Things happen in threes. It's a fact of nature. There's no denying it. Death is the most conspicuous for occurring in threes. Whenever a celebrity dies right after another celebrity, everyone asks who'll be next?
In a span of a few days, there were three deaths in my life. One I had never met but everyone knew. One I had seen in person and quite a lot of people knew. One I had really known but not very many people knew.
Chronologically, the first to go was the pop star who EMT's found unresponsive in her hotel bathroom and pronounced her dead at the scene. Next was the EMT who died in the line of duty responding to a car fire. He fell from the interstate bridge to a creek twenty or thirty feet below. The last was my sister-in-law's gentleman friend who EMT's tried to revive on his bedroom floor even though he was gone before they arrived.
Practically everyone knows the details of the pop star's death and funeral. She was eulogized by a movie star better than most clergy could ever preach. The brotherhood that is the fire department in American and parts of Canada as well as citizens in my city know about the EMT's death and the bagpipers who laid him to rest. Few know about J's death and the tornado warnings in my home state during his funeral.
Few know that my sister-in-law stopped by her house to pick up something during work and caught J on the bed. She chided him for napping during the day before realizing that he wasn't asleep. I can't imagine the hysteria she felt. He brought so much love and happiness to her life. My mother-in-law even liked him.
Come Monday, people will gather at the water cooler and dissect whether red sashes on black robes will become the new standard in Black churches. Some people will announce that they want a wake at an Irish bar following their funerals. A few of us will note that a good man, who didn't inspire as much outpouring of grief or support as some people, will be missing from our holiday table this year.
[Title taken from this.]
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
6.1.12
No Words
Two constants in life are death and taxes. As any semi-regular reader of my blogs knows, death has struck many times over the years, everyone from my father to my priest's wife. But when death strikes and you can't comfort the grieved, you're at a loss.
Wednesday at work, the flu infected me to a degree that even my co-workers could see the progression over a few short hours. One scurried around the office with Clorox wipes disinfecting every surface I had touched during the day. Another insisted that I go home. NOW!
It was upon checking my cellphone for urgent office email on Thursday morning that my friend's email stunned me. Her niece committed suicide on Wednesday night. The girl shot herself. Her father found her.
The time stamp on my friend's email was 2:34 a.m. She had wanted to come over for a shoulder of support. The problem is that she is also the primary caretaker of her elderly parents who suffer from dementia (her dad) and a gaging reflex that requires a feeding tube for nutrition (her dad) to pneumonia (her mom) because of a stroke (her mom). The last thing she needed was to take my flu germs back to her parents just when both of them were out of the hospital.
So she wrote a lengthy email containing her pain and anguish and despair. And I was at a loss for words.
Of the two teenage suicides from my circle of friends, they were both gunshots. There are some sights that can't be unseen. Death, especially a tragic, traumatic, bloody death, is one of them. One that no father should ever have to see.
Wednesday at work, the flu infected me to a degree that even my co-workers could see the progression over a few short hours. One scurried around the office with Clorox wipes disinfecting every surface I had touched during the day. Another insisted that I go home. NOW!
It was upon checking my cellphone for urgent office email on Thursday morning that my friend's email stunned me. Her niece committed suicide on Wednesday night. The girl shot herself. Her father found her.
The time stamp on my friend's email was 2:34 a.m. She had wanted to come over for a shoulder of support. The problem is that she is also the primary caretaker of her elderly parents who suffer from dementia (her dad) and a gaging reflex that requires a feeding tube for nutrition (her dad) to pneumonia (her mom) because of a stroke (her mom). The last thing she needed was to take my flu germs back to her parents just when both of them were out of the hospital.
So she wrote a lengthy email containing her pain and anguish and despair. And I was at a loss for words.
Of the two teenage suicides from my circle of friends, they were both gunshots. There are some sights that can't be unseen. Death, especially a tragic, traumatic, bloody death, is one of them. One that no father should ever have to see.
