Trying to replicate being in the Crypt by listening to the club DJs online and drinking red wine.  I'm just not bold enough to dance in my living room.  So I chatted with an old student about ales and gardening.  I also worked on finishing some of my mom-in-law's unfinished Christmas decoration crafts.

You see, hubby's mom died three weeks ago, right before our birthdays.  I feel like I can write it here because no one will really read this anymore after my original posting for people to read my blog.  People have such short attention spans.  While most normal humans let everyone know when there is grave illness or death in their circle, I do not.  I leave my family business out of posts if it is current.  (Religion and sex are the two other things I do not talk about on or offline).  We spend one day a week down there to help his dad go through stuff.  She was a crafter, master quilter, and left quite a few projects unfinished.

That is not the sad part.  You see, we had not seen her since last September.  We always saw them on their birthdays, for our birthdays, and for Christmas.   In the fall, she started having more trouble.  She was on oxygen all the time and was really having trouble getting around.  Then I got sick - from kids at work, of course - so we had to cancel our Christmas trip there.  She could not have anyone around her if they had any germs.  Immuno-compromised.  Each time we were OK, she was not.  Then she ended up in the hospital in the winter.  Then she got so bad that she needed a hospital bed in the house.  She was too embarrassed to have us see her like that.  Hospice workers came to the house all the time to help hubby's dad with her.  

Then the virus came.  No one could go anywhere.  Hubby and I were healthy enough to see her, and she was doing better.  We could have seen each other.  But we could not.  Quarantine.  We thought this thing would blow over.  Other countries started loosening restrictions because numbers were way down.  Not here in the good old US of A.  People refused to stay home, refused to wear masks, and refused to stop hanging out with each other.  So hubby and I have been playing it safe since March.  And the numbers in our state started to go up.  Even though the in-laws are in Pennsylvania, they are in a river town.  But in their state people were also refusing to follow their governor's recommendations.  Because, well, freedom and boredom.  Short attentions spans.  All that.

Mom-in-law died and we never got to say goodbye.  We never got to give her her Christmas gifts.  The day after she died, the three of us got to see her one last time.  That's it.  No mourning.  No service.  No goodbye.  Just a big, empty, silent room in a funeral home.