Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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Serendipity Breeze

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yard chimes

In the silent expectation of dawn, just before the first slice of silver reveals the horizon of a new day, a slight breeze moves through the pine trees in my yard. The brief rustle of branches releases a faint smell of long-past adventures in summer mountains and stirs the chimes that hang in the arbor. I look upward and smile at the memory of my mother.

Her morning ritual remained the same for twenty years. She woke early, and slowly walked down the lane to retrieve the newspaper. Her breath came in puffs as she tugged her sweater closer against the chill and gazed at the stars before they faded behind the emerging sunlight. Back inside, she turned on her radio, sometimes she listened to the farm report or else to gentle sounds from the 1940s. She fixed some toast, sipped coffee, read the paper. She did this every morning by herself.

Widowed for two decades, she forgot how it sounded to be greeted every day, to feel the touch of someone else in the house, to hear her husband ask for more coffee. Even though her schedule was full of volunteer activities and various appointments, she never got used to the loneliness. Her regular companions were the ticking clock over the mantel, the cooing mourning doves outside the window, and the pleasant voice on the radio telling her to have a nice day.

I finally convinced her to move into an assisted living facility 100 miles away from her home but closer to my grown children and me. She had endured too many serious falls, too many minor car accidents, and a growing number of health issues. On the last morning before the move, she lingered outside on her morning walk and noticed a warm breeze meandering through the trees, as if to say farewell. She nodded and went inside.

Years later, after enjoying the company of others in the facility and regularly seeing her grandchildren, her mind and body began to fail. Confined to a wheelchair and lost in dementia, she preferred to stay in her tiny room and listen to her spiritual music.  Finally, she knew it was time to go and she stopped eating. Not even congenial staff or patient family members could convince her to swallow a single bite of applesauce. She died in her bed on a quiet autumn morning as Tennessee Ernie Ford promised there would be peace in the valley. Outside her window, a sudden wind tossed the tree limbs, and the leaves floated to the ground.

A week later, I woke earlier than usual, dressed, and stepped outside. The stars were still bright as I walked to get the newspaper. I turned to go back and a fresh gust of wind tickled the chimes. “Good morning, Mom,” I said, beginning my own ritual of greeting her in the morning. “Let’s have a nice day.”

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Lose the Body: Eight Tips to Plot a Funeral

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stone angel grave

I’ve helped organize weddings, including a few of my own, but planning a funeral is a different type of hectic, emotional activity with a demanding timeline. The details could leave you breathless. Oops, wrong word.

In a wedding, you have months to prepare. With a funeral, you have days and you’ll need to interrupt your own grieving to organize the deadly details. A few generations ago, the family would clean and dress the body, prop it on the dining table next to the potato salad, throw a party, and then bury the dearly departed in the family plot on a nearby hill. Now, there is a complicated checklist that rivals the NASA instructions for a lunar landing to make sure your loved one has a proper burial.

Because everyone eventually dies, someday you may need to organize a funeral. Here are some helpful tips:

  1. Don’t lose the body. My sweet mother recently passed away. I had arranged for a local funeral home to pick up the body and transport it to another funeral home 100 miles away to her hometown. Two days later, she still hadn’t arrived. After frantically calling and trying to use my inside voice, I received an email saying that the driver was in route and my mother was near Bliss. I responded, “Of course, she is.” (Bliss is the name of a village near her intended destination.) I have no idea where she went for the weekend, but I assume she had a good time and that, somewhere, my parents were laughing.
  2. Don’t allow details to be the death of you. Notify key family members, but tell them you don’t need any help because planning through a committee could be fatal. Open a bottle of wine, sit down with a notebook or computer, and begin to make decisions: choose pall bearers, write the obituary, approve the death certificate, notarize details for the IRS, finalize the funeral place and program, chose the music and performer, arrange for food and flowers, contact the cemetery, make decisions about embalming and donations, and decide what clothes the person will wear and who should do the hair. Do you want rings removed? Do you want the casket with the pretty roses or the sunset? And, don’t forget the musical video. Do all this in a few days while keeping a stiff upper lip. Sorry, wrong word again.
  3. Don’t present a stupid program. If you think Aunt Bernice will go to the podium and wail for 20 minutes, discreetly suggest she save her remarks for the reception, preferably after the first two rounds of drinks. If you want to include some literary orations, avoid Robert Service’s famous poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” And, finally, if all your music sounds like the “The Funeral March of the Marionette” followed by a requiem, a dirge, and a lone bagpiper, expect some of your guests to fall onto the ground and beg to be the next to die.
  4. Don’t overwhelm the undertaker. I’m thankful I chose a reputable Funeral Director instead of Billy Bob’s Burial and Tire Changing Service. After my mother died, I had numerous questions. The Funeral Director patiently listened when I called in alarm and asked who would dig the grave. “We’ll handle everything, Ma’am,” he said. I was so relieved that I wouldn’t need to ask my son to bring a shovel and a backhoe.
  5. Don’t turn the funeral into a bazaar. I once attended a wedding where one of the guests brought along Cutco knives to sell to the attendees. This is not appropriate for weddings or funerals. Even though I’ll have a captive, emotional audience, I don’t plan on arranging a book signing event after my mother’s service. She always bragged to her friends that I wrote books, even though she never read any of them. I told her I wrote under the pen name of JK Rowling.
  6. Don’t allow expenses to haunt you. You may need to dig deep to unearth some money because the base cost for a funeral can range from $5,000 to $10,000. The choices vary from a pine box tossed into a swamp to an elaborate $25,000 casket carried by a procession of white limousines into a private plot. If you’re hosting a boisterous reception after the funeral, save enough money to buy some quality liquor because you care enough to say goodbye with a fine Scotch instead of cheap moonshine.
  7. Don’t forget the living. After the funeral is over, use your energy and emotions to appreciate and connect with those around you. There are still a lot of people who aren’t dead yet, and some of them need a friend.
  8. Don’t stop celebrating life. If anyone cares to organize a funeral for me (after I’m dead, or course), I want a full marching band to play John Philip Sousa marches and an open bar with plenty of exquisite Cabernet. And, I’m requesting lots of pie with ice cream because finally gaining weight will no longer be an issue.

