Memories and Exit Ramps

Traveling along the highway of life with a luggage rack loaded with grief, it often seems there are endless reasons and opportunities for taking an exit ramp, as situations and conversations bring forth memories from previous experiences related to pain and loss.  I try to keep my eyes focused only on the space illuminated by the headlights directly in front of me, but sometimes things on the side of the road or off in the distance catch my eye, and looking at and even following those sightings cannot be avoided. There are lots of things along the way that I didn't think I was going to have to face - some of which I hadn't even be aware before I'd traveled this very road - and, once I was and once I did, that we didn't think I was nearly strong enough to traverse. The triggers that force me to exit for pit stops can come from varying sources - reading about or hearing about someone else with a similar story, being asked for advice related to my own struggle, or even just watching others about whom I care go through a trial like my family has since the time when my dad got sick.

Interestingly, I think, at some of those exits are emotions that are strangely unlike those I felt while I was beginning my own journey down this rough part of the road, in this construction zone of sorts.  I remember the feelings of powerlessness, sadness, confusion, and anger from during that time, but, looking at it at this point through my "things may appear smaller than actual size" rearview mirror, especially if I am able to offer anything at all to someone else from this vantage point, makes me feel strong and useful, ... a Silver Lining I suppose, one that I hope translates into a benefit for someone other than just myself. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been slowed in the right-hand lane as I've watched my friend and her family bring her father to hospice care on Friday two weeks ago and then say goodbye to him on the following Wednesday, the exact time frame that my family had with my dad.  I remember how in my family's situation there was so much to do, an overwhelming amount of things in fact, and then there was nothing.  I know all too well the pain and the helplessness and the feelings of such utter loss and despair that they were feeling as they prepared for the funeral, and I remember how I thought things couldn't get any harder but then how in many ways it seemed like they did after I went home after the memorial service and found my job and other responsibilities waiting for me.  After my dad's illness and his death, it felt like the emptiness, the loneliness, and all the other emotions were something with which I didn't think I could cope or even survive, but somehow I found a way, as I know my friend and others in her family will too.

In addition to having the perspective from inside the rawness of the grief, I now have somewhat of an idea of what it felt like for those around me in those early days of peregrination; it feels like running in place or maybe like being on a scavenger hunt of sorts.  There is so little that can be done to ease the pain of those who have been forced to enter onto this highway; the best I can try to do is just to ease off the gas pedal in my own vehicle to let them merge into my lane, to give them a nod of acknowledgement, to let them know that they are not alone.

"There is a sacredness in tears" ~ Washington Irving

Not Knowing - Grandmom's Story, Part 5

Continued from Grandmom's Story, Part 4

Mourning the loss of my grandmother in between the time that she died and the time of her funeral brought with it many emotions; even in the midst of the series of aftershocks that my family felt as a result of the compounded, extended grief after first my dad's death and then his mother's, I found it hard to believe that she was really gone.  She had been slipping away - and it could even be argued that she had already slipped away in essentially all forms except for the physical - for several years, and we knew her time was near, but not coming together as a family to grieve during those few weeks made it difficult for me to accept.  

I knew that I wanted to be prepared to say something about her life to those who would gather to honor her memory; I spent many nights sitting up, intending to write down what I wanted to say but not being able to, either because the words just wouldn't come or because the tears that flowed kept me from being able to see clearly enough to record my thoughts on paper.  I re-read some of the many letters that Grandmom had written to me over the years, and I looked at lots and lots of photos of her from during her life, many of which had also been taken with my dad by her side.  I created a slideshow of many of the pictures and selected background music to go along with it.  None of it helped me to process things or to come up with what I felt were the right words to say as a tribute, though; I ended up leaving to make the trip to the town where my grandmother had lived for 5 decades and some change - and where my dad had grown up - without a firm idea of the words that I wanted to say during the memorial service.

