On Monday morning, May 14, my mother-in-law, Ruby Kimrey Dollar, died. Which makes my husband an orphan (his dad died of colon cancer in 1988).<\/p>\n
I cannot speak for what my husband is feeling, and in fact, he may be trying to figure that out for some time to come. We\u2019ve lived in Connecticut\u2014a 14-hour drive from Daniel\u2019s childhood home in North Carolina\u2014for 13 years now. For the first 10 or so of those years, we got down to North Carolina at least twice a year to see Ruby and the rest of Daniel\u2019s family. Ruby even made it up here a few times when Leah and Meg were babies\u2014a feat close to miraculous for someone who didn\u2019t like to fly and who lived her entire life within a several-mile radius of where she was born. During our children\u2019s lifetimes, Ruby\u2019s health was never robust. But the kids at least have some memories of visiting her at her house. Those visits largely revolved around where we would go for our next meal, so that now, when we say we\u2019re heading south, the kids immediately start fantasizing about meals at Chick Fil\u2019 A and Steak \u2018n Shake. (True to tradition, on our drive south this week for Ruby\u2019s funeral, the first meal we stopped for was at a Chick Fil\u2019 A in Fredericksburg, VA. Ahhhhh\u2026\u2026) In between meals, the kids would play hide and seek in Ruby\u2019s huge backyard, build forts with Daniel\u2019s old Lincoln Logs, and forage in the treasure trove of old toys (1970s-era Star Wars toys anyone?) that filled Ruby\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n
But for the past couple of years, as Ruby\u2019s health failed and she eventually moved into a nursing home, our visits south became less frequent, and sadder too. We began spending the majority of our time in N.C. with Daniel\u2019s siblings, who have children and grandchildren to keep our kids entertained. We would go visit Ruby wherever she was at the time, either the nursing home or the hospital. But the visits were short. Conversation became hard as she began to slip into forgetfulness, couldn\u2019t always place where she was and what we were doing there, and frequently drifted off to sleep mid-conversation. The kids would give her kisses and hugs and pictures, but they became quickly bored.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s hard to know what any of us are feeling, or should be feeling, upon Ruby\u2019s death, because in so many ways she was already lost to us. And Daniel and I have carried some guilt and discomfort at being so, so far away as she declined, while his brother and sister did the hard work of regular visits, conversations with doctors and nurses and nursing home staff, and responding to ever-more-frequent medical emergencies.<\/p>\n
As a daughter, a daughter-in-law, and mostly as a mom, it just boggles my mind that someone\u2019s mother<\/em> can die and our lives will essentially continue just as they have.<\/p>\n Eventually. But for now, we\u2019re in North Carolina for her funeral, to remember her life, which was far from extraordinary in some ways, but more than extraordinary in others. She buried a husband and two of five children, and yet continued to love life and to thrive on connections with other people, particularly her family. Until her health made it impossible, Ruby was always up for a meal out and good conversation with a friend or family member. And as I\u2019ve gotten older, I\u2019ve realized that even some of Ruby\u2019s quirks that drove me batty contained layers of wisdom. I\u2019ve written about two of those quirks, her fierce holding on to every object <\/a>that ever came into her home, and her passion for the church\u2019s bereavement ministry<\/a>, which mostly involved feeding people.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be taking a break from blogging for a few days as we gather with Daniel\u2019s family to mourn and celebrate.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Monday morning, May 14, my mother-in-law, Ruby Kimrey Dollar, died. Which makes my husband an orphan (his dad died of colon cancer in 1988). I cannot speak for what my husband is feeling, and in fact, he may be trying to figure that out for some time to come. We\u2019ve lived in Connecticut\u2014a 14-hour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":424,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[118,38,119],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-family","tag-mourning"],"yoast_head":"\n