A Wild Memorial To A Liberated Woman

As readers of mrsguy are aware, the windup to our friend's memorial luncheon was epic.

It was roughly a week and a half of mom calling up every child to ask what the plans were for the memorial, and her immediately forgetting. We put together calendars, notes, and reminders, but they didn't work. Her capacity for worry was tremendous. My own response was to keep it light and jokey because I realized that she wasn't ever going to remember the details.

The day of the luncheon I got there at 9. It's all fine. I get a parking space right out front. We have about three hours to get ready. Eventually we get in the car, mom buckles herself in, turns to me and says:

"So where are we going?"

That, my friends, was the punchline to a week or so of torture.

But who cares. It was the day, I was in control, it was happening. I teased her by asking where she thought we were going, and she really didn't know. She thought we could go clothes shopping or to my house to see the cats. I told her that I had taken the day off work and we were going to the memorial. "We don't have to do that," she said. "Let's go to your house and see the cats." For real, People!

The luncheon was a trip. We were in a small banquet room with lots of walkers for the 91-year-olds, their children my age, and our friend's admirers. Many of the old people were known in this room by their nicknames: Dit, Punk, Biney, Wink, Boy. There was an asparagus heiress and people who were relatives of General Custer who all disagreed about whether or not he was an ass. And all of our friend's caregivers, who were soooo sweet, and even one rock star who, after he left for a doctor appointment, was replaced to my left by his sister who grew up with "My brother the rock star". She was awesome. Everybody told risque stories. Our host couldn't cope and had to leave. The waiter seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown and was pretty passive aggressive. The whole thing was a trip.

It was definitely worth doing, and later in the week mom thanked my sister (not me) for taking her.

Wish I'd been there ;)