MY FIRST DAY ALONE

Today was the first day since last Wednesday the day my brother died that I would be totally alone.

Wednesday, the day he died, no sooner did my husband daughter and I get home, my relatives started showing up and never left until late into the night. Bringing food, morale support and beautiful words about my brother.

Thursday, my husband was with me all morning as I went through the process of going to the Funeral Home to pick out a casket, writing the obituary for the newspaper and going over the plans for the wake and funeral, ordering flowers and even running to the mall to make sure I had something appropriate to wear. Then his friends started coming by my house as did my relatives again bringing dinner, morale support and beautiful words about my brother way into the late evening.

Friday, the wake. Hundreds of people were with me. Wonderful hugs and tears and an outpouring of morale support and beautiful words about my brother. I have to say, men are the best huggers. I can cry right now feeling the hugs around me. Picking Pall Bears was a very difficult thing. I started with six and had to ask the funeral director if there was anyway I could have more. He said I could have eight, I could have come up with 12. Home after the wake to more family and friends and food.

Saturday, the funeral. Hundreds of people again at the church, the cemetery. My cousin had opened up her home to me and encouraged me to invite whomever I wanted to come to her home for an after the funeral celebration of my brother's life. The priest who offered the funeral mass was my cousin and he had the directions to my cousins house printed in the program that was handed out at the mass. Food from so many people I can't even begin to remember, morale support and beautiful words about my brother.

Sunday, the aftershock. My husband and I went to my brother's apartment to start collecting his personal papers. My daughter and husband had gone to his apartment complex on Wednesday evening to pick up his car. We brought it all home and started the slow process of sorting and putting the pieces of the puzzle together that was his life. We rested when we got that much accomplished and my neighbor spent time with me just talking and playing Scrabble.

Monday, 4th of July. My cousin invited us to her home for a BBQ. We weren't going to go but we did and I am happy. Kept my mind occupied.

Tuesday. My husband was home with me and just sort of hung out. We were able to get my brother's phone/cable/internet service turned off and I worked more on his personal papers.

Wednesday, one week later. My daughter was off from work and my husband went back. So I spent the day with my daughter at her pool in her condo complex. A nice day.

That gets me to today, Thursday. I got up this morning and here I was alone. No job to go to and no one here to tell me what to do. So I puttered around the house. Put on my bathing suit and called me cousin and said I was coming to sit by her pool. She said great.

I did meet with my brother's cardiologist today and he answered some questions for me and cleared some things up in my head. Pulmonary hypertension is what I am told he had. I new that but I always assumed it was a result of too much fluid around his lungs but the fluid was a result of the pulmonary hypertension. Bottom line his lungs were under a great deal of pressure and he wasn't getting enough oxygen to them.

Tonight the girls at the nursing home where I use to work sent over dinner. A baked ham, pot salad, mac salad and baked beans.