9.9.11
Fear Not!
Everyone else is doing it. Might as well jump on the bandwagon. Remembrances of, thoughts about, lives changed by 9/11.
To begin, a friend and former co-worker was in a meeting at the Pentagon that fateful morning. My firefighter neighbors confirmed that he probably didn't know what was happening and that he didn't suffer.
My city has received renewed threats on this anniversary. The police and other security officials near my office have stepped up their presence. A current co-worker doesn't want to be within 200 miles of here this weekend. Not being able to decamp to our home state, she has promised her mother not to leave her apartment at all this weekend.
Yet, I'm not afraid.
Fear won't prevent me from going to the mall, or the grocery store, or the pub to watch football. I am more terrified of driving on the interstate in a deluge of a rainstorm than I am of being targetted by a terrorist. I'm more fearful of dying of cancer than of dying at the hands of some vengeful zealot hellbent on driving a figuative stake through our collective capitalist hearts.
They didn't do their job. If they were successful terrorists, they would have filled me with terror. They didn't. They didn't defeat me. Like a child who tells the monster under the bed that he is no longer afraid of it because it's not real, I have told the monster in the fertilizer-and-fuel-oil-packed rental truck that I am not afraid of him. He may kill my body, but never my spirit.
Because I am not afraid.
[Title taken from this.]
To begin, a friend and former co-worker was in a meeting at the Pentagon that fateful morning. My firefighter neighbors confirmed that he probably didn't know what was happening and that he didn't suffer.
My city has received renewed threats on this anniversary. The police and other security officials near my office have stepped up their presence. A current co-worker doesn't want to be within 200 miles of here this weekend. Not being able to decamp to our home state, she has promised her mother not to leave her apartment at all this weekend.
Yet, I'm not afraid.
Fear won't prevent me from going to the mall, or the grocery store, or the pub to watch football. I am more terrified of driving on the interstate in a deluge of a rainstorm than I am of being targetted by a terrorist. I'm more fearful of dying of cancer than of dying at the hands of some vengeful zealot hellbent on driving a figuative stake through our collective capitalist hearts.
They didn't do their job. If they were successful terrorists, they would have filled me with terror. They didn't. They didn't defeat me. Like a child who tells the monster under the bed that he is no longer afraid of it because it's not real, I have told the monster in the fertilizer-and-fuel-oil-packed rental truck that I am not afraid of him. He may kill my body, but never my spirit.
Because I am not afraid.
[Title taken from this.]
25.4.11
Death Be Not Plowed
There has been no exercise regimen in my life since Christmas. No ballet. No swimming. No free weights. No Pilates. Nada. Nil. Nothing. Zip. Zero.
But my doctor and my health coach (she comes with the health care plan at Mr. Gaelic's office) want me to exercise to help reduce my cholesterol. It's above the normal range. Plus my LDL cholesterol is too high and my HDL is too low.
The health coach calls me every three weeks to discuss my plan. The first homework was to come up with a plan to exercise. The next homework was to start implementing the plan. My plan, it turns out, was overly ambitious. It fell flat just two days into it. Actually it fell into the couch halfway through the 15-minute exercise DVD along with my assertions of "I'm gonna die. I can't breathe. She's trying to kill me."
Today's plan was to take a nice slow-paced bike ride along the bike trail into the city. The problem was all the rain last night created a very humid morning. Riding next to the river and the low-hanging fog made it all the worse, bordering on Amazonian-rain-forest humidity.
It wasn't until the bike route turned away from the river that the perspiration on my arms, and tummy, and back, and forehead, and you get the picture, began to dry. By the time I reached the office garage, it was like riding on a nice spring day. No more feeling like a draught horse tied to a plow.
But my doctor and my health coach (she comes with the health care plan at Mr. Gaelic's office) want me to exercise to help reduce my cholesterol. It's above the normal range. Plus my LDL cholesterol is too high and my HDL is too low.
