Audrey Lois Anderson VanBemmel

It was one of those mornings yesterday. The phone rings. And without consulting the caller id, you know the news isn't good. Consulting the caller id confirms the feeling of foreboding, though. It's Allen, my ex-husband. I attempt to disconnect the charge cord from my phone and inadvertently answer in my struggle. I hear him saying, hello?, hello? while my cranky hands fumble with this simplest of tasks. Finally I prevail and have the phone to my ear and respond. Just as I thought, his mother, my mother-in-law, had passed earlier that morning. All three of his sisters had been with her. He sounded tired and drained. This has been a year long vigil while her health and mobility declined. For most of that year his sisters have rotated residence in the apartment she would never return to. Spending time with Audrey and dealing with bills and arrangements, medical and otherwise, that required attention. I've gone back and forth with my decision to attend the funeral. It's not a group of people that accepts me with open arms. Many of them I'm comfortable with, but when I think about it, the ones I'm not so looking forward to seeing are the same ones I didn't particularly gel with when Allen and I were married. The point of the day on Saturday, after all, is honoring the departed matriarch of the family, not dwelling on petty differences between surviving members of the family. And while Audrey and I were never close, she was my mother-in-law for twenty years. She was grandmother to my two sons. And I will feel honored to be there, for her, this one last time.