It's gorgeous outside. Snow is everywhere. It's silent. The phone rings at 9:07am on this holiday morning. It's a bill collector or credit card reminding us of our negligence. When the phone rings I cringe.
When you have a father who is 84 years old and has never really been "in charge" of the money you face certain challenges when his wife passes away. The mail piles up. The junk mail almost seems to mate overnight. Magazines are delivered and credit card offers are still hoping for a response. Bills need to be paid as usual. But it's not "as usual" for us around here. Mom is not here to open the envelopes and select which donation she feels she HAS to make today. She is not reading the magazines nor the offers. I spent hours working with him...explaining...helping...writing....organizing. Days later it was as if I had said nothing. Information was just as perplexing as before...blank stares were still present.
This is the new cycle. I make a dent in the pile and the newly filled mailbox laughs at me. I recycle a pile and another is waiting. I call a credit card or company to explain and the phone rings yet again. The phone ringing is not just a noise in my house. It is a reminder of the work yet to be done. It is a ringing out into the peace and silence I have waited so long to have. It is a scream that my mother is not here anymore only I don't have the time to mourn because I am too busy clearing off the table that my family can't sit at anymore.
Today I am mad at the junk mail, the catalogs, the offers, the bills, the wasting of my time, the loss of the life my Mom tried so hard to contain and the phone for ringing and reminding me of this. I am mad that I have to do it. That I can't just be the daughter who misses her Mom....but I have to be the one to call and write and figure and work. My beloved father might be the source for some of my new rants but today I will just be mad at the phone for ringing and for all that it represents.
damn phone! :(
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