I lost my mother, and it's even worse than that.

[mnmoderatedem]

I recently lost my mother. She was 82 years old. Went quietly in her sleep. She had arthritis which was debilitating, but was otherwise in good health. Sadly, her body was not discovered for quite some time (my brother ad I both live out of state, I'll explain later) and there was no autopsy possible, and she was forced to be cremated due to the decomposition of her body. I'm still struggling with this, and always will.

To give some background, my mother in her later years unfortunately became a Faux News addict. To be honest, she was never really what one would call a "well informed" person. She started watching Faux News in her last few years, believing that made her well informed, and we found her always wanting to fire up political debates with everyone, something she had never done in the past. Mostly railing away at liberal media bias, and hating democrats, because Faux News tells her to. Would start trying to pick fights out of nowhere at times. I would calmly and methodically point out things like Medicare and Social Security, which of course she heavily depended on, were brought about by democratic administrations and opposed by republicans including her demigod Ronald Reagan. Told her if it were up to Reagan, she would have no medicare. Whenever I gave her a calm, factual retort like that, she would just stammer, sort of red faced, realizing she was wrong, and say nothing. Then later on after some passage of time, would continue with democrat bashing, as of course Faux News told her to.

So recently, her oldest granddaughter, my niece, went to study overseas for a semester, in Spain, where she is now. Which did not sit well with my mother as Faux News got her so wound up about mid east terrorist attacks in Europe that she was so certain that sending her granddaughter overseas was a sure death sentence, as she sure to be killed over there by those terrorist muslims. Then the Barcelona attack occurred, which made things worse. Of course this caused a lot of acrimony with my brother and his wife, as she did not merely express concern over the situation, she kept insisting in a heavy handed manner, never letting go of it. It reached a boiling point with my brother and his wife, naturally. So over Labor Day weekend, I made the trip to visit her, which I normally did every year. We had a nice time, but at the end of the weekend I had to have a talk with her, as to how she has to stop this intrusiveness, how she's being overbearing and overstepping her bounds, as her granddaughter could just as easily be victim of a campus gunfire attack a la Virginia Tech as she could be killed by a terrorist in Spain, and she has to stop with the constant hand wringing. Then of course she responded with anger at me, for "taking their side" and the like. My attempt at enlightening her was going nowhere, so I left, told her I loved her and we'll talk later, and she ignored me as I walked out.

So then there was phone silence, calling neither myself or my brother, as was not uncommon for her when she went into one of these types of rants. We figured it was just another bout of poutiness, and would smooth over by the holidays. This was not at all uncommon for her, phone silence when there was a family blowup. Very common for her, in fact. Turns out she was not calling because she passed away in her sleep, unbeknownst to any of us. We don't even know what day she died, probably around the first week in October. This is why her body was not discovered until later. My ugly Labor Day conversation with her was to be my last.

So now it's Thanksgiving. It was always "our day" between me and mom. My brother, as per tradition, spent the holiday with his in laws, as some holidays are with the in laws, some are with family. So Turkey Day was always just me and mom. This of course is the first one without her and it's tough. My mother was a good hearted person, involved in Al Anon and Alateen, voluntarily counseled females in prison, was great with small children, used to be a school teacher long ago. Just a pity Faux News poisoned her mind in her later years, and caused such issues and bad blood in the family. This Thanksgiving Day is a hard one for me, and I had to vent, and could not think of a better place than here.

RIP mom. I love you.