Family Matters through Life and Death

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family mom wendell

Birth is a time of celebration when family and friends gather to welcome a new life, full of opportunities and potential. Death, also, can be a time to rejoice and reflect with loved ones, especially if the deceased person exceeded her potential on earth. Such is the case with my mother Leona Ambrose.

The top picture was taken in July as her grandchildren, their spouses, and their children joined my husband and me for a visit at her assisted living facility. The second two photo was taken October 10, just three weeks before her death. Again, family members gathered around even though she could not remember names or faces. We were limited without a better camera, but the cell phone captured images of loving people. I especially treasure the shot of my mother and my sweet granddaughter. They have always shared a special connection.

mom and 9 females

mom mirabel

 

Sometimes we don’t understand what goes on within families or why some people reject taking responsibilities for others. After next week’s funeral service, we can all reflect of things we should have done, actions we could have taken to lessen the heartache of those we love. I must apologize to my mother for not trying harder to communicate with her first-born son. In her honor, I will forgive him for not visiting her for 15 years. But, I do that only for her.

Thanks, Mom, for loving your family. We will strive to continue your legacy of keeping an attitude of gratitude, even when life kicks us in the gut. Oh, and we’ll also buy a new camera to record the next fabulous generation.

four generations

 

 

 

Midlife Cabernet: Dealing with Death, Taxes, and Independence

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Spring 2013 brought the daunting, predictable realities of death and taxes that were offset by the joyful introduction of a spunky baby girl who has her father’s nose, my chin, and her own delightful energy. This week we attended a family funeral, I compiled another bulging box of documents for my beleaguered tax accountant, and I unpacked our family’s 108-year-old Christening gown for my new granddaughter to wear.

Sometimes death has no sting.

The family funeral became a memorial celebration of life for my husband’s father. He died at age 83 after years of being lost with Alzheimer’s, and his final journey was a quiet blessing. At the service, wonderful stories were shared about past activities when he still remembered the names of his children and grandchildren.

Taxes are taxing.

My first full-time job started forty years ago, and I’ve paid income and property taxes ever since. I don’t mind paying assessments that fund schools and roads, and I willingly share my resources for programs that assist the elderly, help handicapped people, provide for those with special needs, and support the arts. But I am extremely aggravated about the mismanagement of taxpayer money by inept politicians who have less common sense than a child with a piggy bank.

A child knows that when the money is gone, the spending must stop. Our national government leaders, however, continue to spend borrowed money to send foreign aid to countries with regimes that want to kill us and to promote unnecessary and abused entitlement systems that create more takers than makers, all while ignoring the fact that our crippled country in on the verge of irretrievable bankruptcy. Got food storage?

Christening and Customs

On a more joyful note, my granddaughter will be Christened in a hand-stitched dress made by my great-grandmother and worn by my grandmother in 1906, my mother in 1927, me in 1952, and my daughter in 1978. The baby’s ancestors were strong pioneers and hard-working farmers who dreamed of becoming writers, musicians, and travelers. When my son and daughter-in-law present their child to proclaim her name in the presence of God and assembled witnesses, the dress will cloak her with a legacy of tough, talented, spirited women.

Next Spring will bring another opportunity to prepare for the certainty of taxes. And a splendid toddler will walk barefoot in new grass, pick fresh blossoms, sing silly songs, and wonder what’s beyond the fence. We’ll give her a piggy bank and some seed packages to plant in a garden and encourage her to become self-reliant and independent as a tribute to her hardy ancestors.

Many years from now, I’ll share some fine wine with my granddaughters, and we’ll tell amazing stories about our grand adventures. Then I’ll ask them to sing one more song before it’s time for me to go.

Today’s blog is fueled by several small bottles of Wente Merlot from California. It’s available on Delta Airlines and is sufficient when writing a blog at 30,000 feet while flying to a family funeral.