Today I am so pleased to have my friend Trayce Primm on the blog. Trayce is a hairdressing magician by day and a kick ass writer at night. Not only has she written a bestselling romance novel, she is about to have her second book, "Walk-in" published this November by Bellabooks.
In addition to attending several of my
parties, she was one of my readers at the book launch at the
. You can follow Trayce on Twitter @TPrimmWrites
DW: Who was the person who died?
TP: My mother.
DW: How old were you at the time?
TP: I was forty.
DW: How old was she?
TP: 73
DW: Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?
TP: My mom suffered from diabetes and heart disease resulting from the chronic damage. Mom had a heart attack and died in the hospital a week after. Her death was not unexpected as the last ten years of her life were one crisis after another but the end was still sudden. The cardiologist told us her heart was very damaged and that if she ever had a heat attack, she wouldn't recover. He was correct.
DW: Were people supportive of your grief ?
TP: I was the person who was calm and took care of arrangements and my sister, brothers, siblings, grandchildren, etc. I didn't cry. I told all of them and myself that I guessed I had seen her suffer so long that I was glad it was over. Mother was very religious and everyone seemed certain that she was in a better place. I had no real surety of that, but the whole script seemed to bring enough comfort I was glad to murmur consent. I was essentially numb. That's how I deal with pain.
DW: Is there anything you wish you had done differently with this person?
TP: I don't think so. My mother and I experienced events and viewed the universe so differently. I loved her, but we had a difficult relationship. I was her caretaker financially and physically from the time I was a child really. Mother was bipolar so she was loving one minute, abusive the next. My one real regret was that it took so long to get her mental illness diagnosed that she only had a couple of years on the proper medication.
DW: Was she buried or cremated?
TP: Mother was buried alongside my father who died when I was two. They, three of my four bothers, and my sister( who is still here, happily) and her late husband all are or will be buried in an ugly little cemetery in an ugly little west Texas town. I shall not be joining them.
DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process you'd like to share?
TP: Only that I grieve more for the relationship I wish I had with her more than the one we had. One day six weeks after her funeral, I was driving home from work in five o'clock traffic and was suddenly so overwhelmed by her death that I had to pull off the highway because I was crying uncontrollably. I don't know how long, but a driver had pulled over in front of me and walked back to the car to see if I was okay, I told her my mother had died. She leaned in the window and hugged me, at which point I stopped crying. I don't feel I've grieved yet perhaps. This was in 1990-91.
DW: Were any songs played at the memorial service that were important to the person?
TP: I know the hymns that were played and remember watching everyone around me crying, but I don't think I heard the music at all.
