After a lot of tsuris which I'm certain Mom never meant to visit upon us, her remains were laid to rest on Friday the 13th, and — for what it's worth, since we've been far from traditional about it — the week of shivah, the deepest mourning, has been observed.

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While I really hate being such a "Debbie Downer" this early in the year, I'm getting extremely frustrated with the red tape surrounding my mother's passing. The basic: we are still waiting on the life insurance to cut loose enough money to bury my mother. While she pre-paid the funeral expenses, she didn't have enough money to pay for a plot —
and without the life insurance money, neither do we.

I'll spare the details of dealing with government-based life insurance (Mom was a Federal Government retiree). The funeral home has been as helpful as possible (which is actually very helpful, especially in terms of compassion and empathy), but the end result is that we are dealing with businesses, and at the end of the day, they need to report a profit (or at the very least, the lack of a loss).

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I've not slept well these past few nights.

Not only am I in a strange bed in a place that has not been "home" for over eight years, I'm trying to deal with the financial, emotional, and logistical elements of our current situation. Rather than resting and staying asleep, my mind is trying to figure out how to move our office into our already-packed living room, plus adding additional book cases and filing cabinets, without sacrificing my ability to put up my sewing machine, keep my only means of transportation (bicycle) in the apartment, and find space for sentimental treasures, plus finding a way to monetize that which we cannot keep or store, so that we can finance the process.

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Other than the expected shock, you never know how you'll react to someone passing away in front of your eyes -- or while you are en route to a critically-ill relative -- until it happens. I don't usually experience grief in terms of torrents of tears. I do experience a degree of depression, and psychological paralysis, and for months afterward (sometimes even years!) I think I see deceased people walking in crowds (they're pretty obviously someone else who looks similar). Right now, logistics are the only thing in my mind.

Logistics -- not that my mother has left this world, and my father is in his own Alzheimer's world. How are we going to make sure my sister can continue to survive? How are we going to deal with personal effects? What can we keep, and how do we sell what must be sold? How are we going to foot the unpaid bills of burial -- not to mention whatever emergency-room bills follow?

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When you look at me, what do you see? Do you just see the physical girl standing in front of you? Or do the emotions, the spirituality, the thoughts creep through as well?

When I look in the mirror, I see that I'm tall for a girl. I see that I have my father's blue eyes and the Guerin nose. I also see that my mother's side of the family shows through with the curve of my hips. When I look at me, I see my family staring back at me. Each part of my body comes from the genetics behind me. The resemblance in facial structure to my middle brother...the same fair skin of my mom and oldest brother...the small wrists that are present in all three siblings.

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Following up on last week's post, I spoke with the pediatrician today.  Boo's a1C was 5.2%, which is normal.  She did have glucose in her urine, though, and after looking over other test results, she wants Boo to be seen by an endocrinologist. 

I called Joslin immediately, of course.  They want to see her tomorrow since it's easy for things to go downhill quickly if Boo does have diabetes.  I'm supposed to bring her in for 8:30 a.m. (and how fun will that trip be - 2 hours in to Boston during rush hour?), fasting, and they'll draw blood and then have her go carb load and check her again in 2 hours.  They should have all the test results by 2 p.m..  If those results are positive, Boo will be admitted to Children's Hospital and started on an insulin regimen. 

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