What can you say when she dies at 102?

[judih]

weaving her rugs
designing her curtains
perfecting complaints

alone in her mind
a lifetime of balloons
floating far away


R.B. kept on keeping on till 102. Mother of a friend of ours, she left the U.S.A after her husband died to live on the kibbutz with her son and his family. For the past 15 years, we thought it was any day now that she'd be saying 'shalom' for good. Today was the day. Bye, Ray.

[sasha]

When someone who's lived so much finally switches off there's sadness, but no sense of tragedy - the tears we shed are apt to be tempered with a smile for the years she lived. My condolences to her family and to you. Bon voyage, RB... smooth sailing for you.

[judih]

When someone who's lived so much finally switches off there's sadness, but no sense of tragedy - the tears we shed are apt to be tempered with a smile for the years she lived. My condolences to her family and to you. Bon voyage, RB... smooth sailing for you.

she chose a nice day to leave. You're so right. Sadness, a tinge for a lost era of her being alive. But truly a blessing as her body had stopped functioning reasonably at least two years ago. That's a long time for life energy to wear out its welcome. Amazing, really.

We don't do Mother's Day as it's commemorated in the U.S. and Canada, but there it is - she left on mother's day. A timely gift.

[sasha]

My grandmother lived her final years in the fog of dementia, just as my mother is now. She was probably around 97, but had been very secretive about her age - no one really knew just how old she was. (We suspect she was older than her long-departed husband, & felt it was a bit improper.) Her death was a release for her, and for my mother's younger sister, who bore the brunt of caring for Gram - not really a passage to mourn. Her funeral became a comedy of errors, one of those family stories that gets retold over & over, more lurid with each telling. The hungover pallbearers (yeah, we tied one on the night before), my cousin Danny's loud indiscretions, the rain, & the altar boys' horror at the spectacle of the bleary, sodden buffoons in charge of moving the casket - quite undignified, but quite funny.

[judih]

My grandmother lived her final years in the fog of dementia, just as my mother is now. She was probably around 97, but had been very secretive about her age - no one really knew just how old she was. (We suspect she was older than her long-departed husband, & felt it was a bit improper.) Her death was a release for her, and for my mother's younger sister, who bore the brunt of caring for Gram - not really a passage to mourn. Her funeral became a comedy of errors, one of those family stories that gets retold over & over, more lurid with each telling. The hungover pallbearers (yeah, we tied one on the night before), my cousin Danny's loud indiscretions, the rain, & the altar boys' horror at the spectacle of the bleary, sodden buffoons in charge of moving the casket - quite undignified, but quite funny.

sounds like a day to remember!