Flowers

I was a pallbearer at my Grandmother's funeral this weekend. The director had to chase me down to attach my boutineer, because I was also involved in audio, video and music. There are many details in putting together any church service, and I usually have my fingers in most of them. It keeps me busy and slightly panicky, which is a state I apparently like.

There were last minute additions to the slide show and CDs coming in left and right. Funerals are always like this at the church – favorite songs to play, postlude music, videos of memories – always showing up in the sound booth ten minutes before the service. Being occupied kept my emotions at bay until I was supposed to sing my solo. This was helpful. I got through the song okay. I also led congregational music of Grandma's favorite songs.

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
Just to take him at his word
Just to rest upon his promise
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord”

It seems like a funeral director would be really proficient at pinning on boutineers, but oh well. The thing had a pin that was sticking out a millimeter away from my jugular. Eventually it drew blood, which I guess was okay because I had on a red shirt. It hurt.

It hurt to watch my grandfather, in his unerring dignity, caress his wife's face one last time. It hurt to watch my mother and my aunt, and to try and imagine their loss. But mostly it just hurt to have a part of me missing, and to know it would never come back. It didn't feel like grief, or saying goodbye to a person. It felt like moving, packing up and leaving the house you grew up in, leaving behind a neighborhood full of friends. When you move you know you're heading for a new place, where you'll make new memories. But you just ache and ache for the memories you leave behind, and the rooms into which you can never again walk. That's what it felt like, as we drove to the graveside, with blood on my shirt.

We sang there under a tarp. Grandma's other favorite hymn.

What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer

The director hurriedly removed each or our boutineers, six carnations from six grandsons. We were maybe standing a foot away from each other, in utter silence, and yet he felt the need to mechanically repeat “please hold the flower and I will instruct you when to set it on the coffin” six identical times. A little reminder of the dehumanizing machinery of the “death industry.” The six of us walked past the casket, six of her grandkids all grown up to be men, and placed our flowers on top as a last goodbye. There was something profound and beautiful in that silent moment. Something dignified and holy, a reminder of the all we held in our hearts and all we would leave behind there buried in the grass.

Good Grief

There's something about grieving that's...mysterious.

That's what he said. And that's what I needed to hear.

Of course we'd also hit the basics. The five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It's funny how you can hear this stuff over and over, think you're so emotionally intelligent, and then completely miss what's going on in your own life. Until your therapist points it out. So part of recovery is facing the grief of loss, even when the losing is intentional, as in letting go of your addictions and the people who've dragged you down.

Not that this is anything new for me. Losing Lita, now that was grief. Linsey and I were young, and naïve, and idealistic. Somehow we got the idea in our heads that we were supposed to adopt Lita, a seven-year-old foster child in my wife's classroom. It didn't work out. And I still don't really understand what happened there. She was never mine to lose in the first place, so why did it hurt so bad? The last day we ever saw Lita, I ran to the store to buy her a gift. Maybe no one noticed the grown man weeping as he looked for a “goodbye” card in the aisles of Food 4 Less, but I know I wasn't alone. Because for some reason that day every angel and muse of longing and heartbreak ascended on me to play me a song, and instead of background muzak I heard these words:

There are roads that can take you to places that you've never been.
There are people, when you meet them it's like they have lived inside your skin.
There are souls you connect with so strong, a bond that's so deep and so true.
And that's the way I feel about you.

There are times, like a magnet you're drawn into some body's life.
You don't know what you're doing or why you are there, but you know it's right.
There's a sense that the piece that was missing has suddenly come into view.
And that's the way I feel about you.

I believe in this world there is nothing that happens by chance.
There's a reason that at just this particular moment you came into my hands.
Like a gift that you never expected you treasure your whole life through.
And that's the way I feel about you.

Lita's ghost haunts my River Isis. I'm not afraid of her, nor am I ashamed of her presence. Because loving Lita was a good and beautiful thing, something that Linsey and I did together, with nothing but good intentions. And that kind of grieving I'm OK with. My struggle is in allowing myself to grieve those things that I'm ashamed of.

[Photo by tavopp under C.C.License]