Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Mom died


the night of October 6. She was 95, and was very debilitated, but she still knew me. I was glad that I was able to drive down to Baltimore and be with her. I had never been with anyone at their moment of death, and it was both intimate and mysterious.


She and I certainly had our ups and downs over the years, especially when I was in my teens and twenties, but in these last fifteen years, all of that was put away.


There was so much about her as a person that I never knew. She was orphaned in childhood, and would never talk about her first twenty years. Only when I was in my twenties did I learn that her father was raised Amish... and only in the last four years did I learn ( from my cousins)

that I have a small army of Amish second cousins. So many questions I wished I had asked her

when she still had her memory.