I find myself repeating to myself a lot over the past few days:
She’s dead, Justin. You have to move on.
Oh, yeah. She’s dead.
Mom’s gone. You can’t do that.
I realize that with mom gone, the great peacemaker of the family is no longer her. I can’t just sit down next to her now, and tell her what bothers me, ask her for help, or any of that.
My aunt’s here, but we don’t always see eye to eye. Given our current situation, we have to work together, though. This house we are in now, is all thanks to mom. She worked hard to get all the drama done with at our old house. She worked hard to find a new place that wasn’t too expensive, but actually gave us the things we needed - a room for me, rooms for the others to share, a real kitchen… Things that I’m still in awe of, after where I was.
The house we used to live in was rather, ah, makeshift, if you will.
The easiest way to describe it would be, “Little House on the Prairie”, if you will pardon my nicking of the expression.
No Central A/C (which I didn’t mind), with a wood burning stove for the Winter. So yeah, I got to chop wood, and bust large blocks, saw logs, and all that stuff. We didn’t do so much of that after Dad passed, but instead, we ended up buying wood a bit more often.
Dad didn’t allow us to do that, though. He would take me out with him, and find people who were cutting down trees, or had a large old tree fall, or anything that meant firewood, during Spring and Summer, much to my embarassment, I should add. We would get all this wood, and dump it off in the backyard, and spend days cutting, sawing, and stacking wood. We had a woodshed that was, eh…perhaps twelve feet wide, and about six feet deep, and about six and a half feet tall (12′x6′x6.5′ ?). That whole thing would be full of wood, or damn near it by the end of fall.
He asked me to do this when he fell too ill to do it on his own. I made sure to keep wood, though it wasn’t the staggering amounts that he kept. It always got us through the Winter, though.
The amount of wood dwindled down after he left us, back in 2000.
We went cold more often, then, save for when I, or my aunt, or my mother would buy those fire logs, or fire wood. But, after a few years, we were getting sick of that.
We went through a lot of drama after dad passed, when mom wanted to sell the house then, so we could move somewhere else. When he passed, he didn’t have a will, and without one, that meant everything got fragmented between his wife, and his immediate children. So, She got 20%, I got 20%, and the other three got 20%.
There goes a few years of legal dramas, costing us thousands to get it back. I gave mom my 20%, and two of his children did the same, as well. There was one that I wanted to influence with a gunshot wound to the head to give his link back, since we had majority interests in the property. He held out, and then defaulted when he didn’t appear for the court dates.
Asshole.
Anyway, fast forward to 2006. We finally get fed up, and sell the old house. 30 days on the clock to get a new place, and get out.
I’d never do business with Trinity Investment Properties, if I were you. The gentleman running the business doesn’t have what it takes in him to work with customers. He’s very rude, and pressuring, though once he’s got what he wants, he takes his time with the rest.
He made some rather snide remarks when we went to finish off the paperwork with him. The kind of remarks that make me want to say, “Them’s fightin’ words!” — I regarded the tone and context of his comments as an insult to my dad. I bit my tongue, though, and told mother to let me skim any document before she signs it.
So, we get through this, and that man wanted us out by the end of March. I, and the guy working with us, countered with the fact that the requested date was less than thirty days.
Anyhow… fast forward to April 17. We’re packed, and finally moving in.
So, we get into the new house, and mom falls sick. She goes to the hospital, and they find blood clots, which explained the low saturation of Oxygen in her blood.
She gets treatments, and comes home a week and a half later, but she’s pretty much in bed all day.
We, as a family, did our best to encourage her to get out of bed, explore her new house, and all that. She did get around a little, but not all that well. Eventually, she stopped trying so much, essentially becoming a hermit in her own room. We’d sit back there and talk with her, though. I’d still encourage her to get up for a while, so she didn’t get bed sores. I told her, she needed good circulation and some strength, so she can overcome this, and that she wasn’t allowed to die just yet.
I realize the last bit seemed selfish, but this woman was my great peacemaker, and the woman I loved. I mean, I didn’t really want to go out and seek out a relationship with someone else, when I had something good at home. I didn’t need sex. I needed someone who loved me, despite all my shortcomings.
I was at work, the night she died.
I had made a comment about that night being the night that kills me.
In a sense, I really was right. I was as much a part of her as she was of me. She’s the woman who adopted me, raised me to do right, to try hard, and stop saying I can’t do things.
All I know is that I froze, panicked, and collapsed on the floor when I got that call.
I miss her.
I need to continue preparations.
For those who are local, or would like to send flowers, her wake is tomorrow, and her funeral will be Saturday.
The funeral home is Blount and Curry, located at 605 S. MacDill Ave., Tampa, FL, 33609.
Her wake will be tomorrow at 6 PM.
Sarah Hobley is her name.
Services will be held at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, 405 N. Oregon Ave., Tampa, FL, 33606, at 2 PM on Saturday.
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