My husband, my daughters, and I met my mom, my sister Nancy, and her husband David at the hotel where we were staying for the weekend; many of the members of my dad's side of our extended family were staying at that same hotel, and, after not having seen the majority of them since I was a teenager, it was a little surreal to keep running into them a little at a time in different settings, in the hotel elevator, the lobby, the parking lot, and the Waffle House next door to the hotel.  I had to tell myself countless times to hold it together, because, as each layer of the family reunited, the subject of my dad's very unexpected illness and death was naturally piggybacked onto that of my grandmother's passing, a recurrent one-two punch that I didn't think I had near the stamina to withstand.  

I didn't sleep much the night before the funeral; I felt unsettled and almost inconsolable.  I texted back and forth with my sister Jennifer who had not been able to make the trip from California that weekend, and together we came up with a message that I planned to communicate at the service the next day.

It's difficult to organize a funeral from out of town, especially in a town with limited resources and where one has limited connections - and especially in a state of compounded grief.  Not knowing what the best thing to do would be, we planned to have the service at the funeral home and then, at the invitation of the members of my grandmother's church, to have fellowship and food afterwards at the church.  Based on a decision my parents had made before my dad had gotten sick, my grandmother's body had been cremated, and my mom had the task of transporting her remains to the funeral home, allowing my grandmother an opportunity to go home in yet another sense.

                       Click to view the slideshow from my grandmother's funeral

When we arrived at the funeral home, we took a few minutes to set up the video projector and my computer so that the slideshow of photos of Grandmom could be shown on the wall of the chapel before the service, and then we met briefly with the funeral director, at which point it came to light that a burial service was not planned as part of the arrangements for that day.  When that realization hit me, I felt the floor drop out from underneath me; it seemed so utterly disrespectful and as if Grandmom's death - and her life - were being disregarded.  I hadn't known that a ceremony for the burial hadn't been planned, and I felt strongly that as a family we needed to lay her to rest, essentially to take the opportunity to do the last thing that we would ever be able to do for her - and maybe for my dad as well.  In the midst of the back-and-forth banter about if and how the arrangements could be changed, my brother-in-law David saw the look on my face and took the funeral director aside.  I'm not sure what he said to the guy, but a few minutes later David came back over and said, "After the memorial service, immediate family can meet the funeral director at the gravesite for the burial of the ashes; is that ok?"  I felt hot tears of gratitude and grief spring to my eyes, and a minute later we were called to come into the chapel for the service to begin.  

The music was playing and the photos of Grandmom were being projected as planned; again things seemed surreal, and I felt as if I were floating to my seat on the front pew.  My father's brothers were in the aisle behind us; his sister had not been able to attend from out-of-state due to her own poor health.  As the music ended, the minister from my grandmother's church stepped up to the microphone and began the service; my grandmother and this woman had not known each other, but the minister knew of my grandmother and certainly of the decades of service that she had given to the church.  She gave an eloquent sermon, a fitting tribute to a woman who had so loved her church and her community and the people of both.  After she had finished, she invited me to come up and speak on behalf of the family.  I pulled out my scribbled notes, and here is what I said:

I know that my grandmother truly appreciated the love of all of you and that she would want to thank everyone who helped her during her life, just as she helped so many of us with her smile, her openness, and her perspective.  So thank you to everyone who visited her and kept her company over the years and to those who ran errands for her once her vision began to fail, especially those who drove her to her doctor's appointments and to Fairfax Methodist Church, which she loved so much.  She would also definitely want to thank my mom and my dad, who did such an amazing job caring for her, particularly over the past few years.  When my dad was sick, he worried so much about his mother.  My mom promised him that she would be there for Grandmom, just as she and Dad had always been, and she was.  When Grandmom passed, Mom was with her, holding her hand, and, for that and for everything else, Mom, Grandmom would want to thank you, and I do too.  

I finished up by thanking people for coming to honor my grandmother's life, although the exact words that I said to convey that part of the message probably got lost somewhere in the midst of my tears, which had started as soon as I said, "When my dad was sick, ..."   I am not a crier.  I felt somehow that my uncontrollable tear-shedding was something of which Dad and Grandmom would not approve - and possibly even something they wouldn't understand; I could almost hear them telling me from behind the scenes to get it together, but I just couldn't do it.  I looked over at my family and at my dad's brothers as I walked back toward my seat on the pew, and I saw that they were all crying too.  The sadness was palpable in the air; after the family members had walked from the chapel into the lobby, we could still hear one man in particular sobbing.  We later found out that it was one of Grandmom's long-time neighbors; while I felt great sorrow at the man's apparent grief, it was a touching reminder of my grandmother's impact and that she had touched so many people, many of whom we didn't even know.  

