"Isn't that weird?"

My mom was buried on her birthday.

She was born on August 29th, 1945 and buried on August 29th, 2009. She was about to turn 64 years old the week she died. When I think about this full circle of dates on a calendar, I think about what she would have said about it and I can hear her voice in my head saying, “Isn’t that weird, Val?”

Diane Valeria Constance Dorizas (Connie) died on Monday, August 24th, 2009. It was a beautiful sunny day in the Chicagoland area and her oldest son, Spiro, had just arrived 24 hours prior from Greece for a two-week visit. The night Spiro arrived they had a wonderful BBQ with the family. At that dinner were her two oldest children, Spiro and Andreas, her 1st grandchild, Johnny, her daughter-in-law, Kristi, and her sort-of-ex-husband, Steve. I was not there for the dinner, because I was hosting friends from out of town.

She had a lot going on at this time. Her 2nd child, Andreas, was about to baptize his son at the Greek Church. Also, I was 8 months pregnant and she was about to throw me a baby shower. Spiro came into town for all of it. We were all excited.

However, plans changed quickly.

On Monday morning I said goodbye to my friends and my husband. My friends went back to their respective home states and Tiago off to work. Everyone went to airports and I would be alone after a dreamy fun Chicago weekend with friends. When everyone had left, I called my mom to see if she wanted to come into the city for a visit. Without saying no to me, she told me that she was having coffee with Spiro on her back deck and that maybe I should come out by her. It sounded like they were very relaxed and enjoying their lazy morning together. They were good at this… it was sort of their thing. It didn’t take much to convince me. I waddled my very pregnant self and my dog into the car and headed out to my mom’s house in the burbs.

She made lunch. Spiro gave me some gifts from Greece. Sandals and scarves. He knew me well. I tried the sandals on and went running to the kitchen to model them for my mom. She smiled, looking at her pregnant daughter showing off her new shoes like a little girl while she finished preparing our meal.

We were sitting around talking, laughing, and reminiscing. The sun was shining onto the deck through the canopy of the trees in her very large, manicured backyard full of beautiful flowers. It was a perfect day. My mom had been going through some old papers and gave me a money bond that had been gifted to me a long time ago that she thought was probably mature. She then remembered there was an important paper she wanted to give to me. She got up and went into the house. Spiro and I sat outside talking and laughing. Then we heard what sounded like a box dropping. We looked at each other strangely, then Spiro said “MOM?” We both got up to go see. “Mom? You ok?”

My mom was on her kitchen floor unconscious. Spiro tried waking her up then said to me, “call 911” and he immediately started CPR on her. I called 911. While I was on the phone with the operator, Spiro revived her. Spiro told her, “Mom, you passed out”. She looked at him and said, “you’re shitting me”.

When the ambulance arrived, Spiro went outside to meet them. I sat my big round self next to my mom on her kitchen floor and looked into her eyes and stroked her head. Her blue- grey eyes looked very glassy. She wasn’t looking at me. She was staring up at the ceiling. I tried to say nice things and that everything was going to be ok. But really, I didn’t know what to say nor did I know if everything was going to be ok. It was a sweet moment of calm before the flurry that took place when the EMTs came into the house.

The professionals entered the house and took over. I found a seat at the kitchen table and watched them with her. Spiro and I answered questions about her history and her health. My mom was conscience enough to answer some of her own questions. She gave me instructions to look in her purse to find this little card with her entire health history listed. I was looking but I couldn’t find it. She gave me more instructions in a very panicked tone, and I responded like a teenage daughter telling her I couldn’t find it and I didn’t know where it was and “IT’S NOT IN HERE!”.

An EMT took me aside to calm me down and told me to try my hardest to be calm with her.

I sat in her living room and took a moment. The thought that ran through my head in that moment was, what if this is it? I looked up to see the two dogs outside the sliding doors looking in. Her dog, Brick and mine, Brownie. They stood there, looking concerned peering through the window, but not jumping or barking. I took a deep breath, picked my gigantic self up and went back into the kitchen.

The EMTs were attempting to lift my mother up to get her onto a gurney. When they lifted her up, my mom was in full panic attack mode saying, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe”. They lifted her up and her body was upright in a sitting position, and she let out a huge breath and passed out. Or so I told myself. They rushed her to the ambulance and told us which hospital they were taking her to. My brother and I gathered our things and got into my car. Spiro called our brother, Andreas to tell him what was going on. He also called our dad. They were both in the city at work. I called Tiago, who had just landed in Napa Valley for work. I told him she was going to the hospital and I would keep him posted. We were just glad that she was in good hands and they could take care of her. My mom had been in and out of hospitals for the last 5 years with Multiple Myeloma, but she had been given good news at her last check up, (cancer-free) and was preparing for a knee replacement so she could enjoy being with grandchildren for many years to come.

