Did all that really happen?

For someone who usually writes here every day, it's weird to not have been writing stuff down over the last week. It wasn't that I was that busy every day but I had a hard time just opening the laptop, let alone writing my blog. It's been a tough week.

I still feel like I'm in shock, like my mom didn't die. When I'm walking around and see someone about the size of my mom, especially in a red coat, I gasp because I think it's her and that maybe it was all a mistake. And then I remember that she really did die and I feel sick and sad again. I grieved when my dad died but I think I feel even more grief this time, maybe because the death was unexpected or because she was my last remaining parent.

My sisters, their husbands, Ian, and I all managed to get my Mom's furniture and stuff divided up and as many loose ends tied up as we could. By "dividing stuff up" I mean "shipping a lot of stuff to Ontario". There wasn't much time to sort through everything at my Mom's apartment and I couldn't just get rid of stuff... so I took it for me. Fortunately, there wasn't any overlap between what my sisters and I wanted so it was ok for me to take the stuff. I also took her wooden rocking chair because I'd been told that it was given to my Mom when I was born and I just couldn't part with it.

I ended up shipping 11 boxes of stuff plus the wooden rocking chair (and a dressform my sister gave me) home. Yes, 11 boxes! It makes me look like more of a hoarder than I already am, doesn't it? :) It's all supposed to arrive tomorrow and I have no idea where it'll go, but I know I wanted it all.

A few of the larger pieces of furniture stayed in the apartment for people in the building who don't have anything and most of the the rest of the stuff  into a building re-use-it area. At least this way everything will be used by someone.

One sister and I separately talked to the maids who cleaned Mom's apartment and apparently they really liked chatting with her and couldn't understand why she killed herself. She was kind of ornery and all but they (and others) really liked her and will miss her. Mom didn't seem to know that people cared about her or that they liked her; in her diary she talked over and over about how sad and lonely she was without seeming to realize that people did like her and would be her friend if she wanted. That's so sad.

I'm home for a couple of weeks before I go back to Edmonton for my scheduled Christmas trip and I'm looking forward to having some time to myself in a comfortable environment. I feel like I need to give myself the time and space to process everything that's happened and I hope that I'll be able to start doing that over the next couple of weeks.