What Do You Do If....

Death is a funny thing; inevitable for all of us, but we live as though that fact is somehow irrelevant.  It is always a surprise to have a death in the family--no matter how expected; one gets used to having another person around and then, suddenly, they are not there and the absence is earth shattering.

When the matriarch was late for breakfast, I was a little scared.  It's not that her death would be unexpected but I didn't want to be the one to find her first.  Of course, I didn't want the children or my husband to find her either.  One delays checking, you know, hoping against hope that, maybe, it doesn't have to be done.  When it went past ten in the morning and the children were awake and dressed, we were all looking at each other in that nervous, wary sense.  I, in particular, was dreading to have to go into her room to see if...  But I had to do it before my husband got up; as much as the matriarch is his mother, I didn't want my husband to find her first.

When someone is my mother-in-law's age and dies at home, the ambulance is not called; the police are and they arrange for the funeral home to come pick up the body.  It can take some time.  It is very rare a senior of such an age has their death investigated.  It is very rare for the event to be viewed as an emergency.  When I pre-arranged the matriarch's funeral, years ago, I was told the protocols involved and the procedure was explained to me.  But knowing and being the first to find a dead body are two very different things.  I am not sentimental.  I am religious in a spiritual sense.  A dead body won't scare me.  Finding my dead mother-in-law before my husband is made aware of the situation does scare me.  I don't want to be the first one as much as I don't anyone else to find her either.  Maybe she won't die.

10:45

With a sigh, I begin to go up the stairs but my husband comes up from the basement.

Morning.  Everyone up?

The girls are silent and look at him and I am on the stairs and look at him.  And, he says,

What?  My mother not up yet?

I shake my head and tell him I'll go check first.  He grimaces at me and goes up the stairs first.  I don't know if he is expecting her to be dead or what he is thinking or if I am disappointing him.  I trail behind wanting to be there for him in case....

You want some breakfast?

In the hallway, outside the matriarch's room, I realize I am an idiot.  She's not dead.  She has merely slept in.  My husband comes out of the room and tells me his mother wants her Sugar Crisp for breakfast and her tea.  I am obviously in a state and my husband looks at me.

What were you expecting?  She's not dead today.

It is almost anti-climactic.  My doctor once told me his grandfather lived well into his nineties and his actual death was more surprising by his physical absence;  you get so used to an elderly person being around that one is more struck by their no longer being there than by their death.  One misses their everyday needs and wants, the routine of their existence.

It is not that I want my mother-in-law to die; it is more I keep expecting her death and am tired of the waiting.  Doesn't that sound awful?  But she has lived an extraordinarily long time and it wouldn't be a surprise and it is extremely difficult to keep expecting it to happen.  It is weird when my mother-in-law talks about some one old dying and the person, in fact, is younger than her.  Oh well.  My mother-in-law must eat her cereal and her strawberries and sugar and I must pick up some more candies for her and take her to the blood test and wonder if I am anticipating her death too much because I am tired of it all or if, really, the woman is immortal and I just haven't clued in yet....