Memorial to Maria

 

My Dedication at the Memorial for my daughter-in-law, Maria Bittner, who died an untimely death on January 31, 2022, at the age of 54. She had a huge funeral with a packed sanctuary and a lovely talk by my son about how much he loved her. The following is my personal memorial to Maria that the minister read at the funeral. Rest in Peace, Maria. I will miss you forever. Rosanne

Throughout our lifetimes we all end up attending funerals. The cycle of life makes it impossible not to. But most of us expect the funeral to be for an old person, whether our own relative or someone else’s.

Expected. We manage our way through those expected ones. Much as we love and will miss that person, we are relatively prepared for his or her death.

Then comes the unexpected, and it hits like a blow from a baseball bat. There is always the “why?” of it. Here I am 78 years old and Maria was only 54. Why her? I was blessed to live through my own sons turning into men, my grandsons turning into men, and now I have been ultra-blessed to be here for my great-grandson. I might get to see him grow into a young man, too, but that is up to God. The fact remains that Maria won’t get to see her grandson or her step-grandchildren become adults. She won’t get to enjoy their children. 

   I have decided on the “why?” of it. She was one of the most loving women I have known, and perhaps my son and my grandsons will remember her patience and her unselfish caring for them and their little ones. Perhaps her memory will help them be good fathers and grandfathers, and will help the women who knew her be better mothers and grandmothers. Perhaps Maria was sent into my son and grandsons’ lives simply to help them through the tough years of learning to live in a blended family and to leave a glow in their lives … the glow of warmth and love that will always be with them, not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

  If we believe that Jesus Christ is always among us, and that angels are always among us, then we have to believe that the spirits of certain special people are also among us. After all, death is only in the flesh. I can name a few of my own loved ones who have passed on who I am sure are always with me. Some people just plain can’t help leaving a “forever” memory that doesn’t fade with time. Maria is one of those. We were as different as the sun and the moon. Other than when I would go to a gathering of friends at her and Brock’s home, we never did anything together socially because I was the extrovert and Maria was the stay-at-home introvert. I could give you a long list of our personality differences, but that doesn’t matter. I just loved that woman, and she loved me. Although she was step-mom to my grandsons rather than mom, she loved them just like her own. She had total love, honor and respect for her husband’s family, and there was nothing fake about it. You could sense it, feel it. You knew it was real.

 Brock told me Maria often said she didn’t really want to live long enough to have to go to our funerals. What a thing to say. And she did tell me once that she did not believe she would live to be an old woman. I don’t know why she felt that way, but she seemed to sense that was exactly how it would be. The morning of the day she died I took her some things she needed and felt bad that she wouldn’t be able to go to the belated family Christmas that was to take place later. As bad as she felt, she made me take the gifts she had for the baby, and for my husband before I left. She was thinking about them. I figured Brock would take her to the hospital and she would get better and next year we would have a normal Christmas.

       But when I walked out the door, something struck me, and I will never forget it. A little voice told me I might not see her again. I feel so guilty for leaving, but don’t we all think it’s not possible that a healthy 54-year-old woman would die just a few hours later? I told myself that, and I left, glad that Brock was going to take her to the hospital. We would all celebrate and eat the ham I had in the oven and then Brock would take some home for Maria.

       We can all look back and think, “I should have done this, or that.” But God will have His way, and no matter what our decisions, His will always rules. So I tell myself not to feel guilty, because Maria Bittner died exactly like she wanted to die, a happy, happy woman who loved much and lived a giving, unselfish life, and without a jealous bone in her body. She loved sunsets, and once told Brock that enjoying a campfire and watching the sunset with him was like heaven.

She is there now, and she died before she had to bear the death of other loved ones. Some of us have the strength for that, and some of us don’t. Maria would rather watch over us from a better place, where she is perfectly happy to wait for us to come to her. I will be so glad to see her again, and until then, I will miss her as much as any other special loved one who has gone before me. She was not my daughter-in-law. She was my daughter.

 

 

THE REALITY OF WRITING REALITY

        Strange title, I know, but as a writer, we sometimes get the reality of our stories mixed up with the reality of life. One of the most common comments I get from readers is, “Your story was so real.” “Your characters are so real. Did they really exist?” “I could feel your characters’ pain.” “I laughed and I cried right along with your characters.”

        That’s all good to hear, because it means I am doing something right. Even I get so wrapped up in my characters that I laugh and cry with them. Writing about how much they love each other, and how devastating it would be for a certain character to lose the one he or she loves, brings out my own genuine tears. There I sit, bawling over someone who never actually existed, but in my mind, they are so real. I even cry when I know this is the last book I will write about a certain character.

        Recently, the reality of the pain of loss through death hit hard when my own daughter-in-law suddenly died … out of a clear, blue sky. I had seen and talked to her that morning, and by 3:00 pm, she was gone. 54 years old. No sickness. No warning. No reason to worry about something that dramatic. She simply bled to death without realizing it. She was going through menopause, and every 3 months or so she would have very heavy bleeding. This one was worse than usual, and she became very short of breath. My son was helping get her ready to go to the hospital when she died in his arms. Loss of blood had put too much strain on her heart and organs.

        Maria was a wonderful mother, wife, daughter and grandmother – a beautiful spirit. She loved her grandbabies so much. One was her own, and two were step-grandbabies, but you would never know any difference. I am so sad that my great-grandson, Bannon, is still so young that he won’t remember her.

        I was deliberating having a certain person die in my latest work in progress (no worries, dear readers – it’s not who you think). Now, if I write it, it will be far more real for me than I thought. I’m not sure I can write it at all now. I might have to change my story.

        My point is, when I write such reality, it takes a toll on me emotionally. I cry over every character who dies, even the minor ones (except the “bad guys,” of course). I also cry over leaving certain characters behind and moving on. Sometimes characters come into my stories who become so important that they start to take over the story. I have to write them out of the story or play them down more because I don’t want to take away from the major characters. I “save” such characters for their own stories.

        When you write emotions, I think it helps to have been through a lot yourself. That’s where the reality comes from. I’ve been through a lot of loss, an older sister who I wish so much I had been closer to, a super father, a mother I never quite understood, a grandmother who was my whole world, an aunt who was simply a loving, memorable person who treated me like her own, a son on drugs who has destroyed his life and is just now realizing it, all the goods and bads of marriage, all those stages of life that teach you lessons – all the stupid decisions one makes in life, and all the good ones. I know the love of being a friend, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, now a great-grandmother. Memories are wonderful, but they can also hurt when you realize all the things you should have done differently and now will never get the chance. I should have spent more time with Maria. We were as different as night and day as far as personalities, but we always got along because she was so giving and unselfish. She took care of me after my hip surgery, and she had a bookshelf right by her front door that had every one of my books in it. She kept it on display. No other relative has done that.

             The reality I try to bring out in my stories has become too real. I can understand my son’s sorrow, and when I write similar reality, I will understand the sorrow of that kind of death.

        I don’t mean to make this a morbid blog. I just want to use it to celebrate life and remind my readers and other writers how precious that life is. I can’t get over thinking how it should have been me. I am 78 and I have had my turn at being a grandmother and even now a great-grandmother. But we can’t argue the choices God makes. Maria is in a much better place now, and she is definitely with all of us in spirit. Sounds strange, but I often feel the characters in my books really lived and are also with me. But then we writers are strange characters ourselves.