Mum Revised: May She RIP

The internet was recently alight with the tongue-in-cheek obituary of a clearly wonderful woman who died at 94 in Toronto. Her family wrote a truthful obit that made people baulk and giggle. I smiled the whole way through.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=175314461

I thought I would write my own obit should I not make it through the week (with my recent track record, it is aways a good idea to keep my obit at the ready). I am taking suggestions if there is something I have forgotten.

Kristine died at the age of 40 (cough, make that 46). But she didn’t look a day over 47. It will be of no surprise to her friends and family to find out that she died with multiple broken bones and a possible concussion. All injuries resulted from her trying to learn to weld so that she could help her son with a random project he found on the internet. She had already told him it was too complicated to complete but she wanted to stop the incessant asking during summer holidays so she acquiesced.

Kristine was a good friend. Not great, but definitely good. She cared about her friends when it fit into her schedule and when she showed she cared, it was good stuff. She slept with many of her friends, but in a purely platonic way. She was good at trying to get a bed to herself in a crowded cottage and only had to sleep with the snorer once (you know who you are). Kristine felt she could be herself on girls’ weekends. Much of that she regretted.

As for her cooking, she was a rockstar. And by that I mean she made food a rockstar might be able to rustle up in their bus while on the road. Kraft Dinner, tacos, Shake ‘n Bake and pasta with meatballs were staples. As for anything creative, she reserved that for when company was over. The family loved when company came over so they could try something new. They also didn’t like when company was coming over because their mother was a wreck, and so was the kitchen.

This leads me to why Kristine will be admired for her neatness. OK, that was a joke. She was messy to a fault. She had to hire people to clean up after herself, but to her credit, she hired really good people.

We will mostly remember Kristine for her wit. She was quick with a retort, so long as the word had four letters. Her middle finger really was her favourite, especially in the car. Besides that, she told a mean story. More often than not, she told it to you every time you were over for dinner. Her favourite was the ‘dinner party fail‘ story. ‘Really Kristine? Just stop! We heard this already’, was often muttered under breath. Well I guess she finally did stop.

Kristine’s passion was her kids. Not so much when they were babies. She loved her babies but she was happy when they grew out of nighttime feeds and diapers. Kristine never functions well without a good night’s sleep. Her husband and friends can verify that. So she must have liked toddlerhood better? Well, not so much. She was waiting for her progeny to grow out of being needy. Little did she know, that never stops. The age her children are at now was her favourite stage. Truthfully, she always felt that God made kids more tolerable as they grew older so that you were less and less likely to throw them out. She also felt that if you were not yelling at your kids, you were not spending enough time with them. She was a complicated woman.

Her children are saddened by the sudden passing of their mother. They recognize that the house will be neater, the dinners more varied and the language on radio edit but they also know that no one else remembers the wifi code. Maybe Kristine intended to be indispensable by not divulging the code to keep the family needing her. It didn’t work. They just called Rogers.

The child most likely to miss his mummy is Scooby, the fur baby. Kristine painstakingly trained that dog to smile, tell stories, go potty in the same spot each time in the yard and stretch before a walk. She didn’t bother with the ‘how to behave on a walk’ or ‘stay’ because as long as he was cute, Kristine felt he was fine.

Kristine has requested that the brown box in the spare-room closet be thrown away unopened because it contains personal items tax receipts from 11 years ago that are useless to anyone. Please also discard of the box of random cables and remotes in the basement that Mister has been hoarding and tell him it was disposed of by mistake. She was meaning to get to that.

She also wanted her to do list to have the items crossed off before it is recycled. You don’t need to finish everything, just cross them off. Remember to add ‘cremate mother’ on the list to cross it off. She would have liked that. You can find this list on almost every scrap piece of paper in the house. Some written in pen, some pencil, some crayon and sometimes in her head invisible ink. Those ones are tricky to cross off, but trust me, it can be done.

May she RIP until September when she will be needed to help with homework and carpooling again. Until then, at least her to do list has been taken care of.

Dear family, add your own personal sentiment at the end but please ensure that someone who can spell checks it first.