Sad Update

Yesterday, I wrote about my Uncle Junior before attending his visitation service last night.
My Aunt Esther valiantly perched on a stool by my uncle's coffin throughout the evening, not leaving her post for two hours as the line stretched through the room.
She made each person there feel a specific part of her life and my uncle's life.
"You know each niece and nephew is loved, but there was always something special about you," she confided.
She even asked, as she squeezed my hands, when she was going to get a copy of my latest novel. I promised I would hand deliver it in the next few weeks.
I spent the night at my brother's house, but drove home before the funeral because I had to teach.
Just a little while ago, my mother texted the sad news that Aunt Esther fell and broke her leg last night. She did not make it to her husband's funeral because she needed surgery.
I can't imagine the pain and indecision her children faced as they tried to decide whether to postpone the service since their mother couldn't be there -- whether to be at their mother's side or their father's funeral.
I hope Aunt Esther heals quickly, even though she faces some sad times without Uncle Junior by her side.

In Memory of Nana

I imagine that everyone is tired of reading sad posts on my blog. I think about writing stories on Christmas lights or scented soaps or books set in France, but life has other plans.
On Wednesday afternoon, I learned that my 97-year-old grandmother died.

This was in August at my cousin's
daughter's wedding. 

Now, I realize that most people as old as I am are fortunate to have parents living and in good health, much less a grandmother. But my grandmother, Nana, has resisted old age.
One of my nieces pointed out that Nana is the only woman she knows who gave up high  heels at age 92. That makes her practically French, doesn't it?
Nana led a typical Kentucky life, marrying at age 16 to a man 12 years older because he wanted a young bride that he could raise the way he wanted. That sounds terribly sexist, which it was, but he might have gotten more than  he planned on when he married my strong-willed grandmother. The two of them had three children, one of them my father.
Nana helped run a general store and the family lived above the store, until one night a fire broke out. The family escaped and stood outside in the cold watching their home, livelihood and several hundred dollars in life savings burn to the ground, My grandfather didn't believe in banks, so he kept cash. He nearly died trying to save the money.
Some of Nana's jobs after that included running a hotel, which I vaguely remember as a child. What fun to visit my grandmother and get to stay in a hotel room! She also worked at the post office and knew everyone in her small town.
One of my favorite stories from Nana was when she rode a horse into town to get a permanent at the beauty shop. Just the idea that they didn't have a car to drive, they still relied on horses or wagons, but she still searched out the permanent wave for her thin hair. But the story got better. On the way home, the horse got stuck in quicksand. Nana had to crawl off the horse's neck to get to solid ground then tug on the horse's reins until she got him up to dry ground too. Another time she told about the horse running away with her as she lay flat and wrapped her hands around its neck, holding on for her life.
Kentucky, especially the poor parts, has always been behind the rest of the world, but the idea of using outhouses and riding horses to town even 80 years ago strikes me as "Little House on the Prairie."
My grandfather died 32 years ago, but Nana wasn't finished with marriage. She dated a few guys before she lucked into meeting Ish. They fell in love like a lightning strike and married quickly to spend their remaining years together.
Ish freed Nana in a way. She went from a woman who only wore dresses, to someone who discovered pants were sensible and sometimes more modest than dresses. She began to spend winters in Arizona, and she and Ish traveled to explore new lands, including Venezuela.

Here's my Aunt June, Nana, me and Grace

They returned to live in Kentucky and Ish died in the late 1990s. Nana continued to live alone. We convinced her to buy a smaller house for awhile, but after a year, she sold it for a profit and moved back to her big house with five bedrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms, a dining room and acres of land.
A few years ago, she had a stroke. She insisted on lying down for awhile rather than calling the
emergency squad. She never fully regained strength in her left side, but she lived at home with her daughter or a live-in helper, intent on completing many tasks at home. She would slide down the stairs on her butt to get to the lower level and go through her belongings, deciding what to keep or discard.
A few years ago, she became terribly ill. I drove the four hours from Columbus to be with her. My aunt and uncle in Kentucky both had the flu and couldn't visit her in the hospital. My parents in Florida weren't within reach. I sat by her hospital bed, but she didn't wake up. I didn't think she'd make it through the night.
I called my parents and told them to come. They did, and Nana was better by the time they arrived. She seemed to beat all the odds.

This was probably celebrating her 90th birthday, or maybe 92. 

Nana mostly lived at home, but would go into the nursing home for three months at a time to give my aunt a break from caretaking duty.
In October, another call from the hospital. She had pneumonia. I drove down to sit by her bed. My aunt had been there all night and I waved her off to shower and rest. I pulled up a chair by Nana's bed, and for someone who they thought could die, she sat in bed alert. She hardly dozed at all. Instead, we talked.
She asked me about her great grandchildren, and her great-great grandchildren. I showed her pictures on my cell phone. We talked about her early life.
"When I woke up, I thought Wilbert was sitting in that chair," she said. Wilbert was my grandfather, her first husband.
We talked for a few minutes and she told me, "I was unhappy married," and I knew she meant in her first marriage. "But he was a good father."
She wasn't inclined to talk about her future, in this world or in heaven, in spite of her strong religious beliefs.
She fell asleep about half an hour before I needed to leave for the 4-hour drive back home.
"I love you, Nana," I whispered as I kissed her soft hair, plastered down in the back against the bed.
And she recovered again, returning to the nursing home to play bingo.
Then Wednesday, Mom texted me that Nana  had died.
I have to guess that she has no regrets, even though she didn't quite make it to her 98th birthday.

