Monday, January 11, 2010

slowly but surely

We're meeting with Pastor Jeri on Wednesday to discuss matters related to the upcoming memorial service. I've turned in (1) my draft of the liturgy (with plenty of red-font annotation), (2) my Photoshop design for the church program's front cover, (3) a two-page bio about Mom, and (4) a photo to go along with the bio. I've also been working on organizing all the photos of Mom for the pictorial tribute, and am at a point where I can begin my massive scanning project. This promises to take more than a day, even if I scan several pictures at once, and there's still a great deal of photo editing and manipulation to do (e.g., photos that have been scanned together will need to be cut into separate individual shots; labels will need to be applied to give credit to the people who have contributed pictures to the tribute; red-eye corrections need to be done, etc.).

I'm doing my best to respect my original idea: the division of the photos into decades (see the bottom of this post for details). However, I can't promise that all the photos truly belong to a given decade. As it turns out, we have a pile of un-stamped pictures showing clothing and hairstyles that could well be interpreted as era-straddling, making it hard to assign them a proper time period. I also have no plans to order the photos within each decade, i.e., a photo from 1999 might appear well before a photo from 1993, and a photo from September 2002 might appear before a photo from May 2002. I'm pretty sure that people viewing the tribute will forgive this peccadillo.

There's plenty more to do, but it's being done, slowly but surely. David has bought a suit and is having it tailored (I urgently need to do likewise). He's also going to help me arrange physical displays of Mom's photos for the lo-tech aspect of the photo tribute. Sean, who instead of speaking will be performing some of Mom's favorite classical pieces during the service, is working through the nitty-gritty of recruiting fellow instrumentalists. Along with all the funerary paperwork (and the regular paperwork that comes with having a house), Dad's doing some necessary grocery shopping today, and will be devoting himself to the cleaning of the house this entire week. He, David, and I also need to write our eulogies-- a task I hope to begin tonight.

Far from being a time of rest and meditation, things have been hectic here. And despite all the activity, the whole affair seems to feel hollow at its center, as if, somehow, Mom should be here to help us organize everything. Just the other day, I was struck by the weird feeling that we had left Mom stranded somewhere, and were supposed to pick her up. I guess this is an improvement over what I'd been feeling the day Mom died. On that day, I wondered why my heart was still beating. It didn't seem fair, somehow, for the world to continue without her.

See you Saturday, I hope.


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2 comments:

Elisson said...

"It didn't seem fair, somehow, for the world to continue without her."

I remember having that feeling after losing my mother... but I got over it pretty quickly. The fact is, it's the natural order of things for a child to face the loss of a parent.

The world does continue. Your life, and the lives of your family, continue. They are forever changed, but they continue. And that's the best legacy a beloved Mom can have.

Deneen said...

It looks and sounds as if your mom had a life well lived and is forever, a mom well loved.

My husband is on month 6 of a GBM diagnosis. We walk closely behind you, and keep you in our prayers.