Last Week My Mother Died; This Week I Celebrated Her Life

Last week my family gathered in Philadelphia for my mother's graveside funeral, an intimate final hour with her. We had all been so close with my 92-year-old mom.

This week, back in D.C. I wanted to celebrate my mom's life, call it a faux shiiva.

I emailed friends to join me Monday at 7 to remember my mother and enjoy light refreshments. Below that, I pasted the obituary in which I described how my mom had a way of bonding with everyone.

At the Catholic nursing home, she told the sisters, "I was born Christmas day, my parents were Mary and Joseph and I'm Jewish."

I accepted friends' kind offers of food, figuring if necessary I could fill in with some of my own easy recipes. It turned out to be a nicely balanced buffet:

• tea sandwiches
• veggie platter with hummus
• guacamole with chips
• chicken wings
• veggie and chicken salad wraps cut into one- to two-inch slices
• faux chopped liver (uses mushrooms and walnuts in lieu of liver)
• fresh fruit
• home-made cake cut into squares

To help prepare my home, a friend came last week and bossed me around for an hour to put away all the stuff that had accumulated over the months my mom was ill, including bundles of bubble-wrapped knick knacks from my mom's apartment. 

If you ever have a friend with a hardship, helping that person organize is a great gift, especially if it's someone like me who will always choose getting 8 hours of sleep over filing paid bills.

I set out the utensils, napkins and plates in my mom's favorite colors—apple green, royal blue and hot pink.

I resisted making fresh lemonade; rather, I simply poured ready-made lemonade into a large pitcher, diluted the sweetness with water and ice, and added lemon slices. I also placed a couple of pitchers of water and some bottles of white wine on the drinks table.

On a buffet in my dining room, where I usually serve desserts, I set up photographs of my mother, ranging from when she was four years old with a bowl haircut to the last photo she had taken with my dad five years ago, his arm around her, shortly before he became ill.

I placed on the front hall table a book I had created for Mom's 90^th birthday, the stories of her life she'd told me over the years, with pen and ink and watercolor drawings I'd made depicting her adventures, like trips to the shvitz (steam bath) with her mother where treatment included getting hit with fans.

Not that this was exactly a party, but I consulted my party checklist and sprayed air freshener as well as made sure the grass between the curb and sidewalk was free from dog and deer droppings.

Friends arrived and several encouraged me to speak about my mom. Had I known anyone would be interested, I would have prepared notes. But I was willing to give it a try.

Thirty of us gathered in the living room, and I began by saying high school friends had recently emailed that they remembered my parents as having had a good relationship; they remembered my mom as pretty and well-groomed. I proudly added that she accomplished this without fuss, without going for manicures and hairdos.

My youngest daughter told about the road trip we took up North in a medical van two months ago from Florida, 23 hours with Mom in a hospital bed while two dirvers switched off at the wheel.

My daughter and I had climbed into bed with my mom and we looked at photos on my computer. Mom then reminisced about growing up and how her family must not have been poor, because her mother always had enough coal to give to neighbors in need. 

I also told friends about My Mom's Party Games and My Mom's Party Food, articles I wrote amid a lot of laughs while hashing out the details with my mother. Every day Mom and I shared long conversations about everything from politics to literature to Oprah to Mom's latest bingo results.

Already I miss my mom terribly, but I feel oddly at peace with her death. In her final weeks she told me, "I have no regrets." What a way to go!

For other Home Goes Strong articles wrote with my mom, see:

My Mom's Do-It-Yourself Decorating Tips

You Don't Have to be Jewish to Make Great Chicken Soup