Permanently? (and a Kimono)

When someone dies there are various stages of grief that one must attend to, there are also a number of bureaucratic and legal obstacles that one must surmount – and I know this from experience.

However this time, there were some things that I was just not prepared for.

My dearest and nearest whose mother is for ever dear but no longer near has started manifesting certain tendencies that I can only describe as alarming.

The following conversation should have alerted me – “imagine I had no brothers and I inherited a house like this, I suppose we would move back into it?”

The jump from I to we brought me out of the semi stupor I spend many evenings in, but when I looked around she was no longer there, having fluttered to some other task somewhere else in the house.

Our accommodation at the moment, and I am hoping this will continue for at least a while, is long and thin. It has ends, not a front and back. It also has bits called “the new room”, “the cat’s room” and, somewhat mysteriously “Carol’s Room’.

There is no one here called Carol – not even a cat – and the room is so named because a friend, Carol (!) slept there for 5 days about 18 years ago and there was a chance she might always return. She didn’t - one of her children is allergic to France or something.

I found Krissie in Carol’s room and I started to pick up the conversation – “When you say imagine…” but I was stopped in my tracks when I noticed she was wearing her mother’s (former) trousers and I decided to go off into the forest and sulk.

When I returned I noticed my mother-in-law’s dressing gown hanging alongside the bed!

It is a remarkably beautiful Japanese Kimono but frankly now I am getting scared.

Do daughters turn into their mums after the funeral?

Permanently?