Sooner or later, headlines catch up with you
When my grandmother Ana died in 1993, I had managed to escape a confrontation with death for my entire 23 years.As a child, I would often think about it, dream about it, wonder what it would feel like to have someone close to me die. Worse yet, I would think about how my parents would feel if I died. At around the age of 9, I remember having a dream about my grandmother Ana's funeral. The funeral was at the Sears on 13th and Lincoln (no longer there). On the fake white marble floor, next to the light colored walls, the brightly lit expanse of a retail show room, ...her casket laid open with a stone marker fixed on top.
In the dream I read the marker, but don't remember what it said now. I remember my father talking to someone behind a counter, as if he was handing in a ticket and picking up merchandise. The casket, with my grandmother inside, was the merchandise. I didn't want her remembered this way. I was upset, sad, wanted to reverse time, ...so I awoke. Fourteen years later I discovered what it felt like for real.
We had placed her in a nursing home months earlier. None of us visited as much as we should have. I think it was too painful for my father to visit, ...I remember on several occasions he put off his visit. One day I came home and my parents were both in the kitchen, my mother was on the phone. They asked me to stay in the kitchen rather than hike up to my room as I always did. I could tell from the tone and phrases of the phone call that my grandmother was gone, but I couldn't be 100% certain. After the call, she told me.
All I can remember thinking is, "so, this is what it feels like." I was asked if I was ok, and suprisingly, I was. I wished I could display emotion at that moment, but I couldn't. My father had just lost the last of his parents, ...I knew it was very tough on him. My mother told me to hug him, so I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, as I know my father dislikes displays of affection. My mother insisted, "hug him". I looked at my father, and for the first time, he did not give closed body language. It was open. He wanted a hug. So I gave it. And then, the sadness hit me.
Still, my tears were few. There was no shock, perhaps even a little relief, as my grandmother's health and awareness deteriorated drastically in the last few years. Sometimes she did not know where she was, or who I was. To her, I was still a little child. I remember, the first mothers day after she went into the home. I had not seen her in a long time. I came to greet her at the dinner table, and she said "hello senor". She did not remember me.
In her last days, she wanted to leave the nursing home because she wanted to look for me and my sister. She was cold. And therefore, thought it was winter. She remembered my sister and I as school children, and thought that we had left for school without our jackets. She was worried about us, terrified that we would catch cold. She wanted to leave, retrace our steps, and deliver our jackets. In her mind, she could see us, shivering on a street corner, unprepared for the winter winds. In her last days, her thoughts were of me and my sister. Giving us comfort.
I was to deliver a small speech about her during the service. I did not know what to say. I could not touch these subjects, or else I would end up a blubbering mess in front of a crowded church. I spoke about her amazing green thumb. About how she could seemingly make plants grow on a whim. She would have made a great gardener or florist or botanist, ...but she was born in Mexico, and likely had no education beyond grade school. Her life was geared towards being a housewife, mother, grandmother.
After the service, I and my grandfather (from the other side of the family) carried the casket to the hearse. As we carried it down the long cement stairs of the Our Lady Guadelupe, I could hear the body inside slide and bump against the sides of the casket. We apparently put the casket in backwards, I didn't know there was a right way to do it. I guess there is a locking mechanism on one side and not on the other. The hearse has a rolling track that enables you to easily slide the casket in.
At the cemetery, they opened the back of the hearse and walked away. I was maybe 20 feet away. I saw the casket begin to slide out. My first instinct is to look away, this can't be happening and someone will grab it, someone is responsible here. No one stepped up. The casket started to slide further out and in a mere moment my mind argued with itself ...risk running over there looking like a buffoon or stop a disaster from happening. My muscles overrode my mind's logjam and ran. The casket slid faster, I did not think I would make it. In a blur, I was there, slightly relieved as I touched the casket, expecting it to easily slide back up. But momentum and weight kept pushing the casket, and I had to lay my weight into it to stop it, which I thankfully did. I slid it back into the hearse, and stood guard until the men came to take her away.
Years later, my girlfriend at the time was wearing a scarf. The same kind my grandmother wore. That light, see-through, porous fabric with a petroleum smell that matched it's touch. I touched it against my face, smelled it, and the reality of my grandmother came back to me. Then, just as quickly, the reality that she was gone finally hit. The tears were uncontrollable, unstoppable. The pain, all-consuming. I was trapped. No where to turn. So I let it wash over me. Bury me. I was helpless and weak and at the mercy of it. That is the first time I understood death.
Last week, my friend dialed me up to tell me that the father of a high school friend murdered his wife and killed himself on the morning before July 4. That's a pretty big shock. I'll not mention their names here in respect for the family.
The daughter, I'll call her Rachel, and the son, I'll call him Tommy, were friend of ours in the last years of high school and first years of college. Rachel was maybe 3 years younger than me, but I had a huge crush on her. Her brother was my age, and someone I knew from here and there. I spent my 18th birthday with them. I think Rachel always knew I liked her, but she had a crush on a slick-talking no-good-nick who played by his own rules. So, I pined after her for a year or two. We were friends, actually. I always thought she kinda liked me, but with a big "but" or "except" at the end.
Rachel was beautifully gifted at playing the piano. She could tackle classical compositions with such grace and beauty that you thought you were listening to a CD. I found many things to admire about her, ...much more than just her physical beauty, but her intelligence and personality. She was a very nice, but honest person. Smarter than even she knew.
Everyone was afraid of their parents. Her father was a big-wig cop, and her mother had a reputation for cutting up her friends and spitting them out. Except for me. I never met the dad, but the mom loved me. I was the only one. She talked with me with ease, probably because I respected the house as her domain, gave her a ton of respect right off the bat, and talked to her, rather than ignore her. Granted, I did all this because I liked her daughter, but I liked the mom too. She was a good egg. I think she would have liked it if Rachel had chosen me instead of the no-good-nick. I remember once, she even let Rachel stay out way past curfew because she was going to be with me. She even drove Rachel to my house once, so I could help her with a term paper. For such a protective and suspicious mother, she gave me a lot of credit. It's a good thing Rachel did not like me, because we would have certainly taken advantage of that.
Eventually, we all went our own way. Every now and then I would think about them, Rachel, Tommy, their mother. I remember hearing about her father retiring from the force. Tommy became a cop just like his dad. Rachel too, had started on that career path.
I guess the father was depressed about financial trouble. They had retired and moved away to a home up in Waupaca, a quiet, rural town. On the morning of July 3, he shot his wife, called 911, admitted it, asked them to come over before he did something to himself, put the phone down, and shot himself.
I don't know how Rachel and Tommy are doing today. I imagine they can't be doing all that well. I wish I could hug them both right now. I wish I could bring them comfort. I wish I could let them know that I've often thought of them, and have always thought highly of them, ...and that I always thought highly of their parents. I still do. I wish them well. And I wish there was more I could do. But are helpless in situations like this.
Helpless by design.
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