Impossible Jobs

Still catching up for the A-to-Z Challenge.  I wanted to sincerely thank everyone who commented with their condolences on my previous post—your kind words have been quite healing to me and my family and very much appreciated.

It’s incredible how quickly one’s life can change. Last Friday, my mom was enjoying a pizza lunch with her kids and just one day later she was unconscious in a hospital bed.  The quiet and peacefulness of the final afternoon my brother and I spent with my mom on Tuesday, was replaced by what seemed like a sudden and immense list of “to-do’s” on Wednesday.  From deciding on the funeral arrangements to notifying everyone we could think of.  On top of that, we also had my mom’s house to begin tackling—40 years of her collected treasures and household items to sort through, and lots of overdue renovations to make it attractive to today’s picky real estate buyers.

The list seemed so incomprehensible and impossible, that about all we could do on Wednesday morning was ignore it to get some much-needed sleep!

But, with steadfast determination, we are now slowly beginning to make our way through this impossible long list of jobs.  I have continually repeated to myself the common riddle: “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time!”

My mom wanted to be buried at my stepdad’s grave at the national military cemetery here in Chicago.  When I asked the funeral director how that could be arranged, she said it would help most to find and bring my stepdad’s discharge papers from the military when we came later that day to finalize my mom’s arrangements.
  
My mom was good about keeping important papers, but she was even more proficient at keeping all the unimportant ones too!  Where on earth would we find this single, ancient document in the few hours before we had to meet the funeral director?

Somehow, as if to confirm that Mom was indeed now watching over us and expertly guiding us through the house, we found the necessary 1940’s document with only minutes to spare!  We arrived right on time to our meeting with the funeral director, and it went off without a hitch—we had all the necessary documents, and the cemetery arrangements were able to be smoothly completed.

Perhaps the rest of these impossible jobs will get done as easily?!!