June 14

            It has been a month of odd days since my mother died on May 16.

            There was the day in which I had two important errands to run:  1. pick up the Whidbey Coffee gift certificates for the Sunday School teachers and youth workers, and 2. pick up the death certificates to mail to my brother in Kentucky. 

            There was the day I did my errands with her cremains in the front passenger seat.  And the day I wrapped the box in brown paper.  And the hurried twenty minutes at the post office in which I covered all tape and paper seams with brown paper tape—hurried because I needed to pick up a prescription and drive from Freeland to Oak Harbor for a Christian Education Team meeting.

            There are the days I operate in a gray fog of grief, still stunned that my mother is gone and still grappling with leftover guilt.  There are the usual trips to Oak Harbor for church and music activities, made unusual because I can’t visit her now.  There are the surreal grocery shopping stops in which I realize that there is no longer a reason to keep a look out for her favorite cinnamon rolls or tasty chocolate treats.

            There are the days when her magazines arrive in the mail, and loss overwhelms me.  There are the walks down the driveway in which I remember her delight in picking berries and pulling weeds.  There is the relief that she did not linger long in that final state of fearful confusion.

            And there is gratitude for having had the past five years with her, even when it was so hard and even when all I wanted to do was run away from home or, later, from Home Place. 

            I guess that I’m not done with odd days even though today is an even one.