(The Veiled Virgin sculpted by Giovanni Strazza is on display at the Roman Catholic Basilica in St. John’s, Newfoundland. His technique is amazing.)

I am headed for the Dealership early to have the precious bodily fluids of the Hubrismobile drained and re-filled against the coming rigors of the summer. I intend to drive for pleasure, rather than for distance and long-haul labor.

The mid-June ceremonies at the graveyards in Pennsylvania and Ohio will mark the end of the cascade of frantic activity that accompanied the passing of Raven and Big Mama. I hope to have the top down and let life flow through the compartment of the sleek rolling anachronism.

I wrote an apologetic note to a client in my second or third job (the rank depends on which day it is) but the estate business has occupied center stage for five months, and everything else has been on hold pending the resolution.

My younger boy is being awarded his official badge of achievement in his Navy warfare specialty, and he will pick me up at the Dealership so I can attend the ceremony out at the compound in Suitland, Maryland.

I feel like I am blinking awake for the first time since I kissed Raven on the forehead on the morning of the 28th of December, 2011, and said goodbye, not realizing how final that moment was.

You never know where you are in The Process, that being one of the most mysterious things about aging parents. I have been going back and forth with a buddy down south. He is an infectiously good chronic (how I would like to be there!) who is sixteen months behind where we stand in the struggle with The Process and his failing parents.

His Dad is withdrawing into the mist, his Mother is in pain, and combative at the dwindling of the light. It rends the heart, there is no other way to describe the wrenching reversal of all that was right with the world.

His Mom was a dancer on beaches. He was a trim Naval officer, both of them of the generation that came to adulthood in the waning days of the Great Depression. Were that not enough, they were then expected to confront and master a world gone mad with blood lust.

Only now can I recognize how lucky we all were: my siblings, Raven, and Big Mama. There are challenges much larger than the ones we confronted. My pal’s Mom is downright pugnacious. I still recall the determination that radiated from Big Mama over our theft of her house and beloved car. The Process makes you cringe when it is happening, the guilt coming in waves, since you don’t know anything about what is to come except that it has to be worse with every day.

Not that it is, necessarily. I am still amazed at how they left us, and cannot completely comprehend that time has carried us all up to veil, and then through it. Maybe that understanding will be complete with the funerals next month.

Did I mention that The Process also renders the best of us, the friends who came out of the woodwork to help, assist, commiserate, and celebrate. It is only now that the numbness is passing that I know how vital the help was. We are lucky again to have the best friends in the world.

The list is nearly complete: the earthly bodies have been converted to eternal ash. They have been mingled and divided, so that Big Mama and Raven will always be entwined and always at one.

One piece of paper from the County on the 29th completes the probate process, or at least that is my hope. All the stupid paperwork and affirmations to the insurance companies is done, save one. The broker is ready to do the right thing once I have the appropriate paperwork. A tax attorney has been consulted and the close-out of the Trust planned for tax time next year.

The stone has been carved and placed next to the statue of the Muse on her plinth. All we need now is a hole.

Through all this I have absorbed several major lessons, not that it matters. The Process is a thing that proceeds along a trajectory of its own.

I have vowed to start thinning things out here and get organized. I have paid for my cremation, have the urn, and need to start the paperwork while I can. IN no particular order, that includes the establishment of a revocable trust, issuance of contingent powers of attorney, drafting of a current will, ready for execution by those who will have to learn The Process on their own.

And start getting rid of things. Ready or not, Kids, the crap is going to start coming your way. It is part of The Process.

(Raven and Big Mama, October 2011. Photo Socotra.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com