2024 in Review – Life Events

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This is the first post reviewing what happened to me in 2024; I’m starting with the big events.

2024 included a bigger-than-usual event…perhaps even a pivot point in my life: my mother died. We had shared our lives for over 70 years; no one else can fill the gap completely. The months leading up to her death (hospitalization, moving to assisted living, rallying, COVID-19) and the immediate aftermath (the funeral, selling my parents’ house, finalizing her financial affairs, comforting my father) are still fresh in my memory. I’m not completely sure that the pivot is complete even now. My relationship with my siblings (3 sisters) is still changing.

All the other events of 2024 are not as life changing:

Taking the Identifying Wood Plants class at Missouri State University and the Missouri Master Naturalist training were an important step back to pre-COVID times. Both have prompted an uptick in volunteering and discovering ‘favorite places’ close to home.

Attending a funeral for my cousin. She was more than a decade younger than me, and we had not seen each other frequently in recent years. It happened not that long after my mother’s death and the sadness was quite different…for a life that ended early.

I made many short trips (day trips, one or two nights away from home) with my daughter. Sometimes with my husband along too. There are so many new places to explore when one moves to a new part of the country. We have been here in Missouri for 2.5 years and there still seems a lot to see for the first time within the ‘short trip’ range.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2024

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April 2024 has been even more full of little celebrations than usual; it was challenging to choose the top 10!

Traveling with my daughter. Taking a road trip to Dallas (a familiar trek) is quite different when my daughter to with me. We start the driving a bit later and, this time, we stopped in Joplin on the way home for lunch. I celebrated the time in the car…the great conversation.

The life of a cousin. It was bittersweet to go to the funeral of a cousin that was younger than me…but it was clearly a celebration of her life.

20 puzzles for $2 each. The Friends of the Library book sale in my county included puzzles and I celebrated getting 20 of them for my dad and the other residents at his assisted living group home. I also celebrated a return to volunteering - helping with the book sale.

iPhone 15 Pro Max. Getting a new phone is always cause to celebrate….even though I started out a little anxious that it would a little challenging to go from my old Android phone to an iPhone; it was a pleasant surprise to realize it was pretty easy. The only downside was the reduced functionality of the Windows phone link app for text messages; that issue was resolved as soon as I transitioned to a Mac later in the month.

MacBook Air 15”. More new technology I am celebrating; it only took about 24 hours for me to become a fan of the Mac after using Intel-based machines since the 1980s.

Irises. The plants bloomed all at once. In one bed the stalks were too tall for them to remain standing to I cut them to enjoy indoors – celebrated the buds opening all along the stems.

14 ducklings. Seeing Mom Mallard with her ducklings is a great celebration of spring.

Solar Eclipse. So glad we made the effort to position ourselves to see a 2nd solar eclipse (the 1st for me was in 2017). It’s a phenomenon rare enough to be a celebration.

Belted Kingfisher. Celebrating a bird I didn’t expect to see around our neighborhood pond.

Kite and Pinata Festival. The botanical garden is a great place for outdoor celebrations like this.

Another Funeral

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For the first time in my life, there have been two family funerals in close succession: my mom and, more recently, a cousin. The cousin was 9 years younger than me...succumbed to cancer rather than old age. I’ve discovered that my thoughts spiral in a different direction to the death of someone younger than myself; I suspect they are more intense because I knew her as a child.

I was old enough when she was born to remember her young childhood. We interacted when our visits to our shared grandparents coincided. By the time she was entering her teens, I was married and working full time while going to college part time. Then our grandparents died and I moved to the east coast. In all, there were 50 years when we didn’t see each other at all --- just heard about each other from family members. And then there was a memorable lunch at my uncle’s house during the last overnight travel my parents enjoyed – traveling through Oklahoma to have Thanksgiving at my daughter’s house in Springfield MO in 2019.

After my mother’s death, my dominant thought trended toward being grateful that she’d lived as long as she had….that she was enjoying her life up to the very end. For my cousin, I cycle through feeling like her life ended too soon, regretting not knowing her better over the years, and grateful to learn at her funeral how keen her zest for life had endured.

