The next morning I woke up and was going about packing up my house, (because we had weeks before that when I got laid off, decide to move back to our home town of Pittsburgh). I got a call from my brother, who was panicking saying that I had to get home now, my mom was unconscious on the floor upstairs. I asked him all the normal questions like where daddy was, if someone had called the ambulance, to calm down. He said the paramedics were there, I said ok, I’d get dressed and be on my way (which at the time was 1 hour and 45 minutes away). I dressed myself and the baby, a little panicked myself, and I packed my diaper bag, for a long stay at the hospital with plenty of bottles, food and toys for the baby. Then called them back to see what I needed to do and where I needed to go. My brother, still freaking out, didn’t know anything. I instructed him to give me to dad, that I need to know these things before I was on the road, incase my cell didn’t have service.
I got to my dad and said something to the effect of “what’s going on? What happened? Where are they taking her?” I think he was in shock that my brother hadn’t have told me, I don’t know if Ben (my brother even understood what was going on yet). Either way he just blurted it out, that she was gone. He was so upset, asking me where we should take her, the EMS and police wanted to know what funeral home. I think they figured she had died of known causes, but what they didn’t understand was that this was a complete shock to us. I told him that they couldn’t take her somewhere until they know what happened. After I hung up I immediately called my husband, he had taken my car to get gas while I was getting ready. And he came home quickly, he called his boss and told him that he couldn’t be to work that day. He obviously understood. My husband, the awesome man he is, held it together while we drove back to my hometown, while I was a mess in the passenger seat spouting off lines every now and then like “what am I going to do, she was my best friend?” and “Maggie and our kids to come are never going to know here?” when we got home all my brothers were there and my dad, sitting in the dark and quiet in the living room. The rest of the day was a blur. But those hours before hand, I couldn’t get out of my head if I wanted to. That was the worst day of my life.
Fast forward to Wednesday, I just couldn’t find something I like to dress the baby in for the funeral, nothing was appropriate, so I went to my fabric and I sat and cried, thinking of what I would make for the baby, what my mom would like. I settled on a pretty gray cotton with purple flower and purple tie dye looking fabric. I made up something simple and pretty. My mom would have loved it. She absolutely loved to see the pictures of my daughter in the clothing I made for her.
This is the dress I made:
Front:
Back:
At the funeral, it was heart warming, her office, (which is a HUGE law firm in downtown Pittsburgh that takes up 10 floors of a building which is one city block big) chartered a bus to bring people who wanted to attend the funeral. I’m talking a full greyhound sized bus full of people, and even with that, people from here work were still forced to car pool over because there wasn’t enough room. The church was packed, even more so than it gets for Sundays. While walking in to the church in front of her casket, I just couldn’t believe how many people were there. The pastor gave an amazing eulogy about how she was no quitter and how she always looked for the good in life saying “when a door closed she looked for the window”, then told the entire room about the time when I was 2 ½ years old and I locked her in the basement in the middle of winter while my newborn baby brother was on the table in an infant seat. In the middle of winter she trudged around the outside of the house in a nightgown without shoes in the snow, to get back in the house. I was so embarrassed. Haha. We took her to her grave, which is only steps from the outside of the church. And we all just cried.
Afterwards we went to a luncheon set up by her boss’ wife. There the baby pooped out half way through and we laid her asleep on the table.
I also got an elusive picture of my oldest brother and father in suits, they joked that this wouldn’t happen again until one of them die (the funny part is that it is probably true).