The health coach calls me every three weeks to discuss my plan. The first homework was to come up with a plan to exercise. The next homework was to start implementing the plan. My plan, it turns out, was overly ambitious. It fell flat just two days into it. Actually it fell into the couch halfway through the 15-minute exercise DVD along with my assertions of "I'm gonna die. I can't breathe. She's trying to kill me."
Today's plan was to take a nice slow-paced bike ride along the bike trail into the city. The problem was all the rain last night created a very humid morning. Riding next to the river and the low-hanging fog made it all the worse, bordering on Amazonian-rain-forest humidity.
It wasn't until the bike route turned away from the river that the perspiration on my arms, and tummy, and back, and forehead, and you get the picture, began to dry. By the time I reached the office garage, it was like riding on a nice spring day. No more feeling like a draught horse tied to a plow.
24.4.11
What Does It Say About Me?
If you're new to The Writer's Kaffeeklatsch, about three months ago my left ring finger was shattered in a fall on icy steps. The ER cut off my wedding rings. A few days later the doctor operated and inserted five pins into one little tiny bone. Two months of physical therapy have led to increased mobility. Yet my finger still isn't straight and won't bend to touch the palm of my hand without help.
My wedding rings were cut into halves -- the engagement ring is in two pieces and the wedding band is in two pieces. The tragedy isn't my still-swollen finger; it's the loss of my grandmother's wedding band.
Even when my finger has been wrapped in the baby Ace bandage, the knuckle is very swollen. The physical therapist measured it last week. My finger was originally a size 6. Now it's a 9 1/2. My heart sank when she told me that.
Yet I still have my mother's wedding rings. We have the same size fingers. Or at least we did until this.
One of my friends wear his wedding ring on his right hand because his wife is European and that's the custom where she's from. There's an idea! My mother's rings went over my right ring knuckle with a little effort. But not so much that it was painful. And there they'll stay until my left ring finger is back to some semblance of normalcy.
A quick search online for a photo of right-hand wedding rings happened upon the "meanings" of wearing the rings on the right hand. Some possibilities are:
My wedding rings were cut into halves -- the engagement ring is in two pieces and the wedding band is in two pieces. The tragedy isn't my still-swollen finger; it's the loss of my grandmother's wedding band.
Even when my finger has been wrapped in the baby Ace bandage, the knuckle is very swollen. The physical therapist measured it last week. My finger was originally a size 6. Now it's a 9 1/2. My heart sank when she told me that.
Yet I still have my mother's wedding rings. We have the same size fingers. Or at least we did until this.
One of my friends wear his wedding ring on his right hand because his wife is European and that's the custom where she's from. There's an idea! My mother's rings went over my right ring knuckle with a little effort. But not so much that it was painful. And there they'll stay until my left ring finger is back to some semblance of normalcy.
A quick search online for a photo of right-hand wedding rings happened upon the "meanings" of wearing the rings on the right hand. Some possibilities are:
- Widowhood
- Left-handedness
- Sentimentality for family heirlooms
- Infidelity
- Gays or lesbians
- Cultural, specifically Polish, Colombian, Greek, Indian, or Eastern Orthodox
16.4.11
Mutually Exclusive
Would you rather:
- Take a pill everyday that would provide your body with the exact vitamins, minerals, and calories and guarantee perfect health and weight but never be able to eat anything ever again OR never have perfect health and weight but eat anything you wanted?
- Have power but little money OR have money but little power?
- Pay $8 for a gallon of water OR pay $8 for a gallon of gas?
- Be blind OR be deaf?
- Live in Khartoum, Sudan OR live in Yakutsk, Siberian Russia?
- Be only 4 feet tall OR be 7 1/2 feet tall?
- Always have summer OR always have winter?
- Live in a fascist society OR live in a communist society?
- Have polluted rivers OR have polluted air?
