So, last time my mom had an evaluation by the neurosurgeon, her condition was pronounced terminal. And on Friday, 12 January, my mother graduated. She was 64 years old. My dad found out when he went to visit her in the nursing home, and news spread. In a way, I was ready for it...and not ready for it. We'd been expecting this for a while now, but the feeling of permanence about it...was something new and unique. It didn't actually take long for me to regain my composure, even if I was just going hour at a time. Throughout last week we'd been preparing arrangements for the funeral. My sister traveled down to discuss lists of contacts with my other sister - people to contact, newspaper death notices to issue, etc. Other than being a little stunned, things...sort of proceeded along like normal. Family members started arriving little by little. Wellwishers kept sending us very rich comfort food meals - roast ham, baked macaroni & cheese, etc.

The funeral was Friday. The funeral home brought us the ashes, and we held the service at our local church. The service itself was...not pleasant. Of course, they never are - they're not meant to be entirely pleasant, but to help people adapt to the permanence of the situation. But people did their best. There were some talks, and some songs, and I played a piano piece - it was a small miracle I could, as I summoned years-old muscle memories after not having practiced all that time, and apparently did a good job. The church baked us a banquet that we ate immediately after the service, in view of photographs of my mother and a running DVD of her pictures set to music - that was a little hard, but the food was actually very good. They prepared us more ham, and many different kinds of Jell-O dishes (this being Utah and all), and various cakes. They'd even baked my mother's Texas sheet cakes (a chocolate cake) from the family recipe, which was a surprise. The strangest part was..."funeral potatoes" - a potato and cheese casserole topped with cornflakes. Friends and extended family sat down, ate and conversed in good natured discussion. Even today (Wednesday) we still have various leftovers from all this.

Family lingered around during the weekend. One thing I can't always deal with in my adulthood, is how our family always marks gatherings with such vast amounts of sugar. Chocolate chip cookies, doughnuts, the most imbalanced rich high-glycemic junk food, in a family full of people in various stages of diabetes (being prediabetic myself). I prefer my desserts in moderation. I can have a cookie or some cake now and then, but...we were just overflowing with it.

One thing my mom and I had always planned to do again but never got the chance, was watch Howl's Moving Castle together. She loved that movie so, so much. So as soon as she passed on, I swore I would get some of the extended family together and watch it. A few were skittish - "anime's weird!" - and stuff. I reminded them that anime is not one big nebulous genre - it's just animation from a certain country, and has its great and not-so-great stuff like film from any country. So we watched the film together, and my niece especially enjoyed it - she even returned home with a cloned DVD of it.

Now all the family's gone home, and things are quieting down again. My diet is settling back into its normal routine, and my blood sugar feels more stable. Unfortunately this has come on the heels of some of the worst winter air pollution we've seen here in a long time, with the air out there being unbreathable and everyone feeling that much more weak and sluggish indoors. But fortunately another storm is coming, which should wash out the smog...for a few more days before it starts building up again. Whosever idea it was to burn fossil fuels in mountain valleys with such poor winter air exchange, should be remembered with shame.

My dad...seems to be taking things well. He was always affable, congenial, approachable, etc. But I found myself more determined than ever to keep him in good health. He's 69, physically active and in good health, but now every there's an inversion or every time he so much as coughs or wheezes, I keep thinking about his health. But since my dad is a healthy active non-smoker and my mother's passing was technically an accident, I logically know that for now he's just fine. I just want to keep it that way. I think I'm entitled to feeling a bit overprotective.