Of coping and the word search puzzles

By Jeff Orvis

I'm starting to enjoy word search puzzles again.

Big deal, you might say. I would ordinarily agree, but as we come up on the one-year mark since Mom died, I was trying to come up with a way to describe how I've tried to cope this past year. The word search puzzle books were my main companion during that fateful month of August, 2012, as I sat by Mom's bedside as she recovered from emergency abdominal surgery, keeping watch as she slept trying to recover.

In the early part of the month, we had reasons to be optimistic. We had complete faith in her surgeon and the entire medical team at the hospital was compassionate and very professional. Many folks who have experienced illness and surgery, especially when the patient has observed her 80^th birthday, might have thoughts about what life will be like without that loved one. But with her first-rate medical and spiritual teams, we had every reason to expect her to return home quickly.

Ultimately, that was not to be. A series of complications led to two more surgeries later in the month and finally her body signalled it had had enough.

Every day, spend five minutes with the TV and you can see all sorts of drama where actors depict dying moments. I've never personally watched someone die before. While nobody really likes the experience, I would like to think that if I'm ever put in that situation again, I'll have a better idea of how to react. It took more than 59 years for me to experience a death in person. Recently, I have been reminded that Mom watched both of her husbands die. In fact, Dad passed 32 years ago this month. My step-dad Ernie died at home late one night several years later.

My sister has chronicled her thoughts during Mom's final hours in her wonderfully-written blog.

http://meldow2012.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/mamas-final-journey-september-4-2012-by-melissa-dow/

The only thing I remember of those last minutes was when Mom, who had been heavily sedated for several days, suddenly opened her eyes and looked at me. It was not a look of alarm, but rather a look of assurance that she knew full well that this was just the beginning of her ultimate wonderful journey.

As we left the hospital that night, little did I know that a new journey was just beginning for me. I had agreed to be the executor of Mom's estate. I had no inkling of what I was agreeing to. I have never owned a home, nor have I had any financial investments. But I knew that being the executor was often a duty of the oldest child and Mom had complete confidence that I would be able to figure it out.

This journey is continuing as we try to sell Mom's condo and settle the estate. One thing I think I did right was enlist the help of a select number of friends and relatives to help with this process. As a journalist, I've learned that the only dumb question is the question not asked. So my thanks to those members of my team for answering some dumb questions this past year!

You might think that after spending hours working on something as simple as word search puzzles, I would never want to see one again. But in sorting through the mountain of paper her in the house, I came across a few books that hadn't been completely filled in. Strangely enough, those boxes of jumbled letters, where the object is to find a list of up to 40 words is once again a comfort. You can lose yourself mentally in those pages for a few minutes at a time, but can still use some compartments of your brain to ponder other things.

Perhaps in some small way, the puzzle books are a reminder that the days of puzzles and uncertainty and suffering are finally over for Mom and our other loved ones who have passed on. If you believe in God and salvation, you have a better idea of what they mean when they say that the departed have gone on to their reward, where they will finally learn all the answers.