O death, whoa death

Won't you spare me over to another year

TW: Discussions of death, hospice, and a photo of my sick step-mom

Dear Readers,

My words have been sparse these past weeks, because my head and heart have been wrapped up with my step-mom’s illness. She did pass away yesterday, so I wanted to share a few of my thoughts.

Jodi napping in the hospital. She always had to sleep with a pillow over her ear.

Getting old is hard. While your own body betrays you by sprouting strange growths, lumps bumps, bulges, and spots, time sneaks up and steals the people who have anchored your existence. I lost my dad two years ago, and it feel like yesterday, and now my step-mom has gone. I feel untethered, orphaned, sad, terrified, angry and overwhelmed.

I am not going to look back and sugar coat things. Jodi and I had a difficult relationship when she married into my family. I was 13 years old, hormonal, pre-traumatized by my actual mom, and absolutely did not need another old lady bossing me around. Jodi was a lawyer, a former judge, and one of the first women to attend UT Law. She didn’t have kids of her own and wasn’t prepared to take any crap from me.

Over time we were able to move past that. She was a fabulous grandmother, and has loved, supported, and accepted my kids in ways that much of the rest of my family has struggled to do. I think she was probably the only person in the world to love Augie as much as I do, and I know he is feeling her loss as much as I am.

L to R: My dad, Augie, Milo, and Jodi. We joked that this could be the album cover for our family band (none of us play an instrument).

When she called to tell me she was choosing hospice, instead of continuing to fight leukemia, I was verbally supportive, but I was hurt and angry. Didn’t she know we needed her? That I can’t do all this on my own? That didn’t stop me from advocating for her at the hospital, or from working to make her passing as painless and peaceful as possible, but it made it more challenging. In true Jodi fashion, once she set her mind on something it came to be. She stopped treatment Saturday, and Wednesday she was gone.

I am trying to fortify myself to face the monumental adulting I must undertake this week. The hits keep coming. A member of the dog posse is in the hospital with pneumonia, life is busy, and I just want to hide under the covers and avoid everything. My youngest has been dragged through alllll of it, and I’m worried that he is traumatized.

So I am off to bed, to try to escape for a while, so I can get up tomorrow and keep trucking. I know the only way to get to the other side is to plow on through, even though I can feel the resistance in every level.

I hope all of you are doing ok, and coping with the daily disasters happening in the world.

Take care of yourselves.

Love, Laura

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