- Die of cancer OR die of a heart attack?
- Have all mountains leveled OR have the Grand Canyon become the Grand Lake?
- Have no more movies OR have no more books?
10.3.11
And Now For the Rest of the Story...
A died almost three years ago. She had skin cancer. She was married to our priest, O.
J died 16 months ago. He had stomach cancer. He attended a different Episcopal church but his wife's godfather was our priest's former boss.
While sick with cancer, J needed people to stay with him during the day while M was at work. While spending a day with him, J asked me to tell him about O. He wasn't terribly interested in A's illness but rather in how O was coping without his wife, the mother of his children, his best friend. Without saying it, it was clear he was asking because he knew he wouldn't get better and wanted some sort of reassurance that his wife M would be okay.
Several weeks after J's funeral there was an email exchange with M offering to tell her about "something that J said when I was sitting with him once". M never took me up on it. Until tonight.
In making plans for her daughter to stay with us for the weekend while she's away, M added a P.S. to her email suggesting that we get together for coffee and that she was ready to hear what J told me. How does one tell a friend that her husband, while dying of cancer, was more concerned about her well-being than his own? Even the thought of telling her makes tears roll down my cheeks.
That's the kind of love we all hope to have. Not that someone will love us that much, but that we are lucky enough to find someone to love. Unselfish, undying love. J was a lucky man indeed.
J died 16 months ago. He had stomach cancer. He attended a different Episcopal church but his wife's godfather was our priest's former boss.
While sick with cancer, J needed people to stay with him during the day while M was at work. While spending a day with him, J asked me to tell him about O. He wasn't terribly interested in A's illness but rather in how O was coping without his wife, the mother of his children, his best friend. Without saying it, it was clear he was asking because he knew he wouldn't get better and wanted some sort of reassurance that his wife M would be okay.
Several weeks after J's funeral there was an email exchange with M offering to tell her about "something that J said when I was sitting with him once". M never took me up on it. Until tonight.
In making plans for her daughter to stay with us for the weekend while she's away, M added a P.S. to her email suggesting that we get together for coffee and that she was ready to hear what J told me. How does one tell a friend that her husband, while dying of cancer, was more concerned about her well-being than his own? Even the thought of telling her makes tears roll down my cheeks.
That's the kind of love we all hope to have. Not that someone will love us that much, but that we are lucky enough to find someone to love. Unselfish, undying love. J was a lucky man indeed.
5.2.11
The Anti-Social Network
Facebook is a wonderful tool to help reconnect with people. The majority of my FB friends are from my small Southern hometown of 7,000. We catch up about parents, careers, spouses, children. We post old photos from our elementary school days, church choir, high school yearbooks. And we tag each other. Helpful after all these years.
And so talkative. It seems that they all want to chat whenever I'm online. After trying to carry on five conversations at one time, it was time to leave my chat status as offline. Multitasking is one thing but there are limits.
Until last night. That's when I wanted so much to go back in time and talk to people who wanted to talk to me. One in particular. A guy who went through twelve years of school with me. He had joined the Air Force, married, divorced, stayed in Colorado.
With FB, it starts in cryptic ways. "My heart is breaking with the news."
Then it becomes a mystery. "D was a great friend."
The mind races. What happened to D?
With enough reading and poking around, it becomes clear. "D didn't post anything on Fishville this morning and I was about to call him when I heard the message on my phone. My baby brother is gone. Cardiac arrest."
Sadness, regret, realization that we're middle aged. Wasn't this supposed to be fun?
And so talkative. It seems that they all want to chat whenever I'm online. After trying to carry on five conversations at one time, it was time to leave my chat status as offline. Multitasking is one thing but there are limits.
Until last night. That's when I wanted so much to go back in time and talk to people who wanted to talk to me. One in particular. A guy who went through twelve years of school with me. He had joined the Air Force, married, divorced, stayed in Colorado.
