Death Socks

The Death Socks are a pair again. It always makes me happy when I have both. I've lost one often, in the eight years since she died, and sometimes the lost one stays lost for a great stretch of time.

I've even turned that lonely remaining sock into a sachet, filling it half full of potpourri, tying it off with a knot and placing it in my lingerie drawer. At such times I admonish myself for my unhappiness at having lost its mate. I have lots of her stuff, I remind myself. Jewellery and china. I even have her mink. It's silly to mourn the loss of a sock.

But they were her favourites. She wore them to the end, I think. But that would mean I took them off her feet after she died. I don't think that's what happened but I might be wrong.

She died at home, with dignity, surrounded by loved ones. We read that a lot, at least the part about dignity and loved ones. I wonder how often it's really true. In this case, it's really true.


I was her primary care giver in an anticipated death at home. She was my mom. We were symbiotic. When she was sad I was sad and when she cried I cried. She cried a couple of times. When she was brave I was brave, and she was usually brave. When she forgot she was dying and laughed, I forgot and laughed, too. And when she remembered, I remembered.

She ate as long as she could hold a spoon. I said, "Mom, tell me what you want and if I can do it, I will."

"I want you to make your vichyssoise," she said, so I did. Her last few meals were home made vichyssoise. I was true to my word.

Thanksgiving Dinner, her final scheduled appearance, was a triumph. She had seconds! That night, I cupped her elbow from time to time, to help the slow motion progress of her fork to her mouth. But I never fed her.

This anticipated death at home was one of the few times in my life when I knew I was doing the right thing. I knew it was a good thing to do. That absolute knowledge was powerful.

We were a team, she and I. She said "I love you," to me a thousand times. I have siblings who hoped for one such expression from her, and hoped in vain. I was the lucky one.

She died on a Sunday. The funeral was Wednesday. I flew back to Toronto on Thursday and on Friday I started packing up the family home. I'd signed the sale of our house by fax. My husband and I were separating and I only had a month to organize the move.

People think I endured two terrible events back to back, but that's not the case. The death was a beautiful thing. We were successful. She showed me her strength and her weakness. She asked me to take care of her and I said I would. And then I did.

The murder of the marriage and the ugliness that went along with it, that's the tragedy.

The first loss of a Death Sock occurred shortly after I'd returned home. My best friend, Ted, had some of my art and I had some of his and I'd decided we should trade back before the move. It'd been raining so I was wet as well as miserable when I arrived. Looking back, I think the scope of my problems overwhelmed him. Anyway, for whatever reason, he bailed on our friendship.

My socks were still soaked when I left. I cried all the way home, not as viscerally as I had when my Dad pronounced my Mother dead, but close. When I realized I only had one sock on, I cried harder. I wanted both socks. I didn't really want the mink coat but I wanted those socks. I was sure I'd left one at Ted's place, a place I knew I'd never visit again.

But apparently not. The second sock surfaced and joined the first. Since then one has gone missing, often. I don't worry about it any more. When Felix and I moved, I paired them up again. Two Death Socks in a drawer.

They are short, cotton socks, white with a blue pattern. Similar to the ones in this picture.



I'm happy when I wear them and I do wear them (unlike the mink.)

I'm wearing them now, remembering her and me and us. I remember resting beside her dead body. I'd been sleeping with her for a few weeks and the fact that she was dead didn't deter me from curling up beside her and fiercely promising her still warm corpse, "I will never let a man crush me, again."

I was happy, curled up beside her. We'd accomplished what we'd set out to do. The cancer was her tragedy, but her exit from this world was our triumph.