I don’t dwell on my own mortality very often, but I found myself doing so at my cousin’s funeral. Healthy lifestyle can help us sustain our ability to continue to enjoy our life…but there are a lot of things that happen (accidents, natural disasters, genetics, cancer, etc.) that can evade the benefit healthy lifestyle provides. All my grandparents lived past the life expectancy age, and one lived into her late 90s. Both parents lived into their 90s. So – genetics is probably a positive for me…but there are unpredictable life shortening things that can happen to anyone. The best we can do, is to live every day in the best way that we can.

Ramping up Elder Care – March 2024 (1)

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A lot has happened in the last few weeks, so I am going to write 2 ‘ramping up elder care’ posts in March. In my mid-February post, I wrote “Are we through the bend…or is more to come before we settle into the new normal?” We were already getting accustomed to my parents’ house being sold…but we were also anxious with my dad testing positive for COVID. My mother tested positive a few days after he did….and died suddenly  few days later after being in the hospital for about 2 hours. So - the bend in my family’s collective life path is continuing into March.

My mother’s funeral was on the 1st. Dad was pleased with his appearance for the funeral; one of the assisted living staff helped him get into his suit (which he had not worn for a few years --- the last time was to a granddaughter’s wedding)…found another shirt so the neck would button and he could wear a tie! My sisters and I alternated being with him during the visitation and service. He seemed to enjoy my slide-by-slide narration of the pictures of Mother’s life from a young child to a few days before she died at 92. He also liked the limo. He did not like seeing Mother in the casket…thought it didn’t look like her even though he acknowledged that it was. He looked a few times then seemed to prefer watching the slideshow.

 My dad is grieving but very engaged with the reconfiguration of his living area at the assisted living group home. We started setting expectations a few days before the funeral so he would not be surprised when the furniture moves started to happen and it helped him internalize that mother was not coming back. The bed my mother has been using was one provided by the assisted living home and it was removed while we were at the funeral. We were all relieved that he didn’t seem traumatized that it was gone.   He is talking more than usual (he previously has always deferred to mother) ….and is more opinionated about how he would like things arranged. My sisters and I are spending more time with him, and the staff is very helpful. The staff has figured out that a small serving of ice cream is a great treat for him…and smooths out rough emotional times. So far – he seems to be surprising us with how well he is navigating his ‘new normal’ without his partner for over 71 years.

My dad’s reactions have been so positive that my sisters and I have already cleared away most of my mother’s belongings. It was a good time for us to talk to each other and him….noting some of the clothes she had worn for years…and others that were almost new…and trying out ideas for where furniture would be moved.

I don’t know for sure that we are at a new normal yet. We are with him more than usual…just to be sure he is OK. So far…he seems to be.

A few last pictures from my parents back yard the day before we closed on the 28th:

One of the neighbors asked the new owner if he could cut the narcissus and daffodil flowers from the yard to bring to the funeral….and the new owner said yes!

One of the neighbors asked the new owner if he could cut the narcissus and daffodil flowers from the yard to bring to the funeral….and the new owner said yes!

Previous posts: November 2023, November 2023 update, December 2023, January 2024, February 2024

A Funeral and a Garden (1)

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My father’s best friend in college died a few weeks ago and I made the 4-hour drive to attend his funeral – representing our family since my father is too frail to travel now. The two men were born within a few weeks of each other and spent their early years on farms in western Oklahoma before becoming the first generation of their families to go off to college. They were too young to have participated in World War II but benefited from the influx of veterans using the GI Bill that had caused many universities to expand. They both married and graduated and had their first children at about the same time – didn’t get drafted for the Korean War. They never lived in the same town after college, but they and their families continued to exchange visits and telephone calls for almost 70 years!

The next morning, I got up early and went to the Oklahoma State University Botanical Garden before I headed for home. A garden visit is always a good start to the day. This one is not large and, unlike many botanical gardens, does not include identifying signage for most of the plants. It was a cloudy morning…before the heat of the day began ramping up. The garden smells were a rich mix!