Mom/Lois passed away peacefully at 4:41 yesterday morning.  Dad/Connie and I were at her bedside.  She is at rest.  Her memorial service will be at St. Mark's Lutheran (Emporia) on Friday, 11/30 at 10:30 am.

Sisters, brothers, uncles, cousins, and friends have been pitching in to do all the necessary things -- making calls, helping clear out Mom's room at the Manor, filling out paperwork, planning the memorial.

Dad is doing well -- I am constantly amazed at his willingness to just feel and move through all of this complex experience.  He seems able to hold both the sadness of losing his wife and the joy of seeing her released from suffering without shoving one feeling aside to honor the other.

For me, emotions rose and fell throughout the day -- a day full of many calls to make, dozens of details to pin down, and then, more mundane tasks that anchored me to some sense of usuality, as I washed dishes or inspected the calendar -- all this periodically punctuated by simple, blunt realizations:
"Lois/Mom isn't on Earth anymore . . . " -- as I'm thinking about tomorrow in the frame of the usual routine, only to find it arrhythmic in her absence..
"She won't care about this now . . ." -- as I'm writing out the shopping list that won't include her special treats, or autonomically ping-ponging through grocery aisles to find or avoid her particular tastes and distastes.
"Now, she has no body . . ." -- as I'm folding the clothes that I've folded hundreds of times before, preparing them, now,  not for her, but for assessment, or to take measure of my own sentimental attachments.

The truth is, we've been in uncharted territory for some time -- the death process is always mysterious, in my experience -- so I suppose we are as well-equipped for this next passage as we could be.

This will be my last entry in this journal.  Thank you all for your attention and energy toward Mom, for your comments, "hearts," prayers, thoughts, and concern for us.  It really does help, and Caringbridge has been a wonderful service to me as a tool to help get news out about Mom's journey. 

She is in our hearts.