After the service, family members congregated in the foyer and thanked people for coming as they filed out in the parking lot.  In a quiet moment, I told my dad's cousins Carl and his sister about the dream I had had about their grandfather; the three of us agreed that we were comforted by the thought that our loved ones who had gone on ahead were together now.

After that, we drove to the cemetery and parked near the place where my grandfather had been buried many years before.  The funeral home director and his assistant met us there with a flowers from the service and a shovel; we stood quietly with the sun beaming down on us as we watched the burial of Grandmom's ashes.  It was a simple ceremony, but yet it felt tender and unabridged. 

I will never forget the meal afterwards at the church where my grandmother had been a member for over 50 years, where she had volunteered as the church librarian, and where a couple of years ago the church library was dedicated to her.  The food, which had been prepared by church members, many of whom had been friends of Grandmom’s for decades and some of whom had known Dad since he was young, nourished more than just our bodies.  We didn’t  know most of them, and most of them didn’t know us; but we knew each other’s hearts because we all knew Grandmom, and she was nothing if not heart and spirit. 

Before we said our goodbyes and left the church, we went upstairs to the library that bore my grandmother's name.  We admired the plaque with the engraved dedication to her for her years of service to the church, and we thumbed through some of the neatly organized books on the shelves in the room.  My sister and I came across several sticky-notes tucked inside books; on the notes were two things that made us smile: the name of Dad's business, letting us know that he had donated some office supplies to the library, and a sampling of Grandmom's unique style of penmanship; she had written notes about each book, possibly to herself or maybe to future readers.  

After we'd gotten back to the hotel, some of our group decided to go antiquing in a few nearby stores; my sister Nancy and I walked to a convenience store and bought some beer, and then we sat in the sun and drank it, still wearing our funeral dresses, on the tailgate of my husband's truck in the parking lot in back of the hotel.  Whether it was the sun or the beer or the company - or a combination of all three, sitting out there felt somewhat curative; we knew it was exactly what Dad would have done had he been there, and somehow knowing that helped a little bit, too.

My grandparents' house, where my dad grew up

The next day, we packed up the car and drove around the little town one last time.  We ended our tour by driving past the old textile mill where both of my grandparents had worked for almost all of their adult lives.  The building was in the midst of being torn down, overseas outsourcing having taken the work that had provided a living for many of the townspeople for so many years.  I watched in the side mirror as the mill got smaller and smaller as we drove away, and I felt unexpectedly sad to know that this would probably be the last time I would ever come to this place, a town that held so much of my grandmother and my dad - and even a little bit of me. 

"The Mill"

Memories on April Fool's Day

Twenty years ago today, my then-fiance and I went to the County Courthouse during our lunch break and got our marriage license.  We had intentionally planned to get our license that day: I've always loved April Fool's Day - even if I don't have a good idea or an opportunity to pull a prank on someone, I love the idea that I COULD - and also it was the only day that we could coordinate our schedules to make it downtown during business hours before our wedding date less than three weeks later.  

It's a good thing we did it that day, because, as it turned out, on April 2, the next day, my grandmother died.  

My maternal grandmother was the grandparent to whom I was the closest at the time; I saw or tried to see some of myself in her - or I guess I should say I tried to see some of her in me.  Anyway, even though she had been sick for awhile as she struggled through a relapse of breast cancer, I was shocked by the news.  I was grateful that my grandmother had hung on long enough to meet my husband-to-be and to hear about my wedding plans - and most importantly to meet her youngest grandchild, whom she held in her arms not long before she went on ahead, but I was so saddened by the loss that I could hardly put one foot in front of the other.  It was the first death that I had experienced of someone to whom I was close, and I was at a loss of how to even try to cope.  

