Friday, May 7, 2004

The husband of one of my wife's co-workers died a few days ago. He had some food poisoning, they thought, and went to the doctor a week or so before that. He got to feeling bad enough to back to the doctor again and just died.

They aren't young people. She's maybe sixty or sixty-five. He was a scruffy-looking little guy with extensive experience with plants and gardening who used to work at the fish hatchery. They have an overgrown herb garden on acreage out near Hempstead that they were trying to build up to supplement retirement someday. They agreed sight-unseen to take some of the dirt from the pile in our back yard that was left over from a construction project on the house. It was good dirt. When we delivered the first load, we met a feeble old lady there, one of their customers, and they later gave us a sack of pears from the heap the woman had brought them that day out of trees in her yard. They were like the ones that came from one of my grandmother's trees long ago, not the uniform grocery store fruit of orchards but the tasty, misshapen pears of a grandmother's yard trees.

Funeral's this afternoon.

My wife couldn't get an answer at the florist yesterday, so I called. Local florist knew about the funeral, but wasn't taking any more orders. They were already doing some for the funeral, and with the prom, Mother's day and Teacher Appreciation day and...

I called a florist in the next little town down the road and ordered a spray and said to put the Department where she worked on the card. Unlike most small-town florists, she didn't brag about how it would look. I asked if it would have some yellow roses. She said they'd note my preference. Apparently, the flower business has become a seller's market since I last looked.

I didn't tell her that Mother liked yellow roses or that I hate those funky, ornamental, new-flavor-of-icee colors some arrangements show up with these days.

Unexpectedly, I almost choked down while trying to give her my credit card number. I hardly knew the old man. Isn't it funny how every funeral you go to becomes every funeral you've ever attended?

I was thinking about what tie to wear and came in the thought process to the same tie I usually wear. My funeral outfit. Something so familiar as to become habit is never quite familiar at all. Maybe it's that way with the things I've found pleasurable as well as those I dread every time. I'll have to think on that at the ceremony, so the family doesn't maybe have to wonder why the stranger at the back is bawling and think I've lost control of my.....objectivity.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), May 17, 2004

Answers

(((J))) the older I get the more emotional I seem to get, seems like maybe you do, too.

I used to hold in all emotional, now, I couldn;t if I wanted to. And the beat goes on.....

-- SAR01 (busy@pc.com), May 18, 2004.

Hi J. I took my Mum to the flower nursery today and she just happened to say "I love yellow roses" and it made me think of you.

You've captured just the way it feels with "every funeral you go to becomes every funeral you've ever attended?"

And you're right about the bouquets these days, some seem terribly gaudy to me too, but I think we are in the minority.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), May 19, 2004.

But, isn't it also the "comforting routine" (of joyous celebrations and happy ceremonies, of weddings and birthdays, and also of sadness (as the "rotine" of rosaries, burials, and wakes afterword) that help us get through the troubled spots?

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), May 20, 2004.

Maybe for some people, but I have a hard time relating to things that way. I'm not too taken with joyous celebrations and happy ceremonies. Not a very "demonstrative" person, I guess. Only a couple of the many weddings I've attended have been happy occations and children nowadays are ceremony-hardened through overexposure. Routines make things familiar, but that's hard to equate with comfort. Routine may lend itself to channeling thoughts elsewhere or keeping the hands busy, but biggies like losing a job or a dream or the death of a loved one are abruptly intrusive, and I don't deal with them, they deal with me. I'm reminded of an old Emily Dickinson verse (I don't recall the number):

The Bustle in a House/The Morning after Death/Is solemnest of industries/Enacted upon Earth --

The Sweeping up the Heart/And putting Love away/We shall not want to use again/Until Eternity.

Real comfort can come from the Comforter. Jesus said to the desciples, as I recall, when he left them that he would send them the comforter (another one like unto the first, a "paraclete," one who walks beside). Christendom calls this the Holy Spirit that indwells believers, one to assist in spiritual progress toward healing. Tangible friends, if one's fortunate enough to have them, can also help, usually in the same way--just by being there, by knowing. I'm not personally familiar with any restorative powers of rosaries or wakes, but maybe such things can distract people for a short time.

Aside from faith which gives hope for the future without necessarily intruding on the pain of the present, TIME is the essential healing element. Sometimes it takes awhile. Sometimes it takes a long while, as Miss Dickenson alluded. Eventually, we may turn a corner that allows us to think about the good times without immediately being taken by loneliness.

In all of life's little routines, each comforting in its own way in the struggle for order in a chaotic world, I never had one that could make a dent in mourning. In other areas, maybe--for instance, going to work is comforting in that it reaffirms that you still have a job, something still requires your services. That evaporates after you are canned by a long-time employer. I doubt that there's much comfort in the routine of walking in the door of an empty house, no matter how celebratory the wake.

After going to the graveside, I asked my wife how much time the widow was allowed. "Through Wednesday." Three more workdays.

Another, younger, co-worker who lost a spouse several months ago was looking better last week. My wife said she'd been prescribed something for depression. It was helping noticeably.

Several spouses among the staff have died recently. I suggested that my wife look into a transfer.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), May 21, 2004.

I hope this thread doesn't become depressing, but maybe it's a good place to put some of our things that seem to fit. This is one of mine about the first Christmas after someone has died. I hesitate to put it forward around the actual holidays lest it perhaps make the season harder for someone. It is intended to be disjointed, with severed objectives like the jerky, painful catch-breath speech at the top of lung capacity by people not used to crying who can't hold it in any longer. But don't try it that way out loud. With a short breath per line the effect is proper, but hyperventilation comes into play. It's interesting to me that sometimes we manage to hang onto the doorsill of denial with one hand, even in the throes of dealing with obvious painful realities.

