Just days before my Godmother passed away I was working on a post about her being sick. It wasn’t something I blogged about up to that point, mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it here. I lived in denial for the first few months she was sick from last August through October so it was not something I was ready to accept. Even two weeks ago, I didn’t want to accept it. She was a fixture in my life. A constant. I didn’t want to imagine my life without her. I felt guilty, which is a whole other “couch visit” for another time. The last few days of her life, she was doing really well actually. She had been in the hospital and they had tapped her lungs to remove fluid that had built up and then she was brought back to the rehab and for 5 whole days before the day she died, she was up and moving around and didn’t mind if I stayed for more than just 20-30 minutes…so I stayed for a couple hours at a time. She even ate real food. I brought her some stuffed cabbage from home to give her some reprieve from the hospital food she’d been eating since the beginning of February. And a Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla Iced Coffee with milk for breakfast one day. She was peppy. She was almost her old self, for all intents and purposes. Maybe a part of me wanted to see the light at the end of the tunnel and was ready to talk about it/blog about it. I don’t know. But now, that post is saved as a draft in my Dashboard, and I’m not sure what to do with it.

I remember the “Death and Dieing – Death as a Fact of Life” course I took in college, given by one of my favorite professors at my college, Dr. Zukowski. I still have my 3-ring binder of all the hand outs he gave throughout the course. I know that when my father passed away, I couldn’t have made it through coping with his death as well as I did, if I hadn’t taken that course in college. Everyone should have that course in college, it should be required. Remembering some of the things from that course certainly helped me cope with my Godmother’s death as well. Heck, I did a eulogy, and mostly held it together…kind of.

If you read the eulogy I gave at my godmother’s funeral you know what she meant to me. I didn’t mention every single thing she had ever taught me or every experience I had with her, or even all the things that made her who she was, but you got the idea. I just wanted to share a few things that happened over the past two weeks since she passed.

When I arrived at the hospital, the curtains were drawen to her ER room and my mom was standing on the hallway side of them. I could tell by the look on her face, it wasn’t good. She was gone. I hugged my mom but really just wanted to be with my Godmother, so I pushed away from my mom and went behind the curtain and I sobbed. Thinking about it now, probably louder than the ER staff would’ve liked me to. I wrapped my arms around her neck and head and just help her. She was still warm. I was about 10 minutes too late. My mom said she was glad I wasn’t there. She couldn’t have handled her best friend dieing and me a ball of mess at the same time. I can understand and appreciate that. When I finally released her from my arms, as I went to stand up straight I blinked a tear out of my eye the wrong way and my contact fell out of my eye onto my Godmother’s shoulder. It gave a much needed little bit of giggle to me and my Godmother’s friend/neighbor and the nurse standing n the other side of the bed. I was able to pop it back in rather easily. After gaining my composure, my phone rang, it was my oldest niece in Alabama. She was upset and I wished I could just reach through the phone and wrap my arms around her. My sister and two nieces had already been planning to come up and visit for the following week for their spring break and to visit my Godmother. Their visit would be very different than I’m sure what they had wanted it to be. That night we stayed there in the room with her for about an hour or two (like I said, it’s a blur). After leaving there, we went back to my mom’s and had a nice little beverage for ourselves. I think I got home around 1 a.m. or so. I went right up to bed, but I didn’t really sleep. I think I maybe had 2 hours of sleep all night, if that.

By 4 a.m. our time on Friday morning, my brother was on a plane from Hawaii, 10 p.m. his time. He managed to book a flight and head home within 10 hours of hearing the news. Friday mom and LFD and another friend of my Godmother’s spent the day making arrangements for the funeral. My brother was flying in to JFK airport at 4:45 p.m. so LFD left me at the funeral home, went and picked up Li’l Foot and then came back to get me. I figured if we left at 3:15, that would be plenty of time to get to JFK. Well, Stella (the GPS) was right on board with that plan. She even said we’d get there about 15 minutes early…sweet! But then it’s New York and what is it, if not a traffic mecca of the world. After a detour off of one of the worst parkways in this country (Hutchinson River Pkwy) and then finally getting off of the other traffic nightmare that is I95, we were on our way…only there was traffic everywhere in between. We wound up getting into JFK airport at about 5:20 or so…which was perfect because that is about the time my brother had finally retrieved his bags off the carousel and walked outside as we put the car in park at passenger pickup. It really couldn’t have been timed better if we had tried to plan it! Very strange how things work out that way, really!

Backing up just a little bit, first thing Friday morning before we even picked mom up, I received a text from Cass asking if she could bring us dinner that evening. I doubled over in emotion. I am so thankful for my friends and my family of course. Every one of them. They really pulled me through this. My friends were checking in on me every other hour. Calling me, texting me, visiting me, finding time to come to the wake and the funeral and sharing stories with me of what my Godmother meant to them. Some of my friends knew her quite well and had some really nice things to share. Anyway, Cass was so helpful and flexible. When we were so unsure about what time we’d wind up getting home from the airport, it was no problem, she would adjust accordingly and it wasn’t an issue. I felt awful, but she was so understanding. She made a kick ass dinner too. It was Pioneer Woman’s Pasta Alla Vodka recipe, only with the extra added bonus of shrimp too (it was Friday…during Lent afterall)…and garlic bread…mmmm, garlic bread!!! Oh, and a delicious salad. I couldn’t imagine having to cook after getting home from the whirlwind we went on that day.

At some point during the day on Friday I remember thinking, hmmm, it really would be nice to just have some time with mom and my siblings. No kids, just us and mom. Just BE together. And we wound up having that opportunity on Saturday night. Mom and I had been planning on going out to my sister’s house in New Jersey Saturday night to go to a corned beef & cabbage dinner that is put together by the school/church my sister and her family go to. We all left the kids back at my sister’s house in the care of the oldest three. We were gone maybe 15 minutes when I received a call from my niece saying that Li’l Foot was whining for me. I offered her my best advice and we continued to the dinner. What advice was that, you ask? OH…well that’s simple!! “Give her ice cream…and when she’s done with that, if she’s still whining for me, give her M&M’s! She’ll get over it eventually!” And she did! Imagine that. I knew she would! And we had a really nice time. LFD came with us and my sister’s friend did too, but it was a perfect night. We all had a great time, there might even pictures of me and my sister’s doing the electric slide…I know, I know…don’t even say it!

That night when we got back to my sister’s house, all the kids were still awake…all. of. them. We wound up taking my sister and my two nieces from Alabama back to New York with us. So my Hond Pilot got a workout and shlepped me, Li’l Foot, LFD, my mom, my brother, my sister and my two nieces to New York that night. I was so impressed and finally reaped the benefits of having 3rd row seating. LFD and Li’l Foot and I didn’t get home until probably 12:30 or 1 a.m. or so, I think…again…blur!!!

(to be continued…)