Life Goes On: A Catch-up Post

It’s been a weird couple of months. Although Mom’s death hasn’t left me overtly grief-stricken, I seem to be having a hard time keeping track of stuff — like dates and time of events, particular words, where my phone is, and where I set my hive tool (a good thing to know when you’re in the middle of checking a hive). I also find myself getting teary over weird things — a song, or Jurgen Klopp’s farewell ceremony.

Although it doesn’t seem like these would be manifestations of grief, apparently they are. The book I’m reading on the subject says so.

It’s something of a relief to know I’m not losing my mind, although this post may be even more scattered than usual.

Also, I still keep thinking, “Oh, Mom would like that; I’ll take her one,” before remembering that Mom isn’t around anymore to enjoy fresh strawberries or the brownies I made. A few days ago, I was getting something out of my wallet, and I realized I don’t need to carry her Medicare and Medicaid information anymore, nor her credit card.

It feels strange to have what was previously a habit become unnecessary.

There are still plenty of tasks for me to work on — going through and shredding the piles of documents I’ve been keeping (mostly medical in content), trying to confirm with Medicaid that they received the information they needed to take whatever monies she had left as repayment for the many medical payments they made on her behalf.

This will seem odd to those who live in countries with nationalized health, but in the US, someone has to be indigent to have the state pay for their care. When that person dies, the state lays claim to anything the person might still own. In Mom’s case wasn’t much, but they are welcome to it.

We had her memorial service at the end of April, timed so my cousins from out of town could make arrangements to come if they so chose. Many of them did, partly because Mom was everyone’s favorite and partly for the chance to see each other again, I think.

I saw family members I hadn’t seen in over forty years, and a few I’d never met. After the service, we went out for a meal together, and I brought the genealogy/history of Mom book I’d done for her 90th birthday, along with an old photo album. Inside were pictures I was sure most of the cousins had never seen — of our shared grandparents, as well as their own parents.

Darling Daughter had done the slide show for the service, using many, many photos we’d scanned in the weeks between Mom’s death and the service. Afterward, it was a pleasure to share both the genealogy book and the photos to relatives at their request.

That kind of information is meant to be shared with those who are part of it, I think. To that end, I’ve included my part of the eulogy at the bottom of this post for those who might be interested.

And now … we move forward with our lives. For me, this has meant using some of my new spare time to exercise — walking more often with my walking partner and going to the gym.

On the off chance that I inherit Mom’s longevity, I’d like to remain in the best shape possible for as long as possible. Plus, I’ve been gaining weight, and I feel like it’s slowing me down.

The Engineer and I are also house hunting, which has been an epic source of frustration and very time-consuming, even though we’ve only actually toured a few places. Along with this endeavor comes the responsibility of preparing our current house for sale. To be fair, this has mostly fallen on my husband, since he’s the family fixer. But I’ve begun packing, and we are now living surrounded by boxes of stuff to move.

In addition, all the bee stuff is in the dining room, since we used to store it in the downstairs bathroom (which is huge). But now, we’ve moved into that master bedroom suite so we can re-do the en-suite bathroom of the bedroom where we’ve lived for over fifteen years.

Plus, there are lots of boxes of items to sell at our upcoming garage sale.

Yes, the garage sale — we are having a garage sale in two weeks, so there’s that to get ready for, and let’s not forget the t-shirt orders for Oshkosh, which I’m in charge of.

I’m not complaining. I enjoy the responsibility of both the garage sale and the t-shirts. I’m just getting a little tired of all the boxes.

But back to the bees. We got seven hives through the winter, losing LoLa in the spring due to the moisture issue. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but our aim was to get down to six eight-frame hives and LoLa.

To that end, we’ve begun selling our ten-frame hives, as well as the splits we’ve made to prevent swarms, and the swarms we’ve caught when the bees decided to go anyway.

So far, we’ve sold three, and yet, we now have nine hives.

Sigh.

Still, we do have two going to new homes next week.

Here are some pictures of those hives.

Gorgeous Pollen!

Lotsa Eggs!

