My brother just called. My Mom passed away about 1:20am Eastern time (less than an hour ago as I type this).

I called the hospital to talk to the nurse, who told me that it was peaceful. I thanked her and her colleagues for all of their help, both for Mom and us.

Even though I’ve been expecting this for days, it’s still a shock.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to figure out how I’m getting to Richmond; the funeral will be on Sunday.

There’s no new news from Richmond; the last time I spoke to my brother, he said that Mom was breathing about 4 times a minute, and the hospice nurse said it should be “soon”.

I’m glad my brother’s keeping me in the loop, even if I jump every time the phone rings. It was especially unnerving when I picked up the phone after working out this morning — the display said “1 new voicemail”, and I couldn’t bring myself to play it until I got home from the JCC. As it happened, the call was from the Rabbi, letting me know she’d be available this morning if I wanted to stop by the shul, but….

She lent me a couple of books: Anita Diamant’s Saying Kaddish and Anne Brener’s Mourning and Mitzvah. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I expect I’ll be doing so on the plane back to Richmond, whenever that is.

In the meantime, I came into the office this afternoon; we were having a departmental Tech Talk that I wanted to hear, and I decided I could wait here as easily as at home. But I think I’ll leave early. There’s a huge pile of mail at home (I’ve been travelling since the beginning of April), and I’m not really doing a lot for IBM at the moment.