Why I Was Crying At Home Depot
People die. Life goes on.
Hi, it’s me.
This weekend is Mother’s Day, and it also marks four years since my mom died. I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones, because I had a great relationship with my mom (once I grew up and stopped acting like a brat!). I loved making her laugh. When I used to write a blog in the 2000s, she would read it and leave long comments signed MOM in all caps at the end. I miss her long, rambling voicemails that would get cut off because they were so long.
You may have read this story before–I published a version of it last year around this time. It’s heavily edited to be shorter now, because who has time for 1,600 word essays anymore?!
My mom died after a long, 10-ish year decline from dementia and stroke complications that rendered her immobile and unable to communicate. She wasn’t herself, and I missed her for a long time before she actually died.
So long, in fact, that I was surprised by how hard I took it when she did die.
I sort of had in my head that I’d gotten the sad out of my system and would be mostly focused on the logistics of death. Ever the pragmatist, I sent a note to my coworkers saying I’d be out for a couple days but back on Wednesday. I know, right? I can feel your collective “Duh” as you read this, but I had a mental task list for dealing with her death, and that list did not include being sad. That box was already checked, the task crossed off. I mean, what even is the point of a long, slow goodbye if not to get it all out of my system ahead of time?!
The first day my mom was dead, our general contractor arrived to demolish our bathroom. This was not a fun bathroom renovation where I would get the deep soaking tub I wanted. Nope. We had mold, and we were in the middle of refinancing, and the Money People wanted our bathroom fixed before closing the deal. Because the bathroom demo was too loud, I made phone calls and sent emails while sitting outside in a cheap plastic Adirondack chair under my birch tree on a beautiful spring morning.
The house finches and nuthatches and black capped chickadees chirped while I wrote an obituary.
The second day my mom was dead, I went to Home Depot to pick out shower tile with Bryan and the kids, who were both teenagers at the time. I have no idea why the kids came with us—they certainly didn’t have to. Sometimes during COVID we did weird things together just to get out of the house.
Anyway, with the bathroom now completely destroyed, picking tile was supposed to be the fun part of a remodel—at least that’s how it is on HGTV and how I always dreamed it would be. But I hated all the shower tile at Home Depot. I was mad and this was not a fun remodel—it was forced and rushed. The timing was obviously inconvenient. I couldn’t even get a deep soaking tub for all the effort, because re-plumbing would require permits which would add cost and time, and we didn’t have any of that to spare.
Overwhelmed and indecisive, I sat down on the floor in the tile aisle of the Bitter Lake Home Depot and started crying because The Universe would not deliver my dream bathroom—a grief I could access with more clarity and anger than imagining my all-caps MOM was gone forever.
Ruthie scuttled away, embarrassed. Thomas picked me up and gently called my attention to the tile options he liked. Bryan was sweating at the forehead, coping in his own way with the stress of grief, a hysterical wife, and surprise design decisions. The experience probably ruined Home Depot for my kids and their kids for generations to come. There will never be another Zug who steps foot inside a Home Depot because that is where adults go to fall apart.
I fucking hate how life goes on when people die.
Why is the Earth still spinning and the tide still ebbing and the shower still leaking? Why are you standing in front of me with questions about grout color? I don’t want to be here! I want to cry in my pajamas while watching The Bourne Identity in a dark room, and I 100% do not want to be an adult about it!
The third day my mom was dead, after my Breakdown At Home Depot, I gave up trying to power through. I took the week off of work, put my hands in the garden, and wrote an obituary.
And I did it all without a working bathroom.
Thanks for reading—you get five hearts for making it to the end! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Until next time,
Jen
What’s Happening In My Garden This Week
In my beds I see carrots and beets sprouting, lettuce and onions growing, and garlic getting taller in the back. I also started another wave of carrots, beets, and lettuce seeds that will mature just as the first wave is harvested.
❤️ I love the photos. She looked at you the same loving way regardless of what age you were.
Love this story. Laughter and tears. Thank you for sharing it again. From, A MOM 🌷