Beautiful, Fat Queen #1

Larvae

Beautiful Fat Queen #2

Today, during our second day in a row of marathon beekeeping, we discovered one of our splits has a laying worker. Normally, this would be cause for distress because a hive that doesn’t have a laying queen — that is not what we call “queenright” — is doomed. But for us, right now, it’s cause for joy because we don’t have to worry about it swarming.

This is good because we don’t have the equipment to deal with another swarm or split. The hive is okay for now, not yet drone-heavy from the workers laying unfertilized eggs, so we have a little time to decide what to do. Eventually, we’ll probably combine it with a weaker hive.

Truthfully, we’re more worried about the one ten-frame hive we’ve not been able to sell. It came through the winter quite strong and is practically boiling with bees — not boiling like angry, but like the vessel they’re in is almost too small for them.

We checked them today and found a queen cell, which means they are thinking about swarming. We knocked it off, but that won’t stop them if they are ready to go. With crowded condition of the hive and the lack of space for the queen to lay, I was surprised they didn’t have multiple queen cells, though I’m sure they are on the verge of wanting to swarm.

They are building comb in a jar, and we added a few more jars, which will give them a little more space but do nothing for the queen’s space.

We’ll have to do something soon or they’ll be in the trees (or hopefully our swarm box). Right now, we’re thinking of getting another eight-frame box and combining one of their boxes with a split we made earlier in the spring, or maybe adding two five frame boxes we’ll have freed up later in the week as an additional honey super.

Right now, we have so many hives that when we finish checking them all, it’s time to start with the first one again!

Oh well! We still managed to take what has become a yearly camping trip to Mohican State Park. It was good to be away from the day-to-day worries and to worry instead about whether the coals of the fire were too hot and would burn dinner.

It was quite warm and rather more buggy than usual, with flies and spiders and ants instead of the usual mosquitos, but it was fine anyway, and we were able to spend a morning kayaking and another cycling a rail-trail we like.

Thanks for reading this rather rambling post. I hope to do better next time, whenever that is!

Mom’s Eulogy

What can I tell you about my mom now that she’s gone? There are too many stories to share, and many of you knew and loved her so I’m sure you have your own stories.  

Instead, I’ll tell you what I admired about my mother. 

Mom liked people, and they liked her. She was funny, not because she could tell a joke — she couldn’t. Rather, she saw the humor in life and liked making fun of herself … or anyone else who crossed her path.

She was resilient, and that ability to go with the flow served her well in her more than 90 years of living. 

Who knows? Maybe it was the secret to her longevity.

Mom was also tougher than people realize. In her lifetime, she managed to recover from at least six broken bones, cancer, and multiple bouts of pneumonia. She lived with congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation for years. 

Still, after having re-learned how to walk three times (two knee replacements and her first broken hip), Mom stopped cooperating with her therapists. After her second hip break, she never truly walked again. 

I think she was tired of the injury/illness/recovery cycle. And who among us could blame her if she was? 

Though the loss of her independence frustrated her, she never stopped enjoying the opportunity to chat with visitors (or  Burbank employees), especially if they came bearing a milkshake (Sam). 

But Mom was pragmatic.

“It is what it is,” she’d say, and then try to deal with the reality of the situation.

It was she who chose to give up driving, who first broached the idea of moving to a nursing home, and who pre-planned and paid for this service twenty years ago. 

Mom took charge by making those choices, ensuring we knew what she wanted, and making it easy for us to follow through with her wishes. 

The very end, when it came, was blessedly swift, and for that we are grateful. Mom struggled through the last 1-1/2 years, and we struggled watching our strong, independent, outspoken mother decline. 

In case you didn’t read her obituary, that outspokenness never went away.  She told me about a month ago that it might be better if I talked less.

I had to laugh. How could I not? Her side-eye and little smile told me just how clever she thought she was being.

If Mom were here, I know what she’d say because we talked about funerals once, about the first one she attended (Grandpa (James Gideon) Armstrong’s), the last one she went to and if they got easier. 

I wrote it down exactly.

“I assume the last one will be my own,” she said. “I don’t like them, but it’s going to happen. You come in. You gotta leave.”

And now she has.