She stood in the viewing room of the funeral home and greeted people for what seemed like days, but it was only a few hours. As the well-wishers passed by her, they hugged her and said things like, “Your mother was a good woman” or “Gone too soon”.
In reality, she didn’t hear much of it. They all sounded like the school teacher in the old Charlie Brown cartoons, a distant mumbling sound talking through a tin can.
Just get through this, she thought to herself.
Much of her last few years had been about just getting through things. She got through college. She got through her recently ended marriage. She got through her dull days at the job she hated. And now she had gotten through watching her mother suffer from breast cancer for the last two years.
Was this what life was like? A series of obstacles that one had to “get through”? And for what? What was the payoff? A nice long nap underground and entry into the pearly gates?
She wanted to go to heaven just like everyone else, but she wanted a grand adventure on Earth first. And this wasn’t it.
Laura knew people meant well. No one knows what to say when a loved one dies. But right now all she wanted was to be at home, in her pajamas, sitting in front of the TV eating a pint of rocky road. And she wanted to wallow in her grief until her tear ducts ran dry. Mostly, she wanted to be left alone.
“Your mother was an amazing woman.” The random woman hugged her as she moved through the never-ending line of mourners.
“Thank you,” Laura said for the hundredth time in the last two hours. Her voice was starting to get hoarse.
The good part was that her mother had been well-loved, and rightly so. She had raised Laura alone for most of her life after Laura’s father had died in the line of duty as a police officer. She had never remarried, but desperately wanted more kids so she took in foster kids for many years. One right after the other, a constant rotation of faces and stories and kids in need of love.
Laura had admired her mother for that, but her own childhood had often taken a backseat because of the needs of the kids. She wanted to say she understood and it was okay and be the bigger person, but a part of her resented it when she was younger. She’d wanted her mother all to herself, but maybe these kids needed her more.
“Your mother took me in when I was about eight years old. I think you were about six. Do you remember me?” the man asked. Laura nodded her head and plastered on a smile, but she had no idea who he was. Thankfully, he just hugged her and kept moving.
Was it possible to fall asleep standing up? She felt like it was. Her body was exhausted from the months of driving her mother back and forth to chemo, then weeks of standing beside her bed in hospice and this viewing was the last straw before her feet were finally going to give out.
There were times when she’d considered taking care of her dying mother a blessing. She was happy to be there because she adored her mother, but it didn’t mean it hadn’t been hard and tiring on her physically and mentally.
With no siblings to help out, the sole responsibility had fallen on Laura’s shoulders. Her aunt Dahlia had been the only source of respite for her during the last few months. Dahlia had temporarily moved from her home in Oklahoma to the small suburb outside of Baltimore where her Laura’s mother lived.
“How much longer is this?” her aunt whispered to her. She loved that about Dahlia - her ability to just cut right through the crap and say what she herself was thinking.
“Three years?” Laura whispered back, a fake smile still plastered on her face as people continued to pass.
The ironic thing was that her mother would have hated this whole idea of a viewing. She would’ve much preferred to be quietly sent off into heaven, her ashes scattered to the winds in her own front yard. She was just that way. A homebody. Not a person who enjoyed drama or fanfare.
But they hadn’t discussed funeral plans. Ever. Her mother hadn’t brought it up, and Laura wasn’t willing to have that conversation. It was just too painful.
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