Stiff Necks and Guilt

Sometimes, I know that I'm not a good person.
I'm not saying that in the hopes that one of you readers will try to talk me out of it.
I'm selfish, not as generous or as kind as I should be.
This morning, I went over in my mind the things that I'm dreading. The visiting hours this evening for my friend's daughter's death, along with Katie's funeral Monday morning. I half hoped I wouldn't be able to find a substitute teacher so I couldn't go to the funeral.
I signed up to take dessert for the funeral luncheon, but I didn't go to mass this morning, where I might have talked to or comforted the family.
And now, the pain in my neck has begun -- a pain I had for
two weeks when my Aunt Lorena died.
I could, of course, skip the visiting hours and the funeral. One of my friends from church called and as we talked she said she expected I wouldn't be able to get out of teaching to attend the funeral. I could have grabbed at that straw and assumed everyone else would think that too.
But, I knew that although I could easily skip the funeral and the visitation, my once best friend Cathy could not. I could pretend that nothing had happened, but she is living with the fact that her 21-year-old daughter died.
And for that reason alone, I will be there this evening, offering my sympathy because I know that nothing can be done to ease their pain. And I will be at the funeral mass on Monday morning. I will drive to the cemetery and watch their tears fall as handfuls of dirt are tossed into the hole that holds their daughter.
I think that I might be able to help their daughters. I was 14 when my sister died. Katie's sisters are 18 and 12. I'm the godmother to the younger one.
But what could I tell them?

My sister Tammy in her senior picture. She died
the night before her high school graduation.

I could warn them that as they move forward in their lives, at each milestone, they'll feel the emotional abyss left behind with the loss of Katie. As they complete college and celebrate with their family, they'll feel Katie's absence. When they plan their weddings or give birth to children, they'll feel that ache -- the certain feeling that an older sister would have good advice and experience to share.
But why should I warn them. They'll know soon enough, and at least they'll have each other, along with their two brothers.
I burst out last night and told Grace that whenever I die, they should just plan the service quickly. I hate the limbo, the in-between time when you can't even pretend that things will be normal because of the wait for the services. I remember that time when my sister died, and with Thanksgiving, the wait has been even longer for Katie's funeral.
As a sister, and I imagine as a parent, the toughest part is to leave the person you love in the metal box, no matter how lovely and lined with silk, to close the lid of that box and leave her in the funeral home or the church. I wouldn't be able to bear it. I cried copious tears at that thought of leaving my sister all alone in the church the night of the visitation.
But I will go tonight and recall happy memories of Katie, in the hopes that I can share some joy in the midst of this painful season.

Funerals

I've been at too many funerals in the past year for someone still in my 40s. But funerals often tend to be dry affairs that leave me melancholy.
Yesterday's was not.
Tim, 59, died three weeks after a lung transplant. Six priests gathered to celebrate his life. His wife Therese, 53, was seated beside her brother Martin and his partner Carlos. As I watched the ceremony and sniffled through the songs, I felt like this was what the Catholic church was supposed to be -- a place of ritual and comfort, of rejoicing and worship.
I joined the Catholic Church 17 years ago -- voluntarily. I disagree with a number of policies, like birth control. And recently I've been really agitated when the Vatican sanctioned nuns for spending too much time with the poor and the sick, and not enough time fighting abortion and homosexuality.
Those agitated feelings faded during the funeral.
Father Vinnie stands about my height. He grew up an Irish Catholic in a family of about 10 in New York City. He's in his 70s and is the most gentle soul.
He led the funeral and he asked everyone in attendance to close our eyes and ask a loved one who had died to welcome Tim to heaven. The reality that Tim was in a different realm felt so real.
Then Father Vinnie pointed to a stained glass window made up of thousands of pieces of glass. Just like the window, he said, our lives were mosaics made up of many pieces. Where was Tim in the mosaic of our lives? What piece had he left, what part had he played?
Two sweet boys whose parents came from the Phillipines played their violins throughout the ceremony. They had been taught in religious education by Therese since they were three years old.
The priests took turns swinging the incense censor, the tangy smoke drifting throughout the church. They stepped up to bless the bread and the wine and I watched three of them hold up their hands calling down the holy spirit. I used to picture it like rays of God beaming out of their hands, kind of like the sticky goo coming from Spiderman's hands to form webs, and into the bread.
Two of the priests were older and a bit feeble. One of the younger priests hurried to help the priest with the walker stand during each section of the service. He also leaned over to show the old priest in the wheelchair where to look in the booklet he followed. His service to the older priests touched me.
I managed to stay mostly dry-eyed until after communion when Therese, now the widow of Tim, climbed to the lectern. She read a poem that each of us was put here to share a song or a story. Some of us were meant to share it with only a few, others with people throughout a village, still others with a whole country and others with the entire world. Then Therese challenged us to to decide what story or song we were sharing.
As soon as she stepped up, my eyes filled with tears. I couldn't believe her bravery. She'd just been through three weeks of hell, fighting with Tim for his life in a hospital, and now at his funeral, she gave back to us, the mourners who sat alongside her.

The ceremony ended with a song that didn't staunch the flow: "I have fixed my eyes on your hills, Jerusalem, my destiny. Though I cannot see the end for me, I cannot turn away."