August 22, 2001
Matters of Life and Death
I wasn't really involved with planning my father's funeral, that I can remember. I remember wanting to sing at his funeral, and I did, with a friend of mine. I can remember talking about the funeral with my mom, but I don't remember really being involved. I just wanted to avoid a lot of the events surrounding my father's death, to ignore as much of it as I could and go on with my life. While I understand now that I had a normal seventeen year old's reaction, I've always felt guilty about it. When we knew Grandma was dying, I decided to be as involved as I could be.
I wasn't there when she died. She died last Sunday night, while I was at home. My mom and my aunt Vera were staying with her. Around midnight, my mom called me and told me that Grandma was gone. I got dressed and went over to my Grandma's house. When I got there, I thought that my mom had been wrong. Grandma looked as peaceful as she had when I left earlier in the day. I kept expecting to see her start breathing again. She didn't. I remember sitting down next to her bed and crying with my mom and Vera while we waited for the rest of the family, and the hospice nurse. The nurse came about 1:30, made the official declaration of death, and called the funeral home. It was that simple. No police, no 911, no coroner. Then she offered to wash Grandma, and asked if anyone wanted to help. Some families, she said, often did. Everyone left the room except for me and my aunt Dot (my mom's sister-in-law). I helped the nurse wash, well, the body. I don't know why I felt compelled to, but I did. It wasn't any different from washing her earlier in the weekend, except that she was cool to the touch. The only time it really hit me that I was helping wash a dead body was when we rolled her over, because the movements of her body were completely wrong. The only thing that really bothered me is that when we finished, her eyes had opened. I closed them.
I don't want to squick anybody. If you're bothered by this, I'm sorry. I don't know if I have the words to express how important, how solemn, how ultimately loving it was to go through this, which honestly, was little more than a ritual washing. I understand now, I think, why people used to do this every time someone died, why they kept the body at home for a time and sat up with it. I could go into another rant about how removed our society is from death, but I won't. This was the first time I'd ever seen a dead body outside of a funeral service. My mom said it was the first time for her as well. I've always been afraid of death, and of dead people, largely because of an overactive imagination and a love of horror fiction. This wasn't like that. This was miles away from anything Stephen King.
We sat up with my grandma -- me, my mom, my aunt Vera and her husband Elmer, and my uncle Junior and his wife Dot. Even after the funeral home came and took Grandma, we still sat up, telling stories, not just about her, but about other family members who had died, like my dad, and my uncle Eddie, my grandpa. And not just about the deceased, but about each other as well. We laughed as much as we cried. That has been the central theme of this entire experience, from the time Grandma broke her hip in June until now: we've told stories and remembered -- and we've laughed as much as we've cried.
That week is almost a blur to me already. The visitations were awful. I hate those things. I run out of small talk and I run out of polite responses to offered condolences, and I end up sitting alone and waiting for it to be over. But I did help plan. In addition to all of the flowers that were sent, we had one of my grandma's quilts on display near the casket. That was my idea. Quilting was one of my grandma's two big loves, that and her garden. She made three or four quilts every winter, almost all by hand. The one we displayed was in various shades of pink and has literally thousands of tiny decorative stitches all through it. Although I know Grandma would hate it (because she never understood the idea of quilting as an art form, quilts were made to be used and used hard), I want to frame it to be able to preserve it and display it.
The funeral is the one part of last week that isn't a blur. You see, when we started planning Grandma's funeral, back before she died, I told my mom and my aunt that I wanted to speak at the funeral. I didn't know what I wanted to say, but I wanted someone from the family to talk about Grandma. So after the minister finished talking about the details of Grandma's life, I stood up and read the following:
"Family was the most important thing in Grandma's life. Even more than her garden and her quilting, her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and even great-great grandkids - and there are about sixty of us in all - were what mattered most to her.
"I can remember when I was kid Grandma would have Sunday dinner at her house every Sunday after church. Anyone who ever ate at her house knows what a great cook she was, and she would cook enough to feed an army. On a normal Sunday there'd be at least a dozen people, and on a few Sundays there were upwards of thirty. There was a running joke that the sign reading "Food - This Exit" on US-23 was actually referring to Grandma's house. We'd all eat, then the grownups would sit in the living room and talk while us kids would go play in the back bedrooms or in the yard. Grandma said later that was the best time of her life.
"My cousin Sheri and I would spend the night over at Grandma's house all the time during that period. Every night it was the same thing. Before Grandma would go to bed, she'd come to us and ask, 'Now what do you girls want for breakfast in the morning?' and we'd tell her, then Sheri and I would sit up in her kitchen, making macaroni and cheese and giggling. Then we'd go to bed and giggle some more. Grandma never complained that we kept her up. She never complained about much of anything her grandchildren did, really, as long as we were there visiting her. In the morning she'd get up and make us breakfast, usually pancakes - which she made from scratch. No Bisquick or pancake mix for her! In case you've missed it - nobody ever left Grandma's house hungry, not if she could help it.
"Grandma loved family reunions. She'd always tell us stories about her and her brothers and sisters when they were growing up in Millstone - about the trouble they got into, about their boyfriends and girlfriends, I think I remember stories about sneaking out to dances - sometimes it was hard to reconcile those wild-sounding kids with my sweet great aunts and uncles. You could hear all kinds of stories at those Sunday dinners, especially if you found a quiet corner and just listened to the grownups talk. That was where I first learned that yes, my grandmother and all my other relatives really did have lives before us kids came into the picture, and those lives were often interesting and eventful.
"Grandma loved listening to and telling stories about the family, especially if they were funny ones. That love of funny stories is something she passed on to her children and grandchildren. The week before she died, we thought we were going to lose her. It was a Sunday night, and she was in such bad shape. All of her children were there. In the midst of our worry and sadness, my aunt Hazel started telling stories about my aunt Vera's sweet tooth, which is awful. Grandma's girls got to giggling, and before long, none of us could stop. I was sitting next to Grandma's bed, and she was smiling, listening to us laugh. I leaned over and told her that Hazel was picking on Vera Mae, and Grandma smiled even wider. The day before she died, several of us were there again, and we looked through Grandma's old photo albums, remembering and telling stories about the pictures. She was there, and although she couldn't speak then, I know she listened, and I know it made her smile again.
"All the dinners, and the reunions, and most importantly, Grandma, were the things that held our family together. She was the hub at the center of the wheel, and each of us were the spokes. Right now, it feels like we're just sort of wobbling along, a wheel with nothing holding it together at the center. She was our center, and she's gone. It would be easy for us to fall apart, for cousins and aunts and uncles and even brothers and sisters to drift away over the next few years. Grandma would hate that. Even though she's gone, she still connects us. Without her, many of us wouldn't be here today. While we'll all remember her, and the wonderful person she was, we also need to remember each other, and remember the way she connects each of us to one another. The best way for us to honor her memory is by doing just that, keeping the closeness and the connection we have as a family. That's what I think she would want, and I think that every time we get together and laugh and tell stories about each other, Grandma will be there, watching us and smiling."
I was afraid I wouldn't be able to speak without crying, but I managed it. I even saw some smiles in the audience, and heard some chuckles, which is what I really wanted. I wanted people to remember the good things about Grandma's life. She went the way she wanted to go, the way most people would want, I think -- at home, with her family there, in her sleep, after a very long life. But more importantly, and I was glad when the minister brought this up, she lived the way she wanted to live, and almost right up until the end she made every day count. I'm really going to miss her. I already miss her.
Nancy Bostain
April 13, 1908 - August 13, 2001
Posted by Lisa at August 22, 2001 09:17 AM