With FB, it starts in cryptic ways. "My heart is breaking with the news."
Then it becomes a mystery. "D was a great friend."
The mind races. What happened to D?
With enough reading and poking around, it becomes clear. "D didn't post anything on Fishville this morning and I was about to call him when I heard the message on my phone. My baby brother is gone. Cardiac arrest."
Sadness, regret, realization that we're middle aged. Wasn't this supposed to be fun?
14.1.11
Here We Go Again
Parents die before their kids. That's the way it should be. It's not always that way.
Christina-Taylor Green was too young to die. Her parents should never have gone through what they've been through. The only good thing that came out of her death was that her donated organs have already saved one child's life somewhere on the east coast.
Last summer, a friend was diagnosed with stomach cancer. With a wife who couldn't take unpaid leave from work, I sat with him, tried to get him to walk, and helped with his meds and his feeding tube. At his funeral, his eldery mother was completely distraught.
Now death is lingering around our neighborhood again. Just yesterday came an email from a husband telling me to tell the other neighbors about the wife's diagnosis. A non-smoker, she was diagnosed with lung cancer which has spread to her liver, spine, hip, and shoulder blade. Her children are 7 and 3. Her parents still live in Massachusetts.
There should be a law that no parent should bury a child. It's far too inhumane. You can see it on the faces of John Green, my friend's mother, and any other parent who has survived a child.
Christina-Taylor Green was too young to die. Her parents should never have gone through what they've been through. The only good thing that came out of her death was that her donated organs have already saved one child's life somewhere on the east coast.
Last summer, a friend was diagnosed with stomach cancer. With a wife who couldn't take unpaid leave from work, I sat with him, tried to get him to walk, and helped with his meds and his feeding tube. At his funeral, his eldery mother was completely distraught.
Now death is lingering around our neighborhood again. Just yesterday came an email from a husband telling me to tell the other neighbors about the wife's diagnosis. A non-smoker, she was diagnosed with lung cancer which has spread to her liver, spine, hip, and shoulder blade. Her children are 7 and 3. Her parents still live in Massachusetts.
There should be a law that no parent should bury a child. It's far too inhumane. You can see it on the faces of John Green, my friend's mother, and any other parent who has survived a child.
27.11.10
The Decline and Fall of the Marriage Institution
For several Spring Break holidays when the kids were younger, our family retreated to a resort in southern New Jersey, an older hotel with a huge circular dining room and gracious awnings over the floor-to-ceiling windows. One of the nice things about a holiday is being away from the hubbub of the everyday world. One of the grating things about a holiday is being without a newspaper for a week.
On a cool misty Sunday morning we managed to find a New York Times at a local coffee shop. Mr. Gaelic got the A Section while my attention quickly turned to the magazine in search of the crossword puzzle. On the way to the puzzle, there was an article by a woman about her "radical" parents. An interracial couple, they opted to live together rather than get married. They raised two daughters during their many years together.
Recently, the Pew Research Center's National Marriage Project released study results claiming that 39% of Americans think that marriage is obsolete. The same study concluded that 69% of Americans think it's a bad idea for single women to have children. Apparently, the type of family that I grew up in and that we provide for our children -- working father, full-time mother -- is in the minority today.
I know several women who are single and have children. Some do it on their own; some live with the child's father; some are a bit of both. And I know plenty of people who aren't and never will be ready for marriage or should never have gotten married in the first place. I know lots of people who think that being married is just having a piece of paper and they don't need a piece of paper to prove that they're a couple.
That strikes me as very odd. Intellectually I can understand their arguments. After all divorce is more costly than the marriage in the first place. And there are many marriages that don't adhere to the contract of marriage. But there's something very official about that piece of paper.
