It’s Friday morning. I’m at my mom’s home by myself, my brother somewhere in southern Wisconsin on his long trek back to Oklahoma. The furnace just clicked off and the house is now silent aside from the occasional metallic sounds of the heating ducts contracting in the basement. I had originally been planning on leaving today, but there’s still so much to do here that I’m probably heading out tomorrow morning instead.

We had the funeral and reception on Tuesday. What is there to say? We had 60-70 people turn out for the funeral, which strikes as me as pretty good considering it was scheduled right in the middle of the work day. Everyone said the same things: That she was caring, that she was a great friend, that she was selfless. Work colleagues referred to her as a proxy mom. A former head of the company said she was the most influential person there who wasn’t part of the family that owned the business. The son of a close family got up to speak, broke down crying, and brought many of the attendees to tears with him.

The reception was good. We bought too much food, but whatever. There was laughing, there was crying. There was targeted gifting of mom’s belongings. Cousins Mike and I haven’t seen for years–since our dad passed, actually–drove up and reconnected. We all vowed to get together again more frequently, and not wait for some other death to bring us together.

Since then it’s been working on mom’s house, going through her things, figuring out what we want to keep and what will need to be discarded. Tonight I’m going to take one last hack at her office, grab what I think is necessary and pack it up to be sifted and sorted back home in Minneapolis.

Guess I should get back to work. More later.