Omi Is Missed

 Entry 1.    8:21 a.m.

Jenny, who has taken the dogs at night in preparation of my backpacking trip, somehow managed to keep them placated until 7:30. Down in my Skinner box of a bedroom, I woke up at 6:00, around the time the dogs (on average) like to wake me.  

Willow rang the bells hanging from the front door to go outside, the second time in the last few days. Progress grinds slowly with this one, but we are making headway.

In just a few hours we will hold the one-year delayed memorial service for Omi. It has been a ton of work for Jenny, including last night having to see her niece's dress, afte Leiney, overpromised and couldn't deliver.  The two of them worked hours on it yesterday to complete it.  They made the programs, wrote eulogies,  made the food, and this morning we will go set up the hall. I did much of the same for my mother's funeral--also delayed after a December snow storm forced cancellation. (As much as my mom hated snow, the cancellation was poetic.) But, I didn't have as much work as these three have had.

Omi is, pardon me kids, an actual icon of motherhood, community, friendship and patient care.  She was the center of our universe, around which we all spun.  She made our eyes roll with her alleged gluten allergies. We called her W.O.M.I, complete with tagline: "All the news you already know, whether you want to hear it or not." But she would do anything for her children and grandchildren, was the organizer of holiday events, the first to call on your birthday, the person who gave greeting cards for every holiday, even Halloween. Our Christmases, Swiss in Tradition (complete with Advent Sundays, candles on the tree, carols and a Swiss dinner on Christmas Eve), with perfect palce settings and German deli delicacies will never be replicated. I have this memory of walking to St. Vincent's with her when Leiney was there with Jenny at 11 days old (the hospital wouldn't let us both stay).  I bummed a smoke from her, our fear written in our faces. I loved her very much.



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