One Year Later,
After My Mother’s Death
On this day in
2014, my mother, Mary Hinkson Jackson, passed away peacefully in her bed, at
home. At her side was her dutiful nurse, Alice, and Sharon, an aid in training
for Alice’s planned departure for a visit home to Nairobi, Kenya.
Although I planned
to visit my mother later that day, she died before I arrived. Alice sent me a
text message at 1pm or so, to tell me. Once I read the text, Jonathan and I
left school and arrived at my mother’s house to find her body still warm and
our daughter, Elsa, there as well-almost inconsolable. She had gone to visit and,
like us, had not made it over in time. We each spoke to my mom, touched her,
hugged her and kissed her. Our dear friend, Laura, joined us, as did my cousin
Beverly and our friend, Rachel. Later, Beverly’s husband and daughter came too,
as did our son, Jeremy, to bring us dinner.
What has happened
in the year since my mother’s passing?
First, we had to
clear out my mother’s home. Many of us worked tirelessly over the Thanksgiving
weekend to sort and box her possessions. Many boxes went to the Unitarian
Church for its holiday fair. Others sit in our basement and in Elsa’s room. We
got the apartment cleared out and ready to show in less than a week.
Next, we listed
the apartment for sale. It was viewable on line December 17th. It
took approximately six months to sell. We closed on the sale in late June,
2015.
My goal was to use
the proceeds from the sale of the apartment to purchase a retirement home for
Jonathan and me in Lexington. I flew to KY many times during the winter and
eventually went into contract on our new home February, 2015. We closed in late
June, 2015, right after the sale of the NY apartment. I spent the summer in
Lexington setting the new house up for our move during the summer of 2017. Our
new home was made possible by my mom.
Alice returned
from Kenya in late January and found a new job. She utilized the services of
Sharon’s employer and was placed in a home in Brooklyn Heights. We keep in touch.
Elsa left for a
nine month Fulbright assignment in Rio de Janerio, Brazil in February, 2015. She
has just returned. Jeremy returned to college after Thanksgiving and completed
his sophomore year. He is currently half way through his junior year.
My husband,
Jonathan, lost his father in late September of this year. His dad had hung on
for a long time, longer than her wanted to. We felt somewhat prepared for his
death after our experience with my mother. The family had a lovely service for
his father in Maine.
I have the support
of a wonderful therapist who is helping me work through my feelings of relief,
of guilt, of remorse, of sadness, of freedom, of loss and of confusion. I see
her every other week and slowly we are unpacking the many layers of baggage I
will carry with me for the rest of my life. I am a person who had a beautiful,
famous, wonderful mother who, at one time was a happy person, but who also was
paralyzed by grief, sadness, depression, epilepsy, and, in the end, undiagnosed
dementia. These conditions had a tremendous impact on our relationship during
the last 20-25 years. I’m working hard to remember happy times from before her
illnesses began, but that is still a work in progress.
My mother and I
had a very difficult time together. One year later, I think I can truthfully
say that deep down, I loved my mother and she loved me.
