawling everywhere, falling from the
ceiling, doors and walls. (Gross) The
house was being sold to someone planning on doing lots of expensive and
extensive renovations so Tabby had to leave, (the word “obviously” should be
inserted here). Yes, she had some notice but failed to prepare. She was bipolar
and very lethargic from her medicine, and she was in crippling denial. She didn’t want to move from the house she
had been born in, and lived in off and on for forty years. And she didn’t want
to live alone. Her home, her family, all was disintegrating before her eyes.
I hurriedly helped
her pack boxes and bags, fussing over what should be ditched, and brought them
to my house where they were placed outside and heavily sprayed (after I had doused the interior of my car) with
insecticide then I left the boxes and bags covered with tarp in the yard to
freeze any pest that survived the poison. No roaches were coming into my house
alive. I got Tabby and her poodle a motel room very nearby to stay in while she
was waiting for approval from her apartment application. Tabby’s life style and
mine were incompatible so staying with me was out of the question.
The week she was in the motel she wanted me to go to the
condemned house and rescue items she had left; coloring pens, some books and her stereo
system. Imagine how many roaches can
live in a stereo system. I refused, not
because I was mean but because I didn’t
want any more encounters with roaches, they spread fast and I wanted her new
apartment to be off limits to creepy crawlies. I planned on replacing her
abandoned items gradually as the months passed.
One afternoon she called to remind me of Ash Wednesday and
that she wanted to go to church that evening. I balked; tired from a long day
of work and hit hard with seasonal affective disorder, it was cold and dark
out, but sensing it was important to her I acquiesced. We had a stupid argument on the way to
church, as were most of our arguments so she sat up front in a pew by herself.
I felt miserable in my usual back seat pew. After church I took selfies of us
with our ashes. I wasn’t totally pleased with the pictures; I’m a rank amateur
at selfies.
The first week Tabby was in her apartment was a horrendous
week filled with hazardous icy road conditions. I went to her place daily with
a few boxes of her possessions at a time, fearful of the ice covered roads and
steep inclines, I skidded into a curb one afternoon and injured my knee on the
steering wheel. Every day I tried to set up her television and DVD player; (it
took a week to get that accomplished due to technical difficulties). I felt
horrible for Tabby, no phone yet, (I didn’t want to go shopping for one with
the roads in such bad conditions) and no entertainment for a week. But she had
her dog and I was there every afternoon for a brief visit so I could hear her
complain about losing her coloring pens; I was sure they were in one of the loaded
boxes and would eventually materialize.
Then came the day, shortly after Ash Wednesday, I found
Tabby lying on her bed room floor, lifeless, purple, and bloated. Her apartment
a mess filled with the tang of death and trash. She’d had company so I hadn’t been by in a few
days. And she hadn’t answered the cell phone I’d finally purchased for her. She
had died of natural causes per the coroner’s report. I think it was a broken
heart.
I had the job of cleaning things up and transporting her
things back to my garage: where they sat and sat and sat. I wasn’t ready to go
through them. I already knew most of the new things we bought for her apartment
still hadn’t been opened, dishes, pots and pans, bowls, even food. She had been
devastatingly depressed the miniscule time she had been on her own.
Her funeral was well attended, to my surprise. I certainly
didn’t expect a turnout of over one hundred and sixty. She would have been stunned. I barely
expected family and a few close friends, but she had been involved in some
charities and church missions, they all attended. And of course my friends were
there.
Eventually the day came when I opened a box. There was her
lady candle holder collection of six that had sat on her old dresser. Digging
deeper were pictures and wall hangings that had been my mother’s. Wow, my
mother’s. In another box I found the bibles
and note books I had repacked from her closet, filled with Tabby’s handwriting
in colored pens. No wonder she wanted those pens so badly, she used them
religiously. I mean she used them
religiously. Not a bible page was left untouched. Her thoughts and emotions
were there for me to read. I never knew. Oh, I knew she went to church, had
even gone to a bible college in Florida for a time but I never knew.
She didn’t bring her bible with her to church. When I had cleaned her
apartment I found a bible on her bed, near her pillow, I found one in her closet, I
found one on the floor near where her
body had been. They were all here, well scribbled in. I felt like a voyeur. No
wonder she wanted her pens. No wonder. It was her connection to…..God. And the
stereo system? She had bible tapes that she wanted to listen to, why hadn’t she
told me? Would I have gotten the roach
motel system she left behind, probably not. How could I have known she
would die without it?
Those boxes contained her most valued possessions. Her
privately annotated bibles, her note cards, her memories of her
grandmother. Her life with God. Why is it you don’t really get to understand
people until after they’re gone and you go through their belongings, their very
personal belongings? There is some peace
in reading her bibles but I wish she was here with me still and I didn’t have
to learn these things as an afterthought. And I have the picture of us from Ash
Wednesday, taken just weeks before she left earth, the last pictures I’ll ever
be able to take of her and I’m so happy I still have them. I’m counting the days till I get to see her
again and believe me, they are passing very slowly.
Lesson learned? Everyone knows this lesson. Treat everyone
like you’ll never see them again and the world will be a happier place. No one
really applies this lesson till they lose someone close. It’s at that time you
learn all about them, going through their treasures, listening to eulogies, and
getting messages and phone calls from friends. It’s also after a loss the
self-recriminations start. What could I have done differently? Lots. Too late
now. I can hardly wait to see her again
to apologize, though in that new world I trust apologies will be antiquated. We just never know.