It's brought into glaring focus in that New York Times magazine article by the woman with a black father and a white mother who never married. The father had served honorably in the military and when he died was given a military funeral complete with a flag-draped coffin. After close to 40 years together as a couple, through good time and bad, raising children in a loving household, the military and the federal government wouldn't recognize the woman as the man's next of kin. They weren't married. The honor guard presented the neatly folded flag to the eldest daughter sitting next to the woman the man had loved for so long as she looked on with tears in her eyes.
On a cool misty Sunday morning we managed to find a New York Times at a local coffee shop. Mr. Gaelic got the A Section while my attention quickly turned to the magazine in search of the crossword puzzle. On the way to the puzzle, there was an article by a woman about her "radical" parents. An interracial couple, they opted to live together rather than get married. They raised two daughters during their many years together.
Recently, the Pew Research Center's National Marriage Project released study results claiming that 39% of Americans think that marriage is obsolete. The same study concluded that 69% of Americans think it's a bad idea for single women to have children. Apparently, the type of family that I grew up in and that we provide for our children -- working father, full-time mother -- is in the minority today.
I know several women who are single and have children. Some do it on their own; some live with the child's father; some are a bit of both. And I know plenty of people who aren't and never will be ready for marriage or should never have gotten married in the first place. I know lots of people who think that being married is just having a piece of paper and they don't need a piece of paper to prove that they're a couple.
That strikes me as very odd. Intellectually I can understand their arguments. After all divorce is more costly than the marriage in the first place. And there are many marriages that don't adhere to the contract of marriage. But there's something very official about that piece of paper.
It's brought into glaring focus in that New York Times magazine article by the woman with a black father and a white mother who never married. The father had served honorably in the military and when he died was given a military funeral complete with a flag-draped coffin. After close to 40 years together as a couple, through good time and bad, raising children in a loving household, the military and the federal government wouldn't recognize the woman as the man's next of kin. They weren't married. The honor guard presented the neatly folded flag to the eldest daughter sitting next to the woman the man had loved for so long as she looked on with tears in her eyes.
24.8.09
Byron Was Dead: To Begin With
Yet another death in our circle of friends. This time a high school friend of Mr. Gaelic. To quote Mr. Gaelic, Byron "was a creative artist, a radical free spirit and an angry voice in the wilderness of Alabama." The best tribute I've read so far was written by another blogger. As part of the tribute, he posted a video that speaks to the absurdity of it all.
8.8.09
Say When
A few days ago I complained about all the death and sickness around me. To paraphrase Dory, Knock it off, God.
Sitting at my birthday dinner Thursday night, I inquired of Mr. Gaelic how his day had been. Big mistake. He said that he hadn't wanted to tell me because it was my birthday, but that the woman in the office across the hall from his collapsed at her desk from an aneurysm. It took the EMTs over 20 minutes to get there.
Yesterday's mood at his office was very somber. All meetings were cancelled. The news is that they're keeping her on life support until her kids can fly in from Hawaii.
Enough already!
Sitting at my birthday dinner Thursday night, I inquired of Mr. Gaelic how his day had been. Big mistake. He said that he hadn't wanted to tell me because it was my birthday, but that the woman in the office across the hall from his collapsed at her desk from an aneurysm. It took the EMTs over 20 minutes to get there.
Yesterday's mood at his office was very somber. All meetings were cancelled. The news is that they're keeping her on life support until her kids can fly in from Hawaii.
Enough already!
5.8.09
My Little Town
Everybody, sing with me now... "Nothing but the dead and dying Back in my little town..." That about sums it up.
I've had enough of death in the past two years to last me well into my 80s. But now, that hooded figure is lurking around again. He took a friend of 20-plus years over the weekend. She was only four months older than I and never smoked a day in her life but succumbed to lung cancer. Speaking of lung cancer and never smoking, the wife of a friend of mine has been diagnosed with it even though she didn't smoke either.
Then there're the brain tumors. A friend and neighbor's tumor was discovered after she had a seizure. Her son had to go back to his city an hour and a half away. She needs someone to stay with her, mostly for balance issues and helping with fine motor skills.