By the time Spiro and I made it to the hospital and walked in, we were met by a hospital liaison. I knew that wasn’t a good sign. She escorted us to a private room and informed us of our mom’s status, that she was still unconscious and she would keep us posted. Not five minutes later the doctor came in to talk to us. He said that my mom was given all the drugs they could give her to keep her heart beating. That they could not give her anything else. That she was only breathing because of the machine she was hooked up to. That without the machine she would not be able to breathe. She had lost a lot of oxygen to the brain. He said all of this to us as he walked us back to her in the emergency room. He was listing facts, but not giving us any directives. My brother and I stood next to her looking at her hooked up to these machines. We were surrounded by nurses and the doctor stood next to us. I was trying to process all of this new information. I looked at the doctor and said “So, just to be clear, what you are saying is she is brain dead and if these machines are turned off, she dies.”

He looked at me, “yes”.

I don’t really remember what happened next. I think Spiro and I had a conversation about letting her go. We must have. We both cried. We both didn’t know what the hell was going on. We were just having lunch, for Christ’s sake! I just remember next they were disconnecting all the equipment attached to her and we were with her, crying and holding her. They told us we were going to be given a room so we could be with her and wait for our dad and brother who were on their way to see her, but they did not yet know that she was gone.

The next couple days that happened are a blur. We rummaged through her things trying to figure out if she had any last wishes. My father tried to say she wanted to be buried in the Greek cemetery. (She most definitely did NOT want to be buried in the Greek cemetery. Not because she didn’t love her Greek family and friends, because it’s just not what she wanted). We eventually found the paper with a list of places that she wanted to be buried at. Her cousin and her had been doing some planning together. We had chosen well.

When we went to the funeral home we had to plan when the wake would be. She died on a Monday and her wake would be on Friday, August 28th. Then on Saturday would be the funeral at the grave-site, and that would be August 29th, her birthday. I remember sitting in the office of the funeral home thinking, would she be ok with this? Should this be the schedule? It’s a good schedule, Friday is a good day for a wake, people can get out of work early, stay late. They have less commitments. Saturday, people are off and don’t have to re-arranged work, it’s a good schedule. We should just keep it. Keep it. Aug 29th, she get’s buried. We made all the choices and arrangements for the services… then we had to go find her a plot. Tiago had come back into town already. He was next to my side the entire time. He loved Connie. She and Tiago had a special relationship. He stayed by our side the entire week.

So much happens when someone dies and when it’s unexpected the shock is so incredible that you are literally floating through the motions of plans. There was an all-week fight with my father where he was being relentless and trying to take charge of things for my mother’s funeral and end of life. He had left her and broken her heart and, in her honor, I was not going to let him take charge of anything. I was so wrapped up in making sure he didn’t do anything wrong that week, that I forgot about my mom. We got to her service, and the funeral director, a slender kind man with stark white hair, asked if anyone would like to come up and say some words about Connie. I froze. We forgot to write a eulogy. It’s her birthday and none of us have anything to say! WHO ARE WE? HOW did we mess this up so terribly? We messed up. I chose an awful suit color for her to be buried in and I forgot to write a eulogy. I live with these thoughts. I live with the fact that my mom should have been in spring or summer colors when she was buried. I picked a BROWN suit for her. I live with the fact that I didn’t say a word about her at her funeral. Not one of her children got up and said ONE word in honor of her. Her sort of ex-husband who was married to her for 40 years did not get up and ramble and preach to the crowd like he usually does. We all just sat there. The room was packed with so many wonderful friends and family of hers and it was just silent. We screwed up. I had a couple pictures of her up, but that was it. I could have played her favorite music. I could have done so much. There just wasn’t enough mind space at the time to get it all done. For so many years I blamed my father for this, but it was my fault. I forgot to plan for my mother.

I will say this. A lot of people came to her funeral. I don’t think the funeral director knew what to expect for her, but she packed house! Hundreds of people in a huge room in Rolling Meadows, IL to come see Connie. The sweetest kindest woman, until you pissed her off. Then it was the silent treatment.

So much time has gone by since that day. The baby that was in my belly that day is about to have their 13th birthday. She missed meeting her 2nd grandchild, Zephyr, by 58 days.

Her 3rd grandchild, Lucy, was born 8 months later. And her 4th grandchild, Dylan, 2 years later. She would have been the most amazing grandmother… something of story books. Because that is the kind of mother she was.

This last August 29th I thought about her all day and every year when I remember that she was buried on her birthday, I hear her laughing and saying, “Isn’t that just weird, Val?

And I say, “ Yeah, mom. It’s weird… super weird. But I never forget your birthday and think about you every day…birthday or not.”

The after funeral dinner for my mom. Her brother George with his family and Connie's family.

Connie's back deck and yard.

Every night that Spiro was in town for the two weeks, we would gather in her backyard, make a fire, and tell stories of her and our childhood. She would have loved to have been there.