Before Christmas After

Death and reunion/Pace white tile/Accompanied by/Low strains of/Organ music with/Medications to/Mend/The sour notes./Like a B/Movie with/Blood and/Guts and/People moving in/Stilted awkwardness/Unfamiliar with/The stage./Rookies,/Except doctors whose/Lines are down through/Long practice of/Professionals or/Veterans.

Settings/Garishly lit or/Dimmed unsubtly without/Proper timing./Ratings gained through/Abrupt/Emotions of/Strangers who/Don't know it/Can be held at/Bay by saying if/You don't admit it's/Reality,/We can all/Go home after/The show/And be together at/Christmas./Christmas past and/Christmas future./The presents are in/The trunk.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), May 22, 2004.

J., for me that "doorsill of denial" slips right out of grasp at the moment I reach the doors of the funeral chapel. It's like a huge kick in the guts (pardon my Australian) and the last time I had to go there I wouldn't have made it through the doors if I hadn't had a tight grasp on my hubby's arm. I was brought up not to cry in public, which seems to make the whole experience so much worse. Your writing captures the feeling very well.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), May 24, 2004.

Having grown up in a nominally Italian household, raised catholic and with a LOT of Irish friends, I kind of thought that we Italians and fer SURe the Irish knew how to honor and celebrate the separation from this world to go to the next.

I have recently had the "pleasure" of assisting a friend of the family in sitting shiva for her husband who died, not exactly unexpect4edly but certainly from unexpected CAUSES. (guy had died 8 or 10 times, 5 or 6 from the "standard" causes in that his brain had been damaged by a fall and he no longer had a breathing reflex if he went to sleep or otherwise lost consciousness, the other 3 from at least one fall and at least one lightning strike.....)

Having done the 3+ days of "mourning" which were REALLY a celebration of Sam I can say that the Jewish folk have gotten the celebration of the transition RIGHT.....

I mean this guy was jus tdo, so, unbelievably SAM. His history included car thief, and he had become a rabinical Aide at his temple. his rec chem stories were LEGION and uniformly HILARIOUS (including the one his rabbi tells about knowing whether or not Sam had indulged prior to coming to study...if he had NOT, Sam had all of the stories of the Old testament down EXACTLY (except, well, he had the wrong PEOPLE ATTACHED to them...used to drive the Rabbi hilariously nutz) but if he HAD properly prepared he could not only quote them correctly (and witht he correct characters) he could crossreference the stories and their similar lessons all across the whole Old testament....

And I wouldn't have heard that if it weren't for the custom of sitting shiva..... So I learned a LOT about a man I respected for being one of the true GOOD men....

But the 3+ days DID help the family, from what I could see happening....so perhaps a longer celebration is more appropriate than a short couple quick condolence visitations and the funeral then a dinner...

night train

-- night-train (Night.tr@in.lane), May 24, 2004.

Flowers, funerals, weddings, graduations and family reunions. These are the celebrations of living, a time to count the pearls on Time's string and to remember each shining one. It seems there are never enough with those we love.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), June 02, 2004.

Train--Yeah, such a tradition of mourning probably helps. 1) it may actually force one out of denial or distraction into mourning 2) it sets aside time, an essential healing element 3) it leads to speaking of the dead, always good ice to break 4) it includes more than one person, sharing as well as helping alleviate the burden of loneliness 5) it allows time to actually think to say what you couldn't in the short time sometimes allowed at funeral services 6) it gives you time and contact to notice what the widow/family might really need 7)it makes us think on our own mortality and eternal destination. I'm sure I've missed a few that'll occur to me later.

Carol--speaking of flowers, at one of my grandfathers' funerals, I could hardly stand it. He was an old rancher, and I was struck too late that I should have had some kind of a bouquet of native grasses and small flowers from that dusty land for the ceremony. He was so close to the earth all his life. He'd probably have enjoyed the idea of letting the yearlings in to graze on his grave.

T the C--we need to enjoying each other's company more, don't we. That, of course, involves making the time, picking up the telephone, buying the little gift, all those things that run past us so quickly. An old preacher once said something about life being "so daily." Sometimes things are clear only in past tense. My mother was in ill health most of her adult life and wrote me one of those "after I'm dead" letters a few years before she died. She mentioned in it that there was always unfinished business, that she had "more than one lifetime of things to do." How true. She was just the one to get a lot of it done, too. She probably finished at least a lifetime and a half!

Here's something I wrote a few years ago when concerned that my own trip might be shortened:

Think of me when you see a patch of bluebonnets that remind you of the hills before the developers found us all, waiting and beautiful blue and white like collected memories of a favorite's eyes, individual but each yet disguised in silent soft thunderous mass.

Think of me in my youth when the uncaught fish was huge and inexperience to land him no burden because there were so many more seasons to make the team, throw them out at the plate, seek his heavy- beamed offspring in the woods, find tongue to speak your heart.

Think of me when you find polished pink grantite handsome, even if it properly fits no imaginable decor, when the yellow prickly pear flower graces the pale green and thorny indifference.

Think of me every time you figure maybe next time and there might yet be another, and don't be sad. As the season fades the bonnet and the hills recline, so do we in life decline, faster than some, more slowly than others until, if we be lucky enough to retain the pictures of what was in clarity, it prove good for one more glance before parting.

Think of me and move on. Finish the task before it's too late. Tomorrow still awaits with its promise intact, but remember that, even now, every precious time passes.

My son taught his son to sing "Danny Boy" in the sweet, unpolished, memorized strains puzzling to me but somehow apropos, though the Irish only calls from a great-grandfather's forgotten grave these days. Maybe translations are true on a six-year-old tongue, and maybe if I go before he's of age to know the meaning of bide, you'll ask him to sing it under that flapping shade and you'll think of me.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), June 02, 2004.