My mother passed away peacefully but unexpectedly on the 8th of April this year. On the 1st of May, we laid her to rest. A more concise version of the following text was read by the celebrant on my behalf.
My mother was a constant nurturing and calming presence in my life. I seldom left our traditional Sunday dinners without a doggy bag of leftovers. Even after I got a good job and my own place, I had to be careful not to mention that I was about to buy something for my unit, as she would spend hours searching for a spare of the item she had stored away years ago just in case someone needed it. When I would ask Mum what she wanted for Christmas or her birthday, she would regularly reply all she wanted was a visit from her boys. If pressed, she would ask for something cheap, practical, and often not really for herself. A notable departure of this was the scarf I bought her during my trip to Cambodia, and I can’t remember her ever wearing it, or even what it looks like. I would have insisted she was cremated with it. My Mother’s passing was a shock that I will not be recovering from any time soon.
There was almost a month’s delay between my mother’s passing and the funeral. Despite a full post-mortem, the most that the coroner’s office could tell us is that they don’t know. When the funeral finally happened, I honestly thought I was over the mourning, and I would be stoic and dry-eyed. This lasted as long as the photo-montage, where I saw the vibrant young woman sitting on a couch with my family’s first-ever cocker spaniel.
Something I learned about losing someone so close to you is that you suddenly feel like you are an unwilling member of the world’s most exclusive secret society. Within that secret society, you also hold a unique position that no one else quite understands. People who I didn’t know about the passing of my mother, and I didn’t feel the need to tell, oddly became viewed as some kind of rival agents whom I became tight-lipped around. Most of the time, I would go about my day as if nothing life-changing had happened, then a self-checkout asks me for a Fly-Bys card, and the next thing I know, I am rushing to get back to my car without crying.
Adrian's Got The Moose 