Eight Months

As of today, my brother has been in Heaven for eight months. It has been eight months plus two days since I spoke to him last, and in a few weeks it will have been a full year since I saw him in person and gave him a hug, as the last time I saw him was the day after Thanksgiving in 2018. The "denial" phase of grief lasted four months for me. My brain has finally accepted the reality, but it's still a very painful topic to dwell upon. I think of my mom and brother at all different random times. For example, if I see Skittles or Starburst candy, I immediately think of my brother. Nadia got a 100 Grand candy bar, and she had never had one before. She asked me about them, and the first thing I told her was, that was Grandma's favorite candy bar (meaning my mom). One of the pastors (not the senior pastor) preached this morning, and during the sermon he made the statement that Jesus was 33 years old when He died. I immediately thought of a conversation I had with my brother in which he told me that Herod (the one who made the order to have the boys under the age of two killed) died in 4BC so Jesus was probably born in 5-6 BC because #1 Jesus' birth was the reason that edict was given and #2 Joseph, Mary, and Jesus came back from Egypt after Herod died. It is believed He died in either AD 30 or AD 33. Either way he was more than 33 years old when He died.


In the months following my mom's death, there were many, many instances every week when I'd have to remind myself that I couldn't call my mom because it was such a natural instinct for me to do so. I still have those moments. For example sometimes I think, "I wish Mom could hear Ian playing the piano." It's painful to me that her youngest grandchild (Wesley) never met her, and her next three youngest grandchildren (Oliver, Julianna, and Grace) probably won't have memories of her as they were only three-years-old when she died. When the cousins were here last month, we played a Memory game that I made on Shutterfly using pictures of various family members. The cousins enjoyed finding pictures of themselves on some of the cards. It hurt my heart a bit when Julianna pointed to a picture of my parents and said, "There's Grandma Margie!". Um no....

I thought of Maurice a lot yesterday because I attended a Grief Share meeting about "surviving the holidays." Thanksgiving wasn't a challenging holiday for me following the passing of my mom, and I am not anticipating it being hard this month either. Although I ate Thanksgiving dinner with my mom for more than 20 years, I hadn't eaten that meal with her many times over the past twenty years. I ate fewer Thanksgiving dinners with my brother since I was almost twelve years older than him. Christmas is another story. I honestly wanted to skip Christmas in 2016. Decorating my house was extremely painful as my mom loved decorating for Christmas. For many years I took my brother shopping so he could buy gifts for the others in the family. He loved tradition, and he really, really was particular about the exact order of the stores we had to visit each year. He became the "Santa Claus" meaning the person who would pass out the gifts during our gift exchange each year. He was missed last year at the Christmas gathering at our house, but we had NO idea at that point we'd never celebrate Christmas with him again. The thought of sitting around a tree exchanging gifts with my side of the family this December sounds incredibly painful. I have no idea how I would make it through such an event without sobbing my eyes out. His department at Penn is doing something special to honor him this Friday. We (his family) were invited to attend. My Dad and Margie are planning to attend. They invited his advisor from Austin to come and speak at a colloquium. I am so, so touched that they are honoring him in this way. It was hard for me to make it through his funeral and luncheon. I know I'd be crying way too much; so I am not planning to attend. Of course the other factors are the length of the drive as well as the fact I'll be homeschooling my kids that day. At some point I do want to go to Philadelphia and tour the museum where he gave tours, but it's likely going to be years before I'm emotionally ready for that. I had planned to take the kids to Philadelphia for several days in March 2020, but those plans have been scratched in light of my brother's passing. Knowing that my mom and brother have been reunited definitely brings me comfort as well as the knowledge that I will see them again some day, but I'd still love to be able to talk to them on the phone this week!


On a lighter note, here are two funny comments from Julianna and Oliver last month. When I picked the kids up from AWANA, the commander (director) asked me how many kids were in their family. She asked because she had wanted to give prizes to the cousins (and their siblings) for attending our AWANA for the first time. Julianna had said "I don't know" when asked that question. When asked, "How many girls?" Julianna had correctly said "two" (she has one sister). When asked "How many boys?" she said "too many to count!". HA HA! When three of her brothers heard what she had said, one of them objected, "She can count to six!". I will concur that her counting skills are excellent. When Oliver was doing his schoolwork she was frequently counting and telling him "Oliver, you have nine cards left to read" or "Oliver, you  have seven math problems left to do." After the cousins had left Oliver said to me one morning that he liked it even more when Grace came to visit. I asked him why because it seemed to me that he and Juliana had really enjoyed their time together (except I did realize that Oliver wished Julianna would play outside with him more than she did). His answer cracked me up. He said that when Grace is here she just wants to play with HIM, but Julianna spent a lot of time playing with the guinea pigs. Unlike his siblings, Oliver doesn't ever give any attention to the guinea pigs. The guinea pigs definitely spent far more time out of their cage the week the cousins were here than any other week of the past almost three years. Julianna really loved holding them!


Last night I was very tired, and so I went to bed at 8:30pm after tucking Oliver into bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, it hit me that I should have forced myself to stay up because when I went to bed early I was forgetting that the clocks would go back an hour that night. I was afraid I would wake up way too early this morning. I didn't! Would you believe I slept 11 hours last night? I was definitely tired. Usually when people comment about getting an extra hour of sleep when the clocks go back an hour, I always say nope I don't get any extra sleep that night. First of all I wake up by an internal clock not an alarm clock and it takes time to shift my internal clock. Secondly, as a parent I have found that the kids always wake up what appears to be an hour early after the time change. Of the three kids, Ian is the one that has always taken the longest to shift his internal clock by one hour. Well what do you know but the kids got up between 6:30-6:45 (new time) which isn't bad as our usual time is 7:00! Usually it feels like we're rushing to get out the door on time on Sunday mornings but considering we got up a bit earlier than usual (but not a full hour earlier) and also the fact that the choir wasn't singing today, we weren't rushing to leave this morning. When the choir sings, I have to be out the door at 7:55, but when the choir isn't singing we don't leave until about 8:35 (the service starts at 9:00). Although I love singing in the choir, I have to say it was nice to not be as rushed this morning. Well we shall see what time the kids wake up tomorrow morning. As a parent, I've found the "spring forward" transition usually goes far more smoothly than the "fall backward" one does, but maybe this year will be different.