Remembering Rochelle

The Colemans, about 1975

My mother-in-law, Rochelle Helen Coleman, died on October 13, 2020, age 81, at her home in Stanmore, England, during the covid pandemic. Her death was both expected and shocking. Parkinson's Disease had been diminishing her for years and by the end her life was not her life anymore but existence circumscribed by pain and immobility. We learned over the summer that she had only weeks or months left. So we knew, and yet not. Not the finality of it. 

Distance and virus compounded sadness. We live in Toronto; Simon's sister in Olympia, Washington. They both knew they had to get to London, and they did. They had to quarantine, and they did. They wanted desperately to see their mother one last time, to say goodbye--and they did. She, it seemed, wanted to see them, too, before letting go, and she did. Rochelle died less than twenty-four hours after Simon reached her. 

The rest of us, the in-laws, the grandchildren, the further scattered family, mourned with her husband and children via screens and devices. We never imagined it would be like this, an enforced far-apart sharing of grief. One of the advantages of Toronto when we decided to move here from Brighton was, for me, its near-equidistance from California and England. Five or six (okay, sometimes seven) easy hours on a plane and voilà--home. Now the 'voilà' has vanished. 

I remember meeting my future mother-in-law for the first time, almost a quarter of a century ago, when Simon and I drove to London from Durham, where we both lived, for a research  project. I felt awkward and uneasy in his parents' house. Loitering in a corner, I witnessed a sweet moment of warmth and tenderness between mother and son: they stood side by side, he looking down at her and holding her hand, she stroking his long slender wrist. I fell even more in love with my future husband. 

By the magic of remote communications technology I was able to share that memory with the mourners gathered at Rochelle's funeral. The rules in the UK allowed only ten people to attend in person, so the rest of us, whether in England or abroad, participated by Zoom. We were grateful for it. Even mediated by a screen the occasion was moving and meaningful and brought us together. It was still not the same as being there, though. I could not stand beside my husband holding his hand while he said a last farewell to his mother.

Eli created a website for his grandmother: 

Rochelle Helen Coleman