Speaking of staying with friends who need help, I signed up to sit with yet another friend who has colon cancer while his wife is at work. My youngest daughter will go with me since she and his son hang out together at school. His wife warned me that he doesn't look like what I'm used to, having lost his hair and is down to just 125 pounds.
Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of death, dying and bereavement. For once, I'd like to go for more than six months without finding out that another friend has some life-threatening illness.
But the only way to do that is to cut back on the amount of friends we have. Because as the songwriters of this blog's opening song remind us in a different song, "a rock feels no pain and an island never cries."
I've had enough of death in the past two years to last me well into my 80s. But now, that hooded figure is lurking around again. He took a friend of 20-plus years over the weekend. She was only four months older than I and never smoked a day in her life but succumbed to lung cancer. Speaking of lung cancer and never smoking, the wife of a friend of mine has been diagnosed with it even though she didn't smoke either.
Then there're the brain tumors. A friend and neighbor's tumor was discovered after she had a seizure. Her son had to go back to his city an hour and a half away. She needs someone to stay with her, mostly for balance issues and helping with fine motor skills.
Speaking of staying with friends who need help, I signed up to sit with yet another friend who has colon cancer while his wife is at work. My youngest daughter will go with me since she and his son hang out together at school. His wife warned me that he doesn't look like what I'm used to, having lost his hair and is down to just 125 pounds.
Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of death, dying and bereavement. For once, I'd like to go for more than six months without finding out that another friend has some life-threatening illness.
But the only way to do that is to cut back on the amount of friends we have. Because as the songwriters of this blog's opening song remind us in a different song, "a rock feels no pain and an island never cries."
17.5.09
Light a Candle
For those of you who haven't seen this elsewhere, it's very powerful. Check out the video here. Then check out the website here.
19.3.09
Life Stinks
Baruch dayan emet (Blessed is the one true Judge). Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother (sister). Allaahumma ighfir lihaayina wa mayitina wa shaahidina wa ghaa’ibina wa sagheerina wa kabeerina wa dhakarina wa unthaana (O Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present among us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females). Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant(s) with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.
Those words, which should give comfort, have been spoken by me and too many of my friends recently. Within the last twelve months, we have lost a wife, a father, a mother, an actress, and are now close to losing another mother. In the last two years, I have sat Shiva with both a young mother of three six-year-old-and-under daughters and an older daughter who had an astonishing tale to tell about her extraordinary mother. I took food to homes and our fellowship hall for parishioners’ families’ meals and receptions.
Just yesterday a neighborhood friend walked up with her dog and my god-dog. I was surprised to see her with my dear friend’s dog. She informed me that the reason was that my friend and her family had gone to New York to see my friend’s mother who might not be with us as I type these words. It’s ironic how two Upper East Side transplants from across the Atlantic were/are both in hospital in New York and one is mourned by the world while the other will be mourned by only those who knew and loved her personally.
I will take food again and sit Shiva again and shed tears not only for my friend and her mother but for my neighbor and her mother and for me and my father. I will help her understand the pain and the labor that grieving requires of us. And I will be thankful that she has a strong synagogue community to support her.
My own thank you notes sit unwritten in a box from the funeral home which the funeral director topped with a picture of my father. Another friend told me that the thank you notes are the finality of death. Writing them is to acknowledge that your loved one is gone. I’m not to that point yet. I’m in limbo – that dreadfully depressing time after the casseroles stop coming, when everyone expects you to be “back to normal”.
There is no more normal for some of us. We are now widows and widowers, motherless daughters and adult orphans. We have been left alone by the world because we aren’t always up and happy. People don’t like to be reminded that there is sadness and grief and anger and any other emotion than happiness. Depending on your religious beliefs, our dearly departed are in a better place, free from pain, rejoicing in the Everlasting Light. But those of us left behind need nurturing and caring and checking in on.