Needless to say, the next few days were a blur as we made our way to the city where she lived and gathered together as an extended family to pay our respects.  I remember that I didn't think I would be able to sit through the service in the church without bolting for the door because I was afraid my cries would be too loud.  I remember hardly being able to bear the pain of looking at my mom, at my two aunts - one of whom had a two year-old and a two-week-old baby - and most especially at my grandfather, whose sky-blue eyes held such endless sadness that there seemed to be no possibility of ever being able to comfort him.  I remember that I stood with one of my cousins and my fiance long after the rest of the people had gone back to their cars at the cemetery; the funeral director had dismissed us after they'd lowered the casket into the ground, but I just couldn't bring myself to walk away before I'd seen her body buried, one final thing I felt I could do, if not for her than in her honor.  We stood there by the headstones of the other graves around her plot, and I looked for four-leaf clovers while the dirt was placed over her beautiful silver casket, adorned with beautiful tiny daisies.  I remember that I was a little bit comforted by wearing one of my grandmother's sweaters to the funeral; it was the only thing I had of hers besides the opal ring she had given me - "October birthday girl to October birthday girl,"she'd said - when I celebrated my sixteenth birthday.  Years later, I pulled that sweater from the back of my closet and wore it to the funeral of a friend, and in the pocket I found the handkerchief that my dad had given to me at my grandmother's funeral, a reminder of both the tears I had shed and of the love my family shared as we tried to support each other through those rough days.  

I knew my grandmother well enough to know that she would absolutely have wanted "the show to go on," and so, just a couple of weeks after we laid her to rest, my dad walked me down the aisle and I said "I do" to my new husband in front of many of our family and friends, at sunset on the banks of the Mississippi River.  I wore the gerber daisy wrist corsage that was intended for my grandmother during the ceremony; I felt my her absence profoundly that day as I have many days since. 

Wearing the corsage meant for my grandmother

Today, when I think back on that April Fool's Day at the Courthouse, to the days afterwards leading up to the wedding, and to the wedding itself, so many emotions run through me.  I feel lucky, I feel loved, I feel happy for what I have learned and shared and survived.  Twenty years, wow.  Pretty incredible.

My grandfather, at my wedding, just two weeks after he'd lost his wife.
"I'm here for two," he said, and I knew just what he meant.

The Tears That Followed

When I was growing up, my parents used to tell me that even if you have to have a good reason to cry, at some point you need to stop crying and move on - or you risk running out of tears.  I'm not sure if I totally believed them or not, but regardless I have never been much of a crier, until my dad got sick.  Since the time of his diagnosis and even more so since he went on ahead, I have officially become a crier.  And today, I'm here to say that evidently what my parents told me decades ago about running out of tears isn't really true - the tears do not ever dry up.  

On the night my dad went on ahead, when they took his body away, there was a sense of utter bizarreness, almost of an unearthly quality.  It felt like everything was happening in the midst of a fog.  Afterwards, somehow - probably from sheer exhaustion, both physical and emotional - my mom, my sisters, and I all slept for a few hours that night before we had to get up and start planning for the funeral.  Once we had made it through that, we knew we had to make ourselves eat, even though none of us felt like eating, and so we stopped by a pizza place on the way home from the funeral home.  "This is so surreal," I kept thinking, and it really was.  My brother arrived from out of state not long after we got back to my parents' house after lunch, and, after awhile, we resolved to do something instead of sitting around the house crying or in a daze.  

Someone suggested we go to get our nails done at the nail place near where my parents lived, the same place where my mom usually went and where we had taken my dad just after he'd gotten out of rehab, on the day before we'd left to take him to Duke.  

"Was it only six weeks ago that we were here with Dad?" I thought, with tears in my eyes, as we walked into the nail place.  When the woman who worked there and who knew my parents looked up and saw us, she asked, "Where's your dad?"  I couldn't bring myself to say the words "he died," and so I just stood there until my sister Jennifer said, "He didn't make it."  The woman and the other staff members there were very nice; I was grateful that they just expressed their condolences and then moved on to other more casual topics instead of asking for details.

