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I have nothing new to say about death.
(It's been ten days since my maternal grandfather died, quietly, in his sleep. This is the first that I've been able to write about it.)
From the A Word A Day email list, last week:
"We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love." -Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)
Do we? I don't feel that I understand death any better now than I did two weeks ago.
Death is the final exit; you're here, and then you're not, and you don't come back. Death is the mistake built into the world from the first, which cannot be corrected until the world shall end. Death is the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.
Death is the final friend (pale and pretty, smiling under her shaggy dark hair, loose-limbed in her black tank top), come to guide you to whatever comes next. Or Death is a tall gaunt figure in a black hooded cloak, with blue stars for eyes, often lonely, often confused, but never anything but professional when he tells you why he's come. Or Death is a bodiless formless power, with no will of its own beyond service to the higher power.
Death is an enemy, to be fought as long as possible. Death is an awfully big adventure. Death, to one who has lived this long already, is a bit like going to sleep at the end of a very long day.
I think it might have been that last, for my grandfather. He was so very tired.
The only things that could make him smile, in the last few days of his life, were the constant presence of his wife and the recurring presence of his great-grandchildren, my sister's babies. He had stopped taking care of his body; he had all but stopped eating. He had stopped enjoying the everyday things that used to give him pleasure: music, baseball, chocolate pudding, a good salami.
(Last Wednesday: I went through a huge box of family photos, saw countless pictures of him, and never so much as blinked hard. I opened the fridge, saw a whole salami, and had to hide in the bathroom until the tears backed down.)
Sunday morning we got the phone call from my mother's house. By the time of the funeral Monday morning, relatives from all over the country (and beyond) had flown in on that one day's notice: my mother's sister from Colorado with her husband and sons, my mother's sister from Massachusetts with her husband, my mother's brother from Massachusetts with his wife and three small kids, my brother from Israel (he left his wife and two little ones at home, alas), my married cousins from Illinois and Colorado. Friends who could came in; friends who couldn't come started calling by Tuesday morning. My grandfather's old rabbi came in from St. Louis and spoke at the funeral.
And then there was the week of shiva, and I'll talk more about that later if anyone is particularly curious about Jewish mourning rituals.
(And my brain would not stop coming up with inappropriate comments at all the wrong times. We're talking about what's going to happen at the funeral, and the writer in my brain perks up and says "Ooo! Death rituals!", and then I have to hit her.)
So ... the upshot of it all? I know more about my grandfather than I once did. I know something more about my family; I know something more about my religion and my relationship with God.
But I have nothing new to say about death.
I loved my Zeide, and I miss him terribly, and I will never see him again.
From the A Word A Day email list, last week:
"We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love." -Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)
Do we? I don't feel that I understand death any better now than I did two weeks ago.
Death is the final exit; you're here, and then you're not, and you don't come back. Death is the mistake built into the world from the first, which cannot be corrected until the world shall end. Death is the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.
Death is the final friend (pale and pretty, smiling under her shaggy dark hair, loose-limbed in her black tank top), come to guide you to whatever comes next. Or Death is a tall gaunt figure in a black hooded cloak, with blue stars for eyes, often lonely, often confused, but never anything but professional when he tells you why he's come. Or Death is a bodiless formless power, with no will of its own beyond service to the higher power.
Death is an enemy, to be fought as long as possible. Death is an awfully big adventure. Death, to one who has lived this long already, is a bit like going to sleep at the end of a very long day.
I think it might have been that last, for my grandfather. He was so very tired.
The only things that could make him smile, in the last few days of his life, were the constant presence of his wife and the recurring presence of his great-grandchildren, my sister's babies. He had stopped taking care of his body; he had all but stopped eating. He had stopped enjoying the everyday things that used to give him pleasure: music, baseball, chocolate pudding, a good salami.
(Last Wednesday: I went through a huge box of family photos, saw countless pictures of him, and never so much as blinked hard. I opened the fridge, saw a whole salami, and had to hide in the bathroom until the tears backed down.)
Sunday morning we got the phone call from my mother's house. By the time of the funeral Monday morning, relatives from all over the country (and beyond) had flown in on that one day's notice: my mother's sister from Colorado with her husband and sons, my mother's sister from Massachusetts with her husband, my mother's brother from Massachusetts with his wife and three small kids, my brother from Israel (he left his wife and two little ones at home, alas), my married cousins from Illinois and Colorado. Friends who could came in; friends who couldn't come started calling by Tuesday morning. My grandfather's old rabbi came in from St. Louis and spoke at the funeral.
And then there was the week of shiva, and I'll talk more about that later if anyone is particularly curious about Jewish mourning rituals.
(And my brain would not stop coming up with inappropriate comments at all the wrong times. We're talking about what's going to happen at the funeral, and the writer in my brain perks up and says "Ooo! Death rituals!", and then I have to hit her.)
So ... the upshot of it all? I know more about my grandfather than I once did. I know something more about my family; I know something more about my religion and my relationship with God.
But I have nothing new to say about death.
I loved my Zeide, and I miss him terribly, and I will never see him again.
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hugs,
Meredith
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*hugs* (as many as you need)
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