Tag: obituary

Writing an obituary is often a negotiated exercise when more than one person has to be satisfied with it. The one below I started writing. The mechanical stuff – who she’s survived by, e.g., – is easy, but I was having trouble with the middle section. So one sister wrote a bunch of stuff for that, then the other sister and I had to trim that down, not just for length (and thus cost), but because it was a bit disjointed. This is the Thursday night draft version, not yet approved by the first sister, but it’s close enough for the blog.

Incidentally, the website of the Charlotte Observer has annoying instructions for submitting an obit. It tells you to either call or e-mail for more information.

Interesting/strange thing about the photo to the left: my mom cut the neutral background out of the picture about two weeks before she died, and no one knows why, possibly not even her. It’s not as though there was someone else in the shot.

I suppose it is quite obvious, though probably inappropriate for me to say, that my mom was a real babe when she was younger.

CHARLOTTE – Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, 83, of Charlotte, NC, passed away on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 in Charlotte, NC. Born in Binghamton, NY, she was the daughter of the late Clarence and Gertrude (Yates) Williams, and the widow of Leslie H. (Les) Green, who died in 2000. She was a member of C. N. Jenkins Presbyterian Church, having served as a Deacon for multiple terms and on various other church boards and committees.

Trudy graduated from Binghamton Central High School, and worked at a number of jobs dealing with finances, including at McLean’s department store, and Columbia Gas & Electric in Binghamton, and as a teller at First Union Bank, from which she retired. She also participated in several family-owned business ventures, including President’s Club and Avon.

She was a loving and supportive wife, mother, grandmother, and surrogate parent, who found joy in helping her family, her church, her community and others. She was a God-loving, long time member of Circle #3 group, where she was the Treasurer, Presbyterian Women, and various Bible studies.

Trudy was a very social person, caring and honest, with a beautiful smile. She loved cookbooks, calendars, clocks, boxes, and bags, and in later years, developed a love for word puzzles. She used to participate in bowling leagues and Bingo.

She is survived by her son, Roger Green (Carol) of Albany, NY; two daughters, Leslie Green of Lemon Grove, CA and Marcia Green of Charlotte, NC; three granddaughters, Rebecca (Rico) Curtis of San Diego, CA; Alexandria Green-House of Charlotte, NC; and Lydia Green of Albany, NY; and several cousins.

Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, February 8 at 2 pm at C.N. Jenkins Presbyterian Church, 1421 Statesville Ave, Charlotte, NC 28206. The family will receive friends at the church from 1 to 1:45 p.m.

Contributions in her memory may be made in lieu of flowers to University Adult Day Care, 1324 John Kirk Road, Charlotte, NC 28262, (704)510-0030.

The third pic shows my parents – damn, I’m an orphan – at my graduation from library school in 1992. The fourth is at my mother’s 80th birthday party in 2007.

Arthur of AmeriNZ, the guy from Auckland via Chicago who I’ve certainly mentioned in this blog, wrote a blog post about my mom and me. Best pair of sentences: “The largely artificial Internet life is all too often detached from real life, and we lose sight of the real-life humans we’re interacting with. Yet the Internet can also deliver connections we’d never have had otherwise.”

Amen.

Well, if you read the latter comments to yesterday’s post, you know that my mom, Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, died yesterday morning. She was 83, had suffered a massive stroke (9 cm, as opposed to the usual 2 to 3 cm) on Friday. And still I was surprised, and yet not.

Mom with Lydia

I’ll probably undoubtedly write more on this event over time, but I do want to make a couple of observations.

Thanks for the outpouring of kind words and thoughts and prayers that I have received.

Before each of my parents died, they each had a stroke, though my father’s was less severe. I was the last of the three Green children to arrive in Charlotte, and shortly after each of them saw me, they died. It was as though they were waiting on my arrival so that they could let go. there’s more than a little ambivalence in that.

I think this is interesting.  When my father died on August 10, 2000, my sisters were by his side. Marcia had stayed over the night before and Leslie had come to relieve her when he was getting ready to pass. My mother and I were stuck at the house until I found a neighbor to give us a ride, too late.

I had stayed in my mother’s room Monday night, and Tuesday morning, I was amazed how quickly she died, at 8:50 a.m. I called my sisters but she had already passed by that point.

We’re meeting with the mortician this morning, but
the funeral will probably be on Tuesday, to accommodate her out-of-town relatives, and the burial on Wednesday, next to my father, at the veteran’s cemetery 40 miles from here.
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I’ll probably continue to blog about what I had planned for a few days. Tomorrow, the actual train ride down.