It is better to hurt than not to be.

At some point I’ll write more about my mother’s death. But for now I’ll just say going through the stuff is hard. Some of it isn’t my mother’s, but from earlier ancestors, or even from people she knew who are long dead but who gave her their memorabilia.

For example, there’s a large amount of stuff from a family friend who was a British actor (he always had work, but was not especially famous), lots of letters and memorabilia of his, and he died many decades ago. I think my mother had planned to go through it some time and perhaps write an essay or a book, or donate it somewhere (some of the letters involve reminiscences about some famous stage actors). Now I will have to figure out what to do with all of that, too.

My sympathies. I lost my mom a couple years ago; I still miss her. I hope there’s a heaven; she deserved it.

Of the several bloggers I read religiously, you write like a wise and knowledgeable friend. You provide us with valuable insight regarding the confusing and historic times through which we are passing. But you leaven that by sharing your life and thoughts and feelings in a dignified manner. Thank you.

You seem to commit the common sin of confusing an objective identification and discussion of a life-milestone with complaining about it. (Hint: They’re not the same!)

“Pampered git?” Name calling? You’re obviously not there yet.

About 10-12 years ago (if memory serves) there was a book published about exactly that experience titled something like “We’re All Orphans.” I tried to find it at Amazon but to no avail.

Make no mistake about it, the death of our surviving parent brings a finality to our existence. It matters not how much one actually relied on that parent while s/he was still alive. After their passing we all become acutely aware of the fact that, while our children still look to us, there is no longer anyone for us to look to.

Ninety-eight years? Wow, what an accomplishment! And you’ve got those genes. …

Speaking of growing old, does anyone else here observe that Neo’s commenters tend to be “middled-aged”? I wonder why that is?

This is (some of) my favorite poem: “Intimations of Immortality”

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;–
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes, 10
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

. . .
–But there is a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet 55
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended; 75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

. . .

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul’s immensity; 110
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,–
Mighty prophet! Seer blest! 115
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a slave, 120
A presence which is not to be put by;
To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 125
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 130
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live, 135
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest– 140
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:–
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise; 145
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized, 150
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may, 155
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 160
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165

Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither, 170
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

. . .
What though the radiance which was once so bright 180
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind; 185
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, 190
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

. . .

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 205
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

–William Wordsworth