Florence Jean Rose

Daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and life-long friend to many. She was all these and more to me. All my life, I have been in awe of, and humbled by, her many accomplishments, intelligence, self-reliance, perseverance, resilience and fortitude. She endured and overcame serious illnesses, turmoil, trauma, loss, and grief many times over, yet she continued to love life and found opportunities to enjoy it. She worked hard all her life. She was thoughtful, generous, and kind, often helping loved ones, friends, and others farther afield. While Jean was the definition of practical, realistic, and sensible, matter of fact, rational, reasonable, business-like, down-to-earth, and no nonsense, her smile could light up a room, and in the last several days, many people have told me how, sweet, kind, and charming she was. I recall her and dad dancing, or ice-skating, and their grace together made an indelible impression. My mother worked as an executive secretary and financial officer at Conner Construction for nearly thirty years. She loved to bowl, and was formidable at it, enjoyed travel and taking cruises, and was lucky in the casinos. Jean excelled at everything she did, right up to the end.

Jean and Al had known each other from the time of their youth, married September 14th, 1953, when they were both 19 years old. Married for 45 years, she loved my father through thick and thin, better or worse, in sickness and health, caring for him during the years he struggled the onslaught of progressive MS, and was by his side, when he died in 1998. Mom missed him to the end of her life and sometimes voiced her hope to see him again on the other side. She was single for a number of years before she and Gerald met, then married on January 4th, 2004. They had a loving, companionable marriage, with a mutual pleasure in travel, visiting friends and family, taking cruises, bowling, and they were devoted to their blended family, and to each other, until the time of Gerald's death, November 25th, 2022. In her final days, she continued to amaze me with her sheer determination and grace under fire. She had courage, strength, wily humor, and a single-minded purpose, to ensure her final wishes, will, and testament would be done. I was so filled with love, admiration, and devotion, I would have followed her anywhere. I haven't cried so much, since my eldest son died, and she was there, to see me through a crazy decade of grief, until I finally began to emerge from the kiva, into life again.

One day, in the early days of her-end-of-life care, she opened her eyes and said, why are you all hanging around...are you waiting for me to die? And she chuckled! I felt like a crow sitting on a fence, she needed to shew away. I laughed out loud, and told her, okay I'm off to get some business done. On another day, after we had a painful talk about medically assisted induced death, she kept asking why I didn't let her go. She was ready to go! At last, I understood, and had to disabuse her of this possibility, which made her quite agitated. She said, I knew I couldn't trust you to do this! I'll just have to take care of it myself! Mom had not explicitly told me that part of her plan, and she needed to understand that even with the MDPOA, lawfully, I had no power to circumvent the program's stringent protocol, nor had I found a facility that did participate in the program. After a time, she grew quiet, then she asked me, how will I do this? I said, we'll take it one day at a time, and you will let go, as you ease your mind, and trust yourself to these caring people, whose vocation is to help you make this transition. And I will be here to see you through in any way I can. She surprised me by breathing in the way I'd taught her, to calm her fears and anxieties, and ease her deep inside to a place where she was hidden, safe and secure. I thought she wasn't taking me seriously at the time, but she was and had been practicing. The last time she was able to speak she looked at me with such clarity, pointed that right forefinger at me and shook it, and she said, there's one last thing I want you to do for me...put your sister's mind at ease. And I promised I'd try, though I thought it might be a Herculean task.

Just a few days before her death, Mike left me to sit with her, as he went to her apartment, to pack another load of her belongings. She gave me a faint smile, and I could see she was glad I was there. I reassured her that I had, so far as I could at that point, accomplished her instructions. She asked after Mike, and I explained we were emptying her apartment to meet the thirty-day notice. And then she said, sorry I left things in such a mess. I took her hand, and said, don't worry, you didn't leave a mess. To the contrary, with your usual military precision, you've left everything in order, so that I might know what to do. She smiled, and we looked into each other's eyes for a long moment. Then I stroked her hair until her eyes closed and told her of a beautiful dream I had the night before of her and dad, and she smiled again, but kept her eyes closed. Then I talked of family, tried to quietly sing a couple verses of A Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a song she loved, but I couldn't, for tears further interfered with my already poor, sorry singing voice. I put my hand on her head and spoke a heartfelt prayer over her. The next couple of times I came to sit with her, she had turned her face to the wall, and the nurses told me she was near the end. I wasn't with her when she died, though I had hoped Mike, Lee, and I could be with her together at the end. But mom had other plans. For all her gifts from the mother's side, I hope our lovely mother at last met her heart's desire.

The Silken Tent ~

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when the sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held ~ by none,

Is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To every thing on earth the compass round

And only by one's going slightly taught

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

~Robert Frost