I did not expect a swell of sadness when I looked at the framed memorial while Howard signed the guest book. I thought I’d already worked through my grief about Hal’s death. I was fine all day yesterday and then this morning. But grief is untidy. It pokes out at unexpected times and places. Of course the viewing and funeral should have been an expected time and place. I should have been expecting tears, and yet they still surprised me. That makes no sense.
I am perhaps fortunate in that I have not often had the chance to stand near a casket and look on the forsaken body of someone I knew. Each time it happens I am fascinated. I step closer, hoping to glimpse the person who is gone, fascinated to see death up close. But the person is gone. I’m always curious to touch, but never quite dare. It is surreal standing there. One part of my brain is seeking connection, grieving. Another part of my brain is examining the make-up job that the embalmer did and trying to see the skin tones underneath. That dual experience continued throughout the funeral. I would spout a fresh burst of tears and another piece of my brain would say “that’s interesting, I wonder what caused that” then go poking around to figure it out.
My brain often spins “what if” scenarios when I am faced with a new thing. I will look at something that someone else is experiencing and then the back of my brain will start making plans in case I am ever in that position. Unfortunately all the “what if” scenarios involving me managing a funeral first require me to imagine one of my family dead. Not happy. At least half of today’s tears were from those imaginings rather than from grief. But I could not stop the process. It is just how my brain works. It would be nice to believe that I will be better equipped to handle the planning of a funeral because of today’s unpleasant musings, but life tends not to fall into line with pre-planned scenarios. This is okay with me because I don’t really want to plan a funeral at all.
Ever.
But someday it will be my turn. And I don’t like to think about it.
After the funeral was a luncheon. I didn’t go. I meant to, but instead I went to Walmart to buy the list of things that has accumulated for the past several weeks. Afterward I was sorry I missed it. But I think I needed to move away from funereal thoughts. I needed to recharge with a solo shopping trip. Retail therapy I suppose, but everything I bought had been on my list for at least a week.
I believe in an afterlife. I believe that we get to see those that have gone before. I believe that when I go, I’ll get to wait for those who come after. Grief is lessened knowing that it is not forever, but that belief does not negate the grief or the fear. When Howard goes on a trip I miss him and I’m afraid of being alone even though I know it is only temporary. So in my faith filled moments I am calm, comforted. Other times I cast around seeking for faith and comfort. And I find it when I seek.
Like you, I’ve had blessedly few times to actually experience grief upon the death of a loved one. But I still remember the death of my grandmother (on my father’s side), the kind, wise matriarch of six children, thirteen grandchildren, and more family besides.
I didn’t cry when I first heard the news. I felt sad, of course, but there wasn’t any reaction on that level. It wasn’t until I was on the pulpit at the church, reading the remembrance I had written the night before, that it finally hit me, and the first tears came out.
And now, when I think sufficiently deeply about the effect my grandmother had on my life, or the stark resemblance my little brother (and her youngest grandchild) had to her features – a resemblance nobody else in my family has – or the fact that with a prognosis of six months to live, she lived closer to six years more, and got to see my little brother start to grow up in the process, I get a little teary. I’m actually more emotional than I used to be, and it confuses me sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“… grief is untidy…”
It is so untidy. Never permanently containable. Untidy… the perfect word for it I think.
Like my Aunt said, “We know it was supposed to happen. We know the plan. Now we just have to wait for it to stop hurting so badly.”
This is why love for me is always filled with fear. I know you don’t like that idea, but it’s my reality. Loving the way my life is now makes me constantly terrified that Drew will die–that it’ll all be over, at least for the next sixty years.
I think about it every day, in the way you talk about here–the pre-planning that I know wouldn’t actually help, but it helps me not to freak out now. I have to know that I actually could handle the end of this phase of my life. That I would be okay. That I would get through it. And it does help. A few seconds of reminding myself that I’d be okay, and I can move on to the rest of my day without dwelling on it.
Every time Drew leaves the house without me, I tell him to be safe. He laughs at me about it–asks what I think is going to happen to him on the way to school. I don’t care. I say it anyway. It’s my little charm–if I just keep saying it, maybe I can keep bad things from happening to us. I know it won’t actually work, but it makes me feel better at the moment, which is the important part.