On a problem of teeth
Dec. 16th, 2014 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdI have my mother's dentures in my crochet bag.
This is morbid, sad and oddly hilarious all at once. It's also apparently a family tradition now.
My grandmother died in a car accident. Mom retrieved her broken bottom plate from the seat of the car. I don't know how long she carried Grandma's teeth around.
My mother died at 4:05 AM Dec 15, 2014.
And I have her dentures in my handbag.
They can't stay in her mouth for the cremation, and thus have become one more of a million things I must sort through and find homes for. Some things--a couch, a painting, the sewing machine--are spoken for. But my mother's afghans have afghans to keep them warm, and there are endless craft book, and clothes that will fit no one.
What does one do with false teeth of the dead (and does that sound like a low grade horror film?)? Can they be donated, given so others might chew? They're often buried but, Mom is being cremated, so we don't need a big lump of charred plastic in the ashes. It feels disrespectful to throw them away.
Gallows humor. It's a coping mechanism.
I'm home in Memphis right now. I need to do some errands, wash some laundry, clean house and finish holiday preparations. My grove will have to celebrate Yule without their crone, for I've been called to death duties.
There's a choir concert tonight, and my youngest has a dr appt on Thursday, and I need to see the dr about the worker's comp case and oldest son goes back to the base on Friday. And this is all on top of the death stuff.
I'm going to have breakfast and get dressed.
Then I'm going to the banks.
And then I will do some more coping.
But I still have her teeth in my bag.
This is morbid, sad and oddly hilarious all at once. It's also apparently a family tradition now.
My grandmother died in a car accident. Mom retrieved her broken bottom plate from the seat of the car. I don't know how long she carried Grandma's teeth around.
My mother died at 4:05 AM Dec 15, 2014.
And I have her dentures in my handbag.
They can't stay in her mouth for the cremation, and thus have become one more of a million things I must sort through and find homes for. Some things--a couch, a painting, the sewing machine--are spoken for. But my mother's afghans have afghans to keep them warm, and there are endless craft book, and clothes that will fit no one.
What does one do with false teeth of the dead (and does that sound like a low grade horror film?)? Can they be donated, given so others might chew? They're often buried but, Mom is being cremated, so we don't need a big lump of charred plastic in the ashes. It feels disrespectful to throw them away.
Gallows humor. It's a coping mechanism.
I'm home in Memphis right now. I need to do some errands, wash some laundry, clean house and finish holiday preparations. My grove will have to celebrate Yule without their crone, for I've been called to death duties.
There's a choir concert tonight, and my youngest has a dr appt on Thursday, and I need to see the dr about the worker's comp case and oldest son goes back to the base on Friday. And this is all on top of the death stuff.
I'm going to have breakfast and get dressed.
Then I'm going to the banks.
And then I will do some more coping.
But I still have her teeth in my bag.
