https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/how_it_went
How It Went
By John Gruber
Friday, 8 November 2024
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My mom died at the end of June this year.
I know, and I’m sorry — that’s a hell of a way to open a piece ostensibly about a depressing, worrisome, frightening election result. But here’s the thing I want to emphasize right up front: my mom’s death was OK. It really was. She was 78, which isn’t that old, but her health had not been great. She was hospitalized for several days in May, just a month prior, after she had collapsed at home, too weak to stand, and for days it wasn’t clear what was wrong. Then some more test results came back and we had the answer. She had ovarian cancer, bad. It had already metastasized. The prognosis was grim: months to live, at best. And those months, toward the end, would inexorably grow ever more painful and profoundly sad.
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So, when my dad called me Tuesday morning, I thought it would be the election on his mind. It was all that was on my mind, that’s for sure. He had, in fact, just come back from voting, but it was something else. His voice was chipper, upbeat, but I could tell it wasn’t a good story. I know him too well.
Turns out, he had gone out to eat, by himself, Monday evening. In fact, at the very same restaurant where he and my mom ate their last meal together. He ate, drove home, and once home went to wash his hands before going to bed. That’s when he noticed his wedding band was missing from his finger.
It was lost.
He looked around to no avail, and went to bed without it. In the morning light, he retraced his steps. He felt certain he had it on while at the restaurant — not because he took any note of it while dining, but because he knows he’d have noticed its absence. If you wear a ring every day on the same finger, you know how true that is. He almost never took that ring off.
At some point when I was a little kid, my dad told me he had never once removed his ring since my mom put it on his finger at their wedding, the year before I was born.
*** and ***
I told my wife about my dad’s ring and she almost burst into tears. She loves him so much. “He just lost your mom”, she said.
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Maybe I’ve just had too much emotion this week. A lot of deaths since last Thanksgiving, a lot of deaths of people near me, a lot of deaths of celebrities I “knew” as a child, and even deaths of fellow alumni I never knew. Sigh!
In recounting the death of the author’s Mom, I could feel again the pain that it brings. Sadness can be overwhelming.
Not sure what lesson to take away from this.
But one can NOT wallow in self-pity. It happens to everyone everywhere in every age.
“My love, were it in my power, I would sadly grant thee this boon. But, we have to continue to follow His Plan for us. Let’s go forth and speak no more of this. Who ever is last will be last. It will be His choice; not ours. We’re but humble custodians of His temple on earth. It’s not our place to trump His plan. Whatever that plan be, know that I will be with you to my last breath.” — character “John” in CHURCH 10●19●62 Volume 2 Page 399
That’s all I can say now. “Who ever is last will be last.”
—30—
Reinke Faces Life 