I don't remember much from over the course of the next few days, just bits and pieces and feeling lots of sadness and confusion.  I was grateful that my family was there together and that many of our extended family members and friends had come to the memorial service, but the shroud of despair was so pervasive that it was impossible not to retreat into bouts of stunned silence and driving tears, both at regular intervals.  

It was really tough to leave my parents' house that Sunday; I wasn't sure how I was going to get through walking back into my house, when the last time I was there things were so very different.  I was operating on auto-pilot, I'm sure.  I remember one of my friends from work texting me that Sunday night to express her condolences and to suggest that I take some time off work; no, I told her, it's better if I keep busy.  I couldn't stand the thought of sitting in a quiet house with nothing but my thoughts and my tears.  

Looking back now, I think it's odd that I didn't think I should take any time off from work.  The ten weeks preceeding my dad's death while he was sick and certainly his death itself were the most traumatic experience of my life, and I was exhausted, hurt, and in shock.  So much so that I thought going right back to work was a rational decision.  But, as it turned out, I ended up with two extra days off, and I didn't have to spend them alone, because it snowed enough to warrant two snow days off from school that Monday and Tuesday.  I felt like Dad had sent me a gift, so that I didn't have to go back to work right away and so that I was able to grieve in the comfort of my own home with my kids there with me.  

I have this photo saved on my
computer under "Snow From Dad."

After that, though, I tried to hit the ground running.  I guess I somehow thought it would be back to business as usual, even though nothing felt "normal" at all to me.  In reality, though, I was in a daze much of the time.  The emotional pain, and the physical pain that came along with it, were almost more than I could bear.  The physical effects - the body aches, the back pain, the crazy appetite, the insomnia - were a complete shock to me; I had never heard that those things are part of the grief process, and they all compounded the difficulty of trying to cope with the sadness and the other emotions. 

A far as I can remember, I functioned well enough at work, but it was at a much slower than usual capacity.  Some days it was all I could do to get dressed and drive to work, often while crying, to fake being ok for the duration of the work day, and then to make it back home.  It was as if I was just going through the motions from the time I got out of bed in the morning until the time when I could get back in it in the evening.  At home, for the first time in my life, I let others take care of things like dinner and laundry and paying bills.  I often couldn't sleep at night; I spent a lot of time wishing with all my might that my dad would at least come back to me in a dream, and I was unbelievably tired.  Tired from not sleeping, tired from the grief, tired from crying, and tired from trying to keep it together.  It was beyond my capability to make plans or even very many decisions; I felt like I couldn't think straight or keep track of things, and in some cases I just couldn't make myself care about a lot of things that were going on around me.

If I had to choose one word to describe myself during those first weeks or maybe even months after Dad went on ahead, it would be "depleted." As I had done while my dad was sick, I read about brain cancer; sometimes it made me feel better, but mostly it just made me angry and sad and so I started to read about grief instead.  Eventually, I found my way to a grief counselor, and my sessions with her helped a little in that she told me each time I saw her that what I was feeling was "normal" and in that attending those sessions eventually led me to writing.  Sometimes I still wasn't so sure, though, that I was doing anything right or that I was going to make it through any of the pain, but I just kept plugging away, getting through the days and the nights, one at a time, because that's all I knew to do.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer said that he found there was “a fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain,” and that “sensitivity to human suffering does not stand alone and rootless.” We have all stood over different graves and have had different beliefs as to the fate of our loved ones, but our tears remain a universal constant and need no translation.

Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Funerals

I went to the funeral service of a dear friend today, probably the fourth one I've been to since my dad went on ahead, a tough thing to do for several reasons, one of which is that it turns my focus back to when we buried my dad.

Before my dad went on ahead, I remember feeling completely at a loss of what to say or do when I went to a funeral.  "What can I possibly say that will make a difference at all?" I'd think, and, truth be told, there were a few occasions when a family member (whom I didn't know) of a friend of mine passed away and I didn't make an effort to go to the funeral.  I told myself that my friend wouldn't miss my presence there, that I would be just one more person in a sea of people paying their condolences that day, and that it wasn't a big deal if I just waited to check in with my friend later.  

