At some, tying up some others…

I don’t know if I mentioned that Mom’s estate is, for the most part, closed. I’ve boxed all the estate documents, but for the final attorney bill, and I’m shredding the last of her non-estate paperwork and credit cards. The last step is to clear out the estate account, which I sincerely hope I can do from out of state. Seems silly to think there might be banks that would require one to be there in person to close an account, but…you can see it both ways, I guess. Convenience versus security, our daily first-world dilemma.

I’ve also registered Mom on the USPS’s Deceased Do Not Contact list, thanks to a well-timed Unclutterer community question. Perhaps the USPS can stop AARP’s incessant solicitation (I tried. I failed.)

It seems, sometimes, like a lifetime ago that we went through that six months with her. One day it’s as if she’s been gone forever, the next as if she can’t really be gone at all, because that’s impossible. Sometimes, I think the loneliest version of lonely is knowing that you can’t call your mom.

It also feels completely surreal to find myself talking with my dad or my aunt as someone who’s been through this particular loss, much as some others talked with me. In what kind of world am I ready to counsel anyone, particularly my own father, on losing a mother? (A world with powerful tobacco lobby, that’s what kind. Still, that’s a topic for another day.)

I am only 33.

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(I turned 33 last month. Generally, I prefer even numbers to odd FOR NO EXPLICABLE REASON, but being divisible by 11 is also kind of neat, don’t you think?)

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I posted a craigslist ad yesterday for the lovely gown I wore for wedding 1.0. I feel bad for the poor thing and hope someone will fall in love with it as I did — in advance of trying it on, based on a picture I saw online. I walked into that shop with my mother in 2003 and tried on a few other dresses to make the salesperson happy, and because that’s what one does, but it was the only gown I wanted.

It deserves a better fate, and better memories. It deserves to be The Dress for someone marrying The One.

If no one bites on the ad, I’ll try to find a way to donate the gown. It’s tricky — most places want something purchased in the last two years. If you were there or saw pictures, you know it’s a timeless style, so…here’s hoping.

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I’ve got one last project to finish up for the summer semester, and…well, I’d have writer’s block, except I’m not allowed to write a paper. It has to be a digital sort of thing, but it also has to use APA Style. If anyone has an elegant way to do in-text citations in, say, a podcast, holla.