TWTW - Q5 - funeral

Thursday I was working and by 9 I had showered, thrown a few bags in the car, and took off toward Cape Regional hospital where my mother in law passed away (that's my instagram caption, my personal FB one is longer but I'm not re-writing either here). I met my brother Stephen at Farley to get something I forgot in the rush to get out of the house, and MFD and I went to North Wildwood to get my MIL's paperwork. After regrouping and refueling, his siblings went home to get what they needed for the weekend/services. 

Friday I worked and MFD spent the morning arranging food donation pickups for recovery houses in Philly. He finally got a few hours of mental health fishing in. His siblings arrived back, and Mindy brought our dogs with her. Dogs know things, and Mae has not been okay since. She loved my mother-in-law. Sarah and I collaborated on dinner, and the kids went through pictures and paperwork. We did a zoom call with Frank, Amanda, Evan, AJ, and Chris and got a lot of much needed laughs. Thanks to Maureen for this MFD mullet photo.

Saturday I never imagined a funeral service like the one we had, especially in relation to my inlaws who have large extended families and longtime friends and kids with friends who have known their parents for a million years. To shrink that down to 10 people in the immediate family was wild. Godfrey Funeral Home in Ocean City was very nice and allowed 12 with her mom and brother going in for the first half hour as part of one household and leaving, then the rest of us (10) for the second half hour. I could do an entire post describing just that one hour experience in the funeral home under these covid circumstances. I know it was really hard for loved ones who could not be at the funeral, and hard for her kids to not have family and friends around. That will come in the future, when gatherings are allowed again in a larger capacity. It was as good as it could be under the circumstances. We consoled ourselves with chips and dip and bread and BUTTTTER after. My company sent food, and Lynn's BFF Patty brought us lasagna, fabulous bread, and flowers for the funeral. She also brought bubble wrap. My MIL was a well-known lover of bubble wrap so it was a totally appropriate sound she would giggle at under any circumstances but especially these and something only a best friend would think to do. Thanks Patty!

Sunday MFD and his brother went fishing and Mindy, Sarah and I went to my mother in law's to clean out the fridge and open pantry items. Everything still has to be dealt with so this family will be spending I'd guess the next month or two in some capacity doing that. We cleaned up a bit and I left with the two old dogs at about 7:45. I had packed in a huge rush and simply could not wear the same lounge pants one more night. Not like I could go out and just buy another pair and the main drawback of our house at the shore is no washer/dryer. I got back to Philly, started laundry, and chilled out with the old dogs. 

Weekly food prep: dinner tonight is asparagus, mashed sweet potatoes, and chicken in the air fryer. I have no idea what's ahead. I think we are planning to go back to the shore Wednesday.

I don't even know what we're doing right now. I need to try to envision how the next few weeks are going to play out. This post reads disjointed because my brain is caught between writing about this from the heart as a writer would and trying to process this new reality and map out what I need to do to support my husband the best that I can as him and his siblings do the tough work ahead. I can't do both this morning so I have to just hit post on this and leave the writing for the future to concentrate on the latter. 

That was not how I expected to return to the shore. MFD made sure to talk to our full time neighbors so they didn't think we just all of the sudden decided to buck the governor's request for people to stay in their primary residences and have people stay with us to do the same. They were all great about it. This is when it's good to  have a good relationship with your neighbors so they know you and your intentions and don't think you're an asshole doing whatever the hell you want. Covid turns a hard situation into an impossible situation, to half relocate to a place to deal with the closing out of a life, which still needs to be done regardless. Everything feels like the wrong thing to do. Dealing with someone's death and effectively closing down their life does not end when the service ends. It actually just begins then. It's not easy any time but it's definitely going to be harder for MFD and his siblings and all of us as a family under the auspices of coronaland. Of course made infinitely harder when it leaves you without parents as they are now. Keep them all in the light.