"Death is beautiful when seen to be a law and not an accident. It is as common as life." - Henry David Thoreau
My mother in law passed this week. She was 88 years old. She had survived a brutal car accident in her youth - one that took the life of her unborn third child. She survived ablative heart surgery, and in her old age, she survived both the J&J vaccine (lung clotting) and later on, Covid-19. She was in marginal health the last few years, and when it was her time, she returned to the Lord.
The wife is upset, her brother and our daughter are upset, and I'm a bit numb. I'm doing my best to be supportive as they go through the emotional swings that losing a loved one brings. I'm pretty stoic about the whole thing, since it's all part of the process. She lived a long life, so it's difficult to view her passing as a tragic death - just a somewhat unexpected one.
We've had a lot on our plate: Clean out her room at the nursing home, arrange a funeral service, locate all her documents, and deal with other end-of-life legalities like canceling her pension and social security. There's a beat-up 2003 Ford truck rusting away behind my shop that once belonged to her brother - who is also deceased. That thing is certainly in legal limbo now, but it would be great if it were gone :)
We need to see an attorney about her living will and see if it's even valid. The document was written a couple of decades ago, in a different state with different laws - so who knows... I think we will use the same attorney to make our own end-of-life arrangements, since we are next in line to take the dirt nap. I'd like to arrange a trust for the kid. It's difficult to know how responsible she might be with the kind of money she stands to inherit. I know that I would not have been very responsible at her age :)
I've always liked the idea of a funeral with military honors: Presenting the flag with the "Thanks of a grateful nation." to the next of kin. Having seen it a few times, I've always thought that it's a very bittersweet ceremony, while at the same time ensuring an absolute finality that the person is gone.
We all are going to die. The best thing to do is to accept that fact, and try to live well - be kind to others, better yourself, be good-natured, and keep chugging along. "I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself." - D. H. Lawrence
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