But since then my perspective has changed, and I've started thinking differently.  I now know that it is important to make an effort to be there to support the people I care about who are grieving, even if it's hard and even if I am struggling still with my own grief.  For all of my rambling over the past year and a half about what I didn't appreciate people saying to me in my own grief, the truth is that I STILL don't know what to say to another person who is bereaved.  Here's my gut feeling, though: I think those whose loved one has gone on ahead need to hear that the person who died will live on in the memories of and in the hearts of others who knew him or her.  I think it can be helpful for them to hear about what that person meant to others or even just to hear a story that that person has to share about their loved one.  For me, one of the things that I have feared the most since my dad died is that time and the business of everyday life will swallow up the impact of my dad's presence for other people in the world, like he wasn't here or like his life didn't matter to anyone other than to those in my family.  Maybe that is a common thing to fear in a situation of loss, and, if so, maybe reassurance in some form from those who also knew that person will in some way help those who are suffering from a loss.

From my own experience, I also learned that the significance of following-up with a friend who has lost a family member, checking in with them after a little bit of time has gone by, is so often overlooked, or at least it was in my family's case; I think it's something that most people just don't think about doing, or maybe they think about it but just get too busy with their own lives.  I learned how touching little things are as we go through the process of the funeral are, everything from having someone bring extra Kleenexes to someone taking photos of some of the flowers to the strangers along the way to the cemetery who pull their cars over on the side of the road to let the procession go by.  I learned that different families, different situations, and different religious practices result in different types of funerals, and that that's ok; certainly there's no right or wrong way to hold a memorial service or to grieve.  

The funeral today was at my friend's church; the service was very touching and was reflective of my friend's beliefs and her preference in music and verses.  My dad's, though, was a different style altogether.  Before he got sick, Dad had said many times that he didn't want a big service to be held in his memory after he died; he said it embarrassed him to even think about having lots of people gather in mourning for him.  For as long as I can remember, he'd said that he wanted to be cremated, and several times after going to someone's funeral he commented that he would much prefer it if a celebratory type of gathering could be held in his honor in place of a traditional funeral, when the time came.

And so, on the night he died, my mom, my sisters, my aunt, and I sat in my parents' den and talked about what Dad wanted, and the plans were set in motion.  A memorial celebration it was, to be held three days after he went on ahead, to allow for travel time for the many who came from out of town.  Some of the time around the gathering is a blur to me; I see from this vantage point so clearly the shock that blanketed us then and I know that created a haze over some of what was going on.  I remember who came, though, and I will never forget their efforts to comfort us with their presence and their kind words and gestures during the most difficult time in our lives.  The memorial celebration was memorable, in probably precisely the way it needed to be, and it served as Part One of our bereavement process.

Part Two happened six weeks later, when the cremation had been completed and when those of us who lived out of town had a chance to regroup and return for the burial.  One benefit to delaying that part of the process of laying my dad to rest was that my mom, my siblings, and I had a chance to put some thought into how we wanted to have things go.  We'd decided early on to honor Dad's wishes and to have the burial only opened to close family members, and we agreed that we wanted the ceremony to be held at the graveside only and to pay our respects on that day in whatever way each of us decided.  One by one, each of us chose what part we wanted to play as individuals, to honor and to pay our respects.  My mom, my sister Jennifer, and I planned to read something that each of us had prepared in advance; my brother Lee wanted to read from the Bible, and my sister Nancy did not plan to address the group during the ceremony.  As it turned out, though, Jennifer had trouble getting through the end of her reading, and Nancy came to her rescue to finish the passage.  When my turn came, as I read what I had written, I felt my voice shaking, and I couldn't hardly see through the sea of tears that clouded my vision as I struggled to keep my emotions in check enough to get through the words I wanted to say. I thought I would feel some closure, some relief, or some comfort.  All that really happened, though, is that I did more of exactly what I'd been doing since the moment of Dad's passing:  I breathed, I mustered up all the courage I could, and then I pushed forward to do what I knew Dad would want me to do, despite the pain and the confusion in my heart.