Oh Doydie. You have my sympathy. This is another difficult part.

So sorry to hear of your loss, dear. Now she is at rest. I found the business of the wake, funeral, and cleaning out the house gave us respite from the pain of not having Mom there anymore.
I was only 20 when she passed, and I was busy with marriage and the new baby on the way, so I put my pain in a box on the closet shelf. I took the box down a few years ago and dealt with the pain I'd packed away...

May you always smile when you remember your mom, yes, even when you see irritating things like alarm clocks. When I hear Glenn Miller songs, I remember my mom attempting to dance as she did as a young woman, and felt so embarrassed by her...but now I smile, as she looked so joyful doing her middle-aged shuffle...

In time, the challenges of her passing will fade from your mind and the memories of what made her Mom will take precedence...

Bless you for all you did for her...

Oh Doydie, I'm so sorry! I wish I had words to make it better for you. You're in my heart and in my prayers.

(((Doydie))) Keeping you and your family in my prayers.

So sorry Doydie (((hugs))) and prayers for you and family.

Doydie,
My sympathies to you and to your family.

You've already heard lots of good advice here. My only offering is that when I went through this with both Mom and Dad, I absolutely had to take time for myself during the whole process. Take time for you. It helps, even if that time is only in the quiet place in your own head.

Funeral was today. Everything went well until we left. Our car was second to leave and we decided to leave out of another exit out of the cemetary. So we made this wide circle to this other exit. Everyone else was following us and the exit had been permanently closed!!! So there was our car and the WHOLE rest of the procession following us winding around to this now closed road. So we just had to take a tour of the cemetary to get out. It was so funny. We had a nice lunch provided by Mom's church and then took the little ones home and went back to Mom
a apartment. We got a lot of healing just being together, going through memories, deciding what went to who, making sure the ones just starting out in apartments had plenty of Mom's things. I threw out my fathers Brylcream and he died in 1998! I guess Mom just couldn't throw it away.

It's far from done but when my brother leaves tomorrow and takes all his things the disorganization will at least look cleaner! It is comforting that one of my brothers is staying with me after my daughter left.

dear doydie,

i'm so sorry that you've lost your mom. no matter how much nursing experience we have it's still not within our power to change the course of events.

i'm glad your mom is at peace now with your dad. and i'm glad that you've had your family with you.

my sympathies to you and your family.

Tomorrow morning my wonderful brother goes home. It was our two brothers desire to get as much of my Mom's apartment done before they left to go home. We have just minor details to finish now and sell some things. So tonight we ended looking over old pictures of us in our much younger days, laughing, seeing Mom and Dad's marriage change through the years and just enjoying our last evening without being exhausted. I will miss his strength but I also know he feels the burden of being the strength since my sis and I have physical problems. So we have our lists of who to call to sell some things and write thank you notes.

doydie,

We found a hall closet literally half filled with cans of old 8mm movies, cases of slides and countless picture albums. Joyce and I took them all and created a DVD out of all the 8mm movies starting back in 1955. A second DVD by year of the slides. A family history in photos identifying people from as far back as 1895 into a third DVD. We then created copies for every member of the family including my parents great grand children.

A major project to say the least, but well worth the investment of time and money so all could have that as their own to pass down and even convert up as technology changes. Some of the slides and pictures were crumbling and the 8mm movie films turning yellow. We believe we captured all of this history just in time.

Possibly something to consider as I felt like I got to know my parents on a whole new level creating the DVD with pictures starting with each of them as babies.