Next time you ask us, “How are you,” look us in the eye and mean it. Ask it with conviction and a real desire to know how we’re doing. And don’t let time and society dictate when we’re supposed to be fine. Sit with us for a week. Pray for us for four months. And check up on us on holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. And slowly, hopefully, we’ll be able to answer you back is an honest “I’m okay.”
Those words, which should give comfort, have been spoken by me and too many of my friends recently. Within the last twelve months, we have lost a wife, a father, a mother, an actress, and are now close to losing another mother. In the last two years, I have sat Shiva with both a young mother of three six-year-old-and-under daughters and an older daughter who had an astonishing tale to tell about her extraordinary mother. I took food to homes and our fellowship hall for parishioners’ families’ meals and receptions.
Just yesterday a neighborhood friend walked up with her dog and my god-dog. I was surprised to see her with my dear friend’s dog. She informed me that the reason was that my friend and her family had gone to New York to see my friend’s mother who might not be with us as I type these words. It’s ironic how two Upper East Side transplants from across the Atlantic were/are both in hospital in New York and one is mourned by the world while the other will be mourned by only those who knew and loved her personally.
I will take food again and sit Shiva again and shed tears not only for my friend and her mother but for my neighbor and her mother and for me and my father. I will help her understand the pain and the labor that grieving requires of us. And I will be thankful that she has a strong synagogue community to support her.
My own thank you notes sit unwritten in a box from the funeral home which the funeral director topped with a picture of my father. Another friend told me that the thank you notes are the finality of death. Writing them is to acknowledge that your loved one is gone. I’m not to that point yet. I’m in limbo – that dreadfully depressing time after the casseroles stop coming, when everyone expects you to be “back to normal”.
There is no more normal for some of us. We are now widows and widowers, motherless daughters and adult orphans. We have been left alone by the world because we aren’t always up and happy. People don’t like to be reminded that there is sadness and grief and anger and any other emotion than happiness. Depending on your religious beliefs, our dearly departed are in a better place, free from pain, rejoicing in the Everlasting Light. But those of us left behind need nurturing and caring and checking in on.
Next time you ask us, “How are you,” look us in the eye and mean it. Ask it with conviction and a real desire to know how we’re doing. And don’t let time and society dictate when we’re supposed to be fine. Sit with us for a week. Pray for us for four months. And check up on us on holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. And slowly, hopefully, we’ll be able to answer you back is an honest “I’m okay.”
12.1.09
Death Be Not Shroud
Sometimes I have no idea what to blog about. Going in search of ideas, I stumbled across a meme question that I instantly knew the answer to.
If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know about yourself, life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
I would want to know my complete genealogy. This is something that I’ve been working on for several years. Some lines I can trace back well past the immigrants and through several countries in Europe, following them from before the French Wars of Religion through their escape to Switzerland or Holland, depending on the line. Some lines I think were dropped out of the sky by aliens in UFOs into the Appalachian highlands during the Great Awakening because I can’t find anything about them anywhere no matter how hard I look.
It reminds me of what Cato the Elder said, “After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
But if I knew my complete genealogy, what would I do with my fantasized-about free time? And what excuse would I have for my fondness of graveyards and cemeteries? And what use would I have for knowing the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery? Do you know the difference?
If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know about yourself, life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
I would want to know my complete genealogy. This is something that I’ve been working on for several years. Some lines I can trace back well past the immigrants and through several countries in Europe, following them from before the French Wars of Religion through their escape to Switzerland or Holland, depending on the line. Some lines I think were dropped out of the sky by aliens in UFOs into the Appalachian highlands during the Great Awakening because I can’t find anything about them anywhere no matter how hard I look.
It reminds me of what Cato the Elder said, “After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
But if I knew my complete genealogy, what would I do with my fantasized-about free time? And what excuse would I have for my fondness of graveyards and cemeteries? And what use would I have for knowing the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery? Do you know the difference?
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