when words are like a hug

Bill and I visited with our neighbor yesterday who just lost her husband after some 60 years of marriage. It was really sad that death separated this couple who were really wonderful together. Sadly however illness had taken its toll on our friend and we had come to accept that his time had come. He was 83.

While we were sitting at the kitchen table with the family it was remarkable how the stories about him just flowed, stories of his capacity to love his sense of humor and his generosity present in each and every story. Our friend was a kind man.

As I watched the reactions of the family it was clear to me that they were grateful to hear each and every word for indeed they were hanging on every word. remember when. When you're visiting someone who has lost a loved one it's so important to take time to share your remembrance's with the family.

To those who are grieving those stories are like a hug.

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. 

Death cannot kill what never dies.” ~

 William Penn

And then I lost it....

I'm doing a Monday Mournings Guest-Interview over on the death writer blog today with my friend Pamela. I do hope you'll go over and check it out by clicking here.

During the interview process Pamela and I traded a few e-mails and I shared a story with her. I told her I was considering putting it on my blog and we agreed that we'd try to coordinate my story with her blog subject/guest for Wednesday. She's having a guest who is a veterinarian who is also a thanatologist. (They study death and dying, especially in the psychological and social aspects.) Don't forget to check that out as well here on Wed  8/15.

What does my story have to do with that? Go ahead and read it and you'll see.

This is a true story about what happened some short weeks after the accident that took the life of my daughter Gretchen and son Eric. It portrays a picture of my emotional state resulting in some behavior I'm was not to proud of.

         **************************************************

I looked at my cat Egypt laying on the floor. He was obviously in pain. I told myself all the usual things he had a good life, after all he was 19. But I knew today was going to be his last day and that made me terribly sad.

I breathed deeply thinking to myself "my life is a nightmare." It had only been a few short weeks since the kids deaths. I hadn't slept for more than a few hours at a stretch and I was exhausted down to my very bones. I was so afraid and I didn't even know what I was afraid but it was my new constant companion. And now I had to leave the house. The thought of doing that was so frightening to me that I started to seriously consider that I needed help. Damn you death, I thought! It seemed that death was rearing its ugly head again. Ugh! Why me? I seemed to be asking myself that question a lot lately.

So I put him in his cat carrier, he cried obviously in pain and I cried along with him.

We arrived at the vets office just the two of us and they took us right away. They're very good that way with long standing patients. I was shocked when the older male country doctor didn't walk through the door but instead a young thirty something veterinarian who was about six months pregnant entered. I told her that I would like to have him put to sleep and take his body home to bury in our pet cemetery. She examined him and agreed it was his time.

Then trying to help she started to address with me how hard it would be for me to loose a pet. At this point I stopped her and told her, thanked her and told her I was an experience pet owner and had done this before and there was no need, but she continued. Again I said there really was no need to address my needs that if she could just.... and she just kept on about how difficult it could be.

And I lost it.

All I can say is it was like a slow motion movie playing out some horrible scene and these hateful words were coming out of someone else's mouth but it was actually my mouth and I was saying them.

I remember saying. "How many times do I have to tell you I don't need you to explain to me about how this is going to be a painful experience?"

Then I went on to say. " I just buried my two kids a few weeks ago so you don't have to tell me a fu...ing thing about what I'm gonna go thru."  

And if that wasn't enough. "Now take that fu.....ing needle stick it in the G-damn cat and kill him and do it now!"

And I can say with certainty that's pretty much word for word what I said. Why do I remember? I can't say but I do. I can hardly remember putting him in his carrier after the shot or paying the bill but I know I did. But I do remember laying him out in the living room at home so our other pets would know he was gone before we buried him.

To be perfectly honest I never apologized to the lady vet. and I suspect she avoided treating my cats for years afterward. And really who could blame her? My behavior was awful, shameful.

Then, five years later our cat Daisy was attacked by a pack of dogs. They hurt her terribly and we knew she would have to be put to sleep. When we went to the vets she came in to treat my dying 12 yr old cat. Her internal injuries were so severe she agreed the was no hope. After five years she looked me square in the eye and touched my hand and said and it was very brief " are you ready" and I said " yes thank you."

 Maybe a little peace and understanding was reached there or at least I'd like to think so.

But I didn't offer an apology and it still bothers me.
So what do you think dear readers?
Is it ever to late to offer an apology?
Any other thoughts or comments?

on my last day I want a party and a parade...

My grandmother was a a huge part of my life, I grew up at her knee and there isn't a week that passes that I don't think of her.I was also with her for her last days and hours on this earth; As old as she was {in her mid 90's } she was rather sharp for an old gal but as the end drew her moments of clarity became less and less frequent until the moment when God called her home. I hold on to those moments as special possibly because I didn't get those moments with my Dad who died in the hospital or my children who perished on the side of a highway in the middle of the night. They open up so many questions for me about life and death and faith...

Have you ever imagined what your last moments on this earth would be like? I imagine God willing I'd be old laying in bed surrounded by all the people who love me- who I love, or some such scenario. Maybe drifting off to a peaceful death in sleep....

When I last saw my grandmother just hours before she passed this is what she told me.  Let me just say this; I wish truly I could  do this story justice, that I could express more eloquently her words, to paint for you a picture of the glint in her eye and the delight in her voice as she told me what I'm going to tell you now. 

When I entered her room she was sitting in her hospital bed straight up, her eyes clear and not the least bit cloudy or confused as they had been. She looked me in the eye saying in a slow but steady voice, "what a lovely party last night"  then she raised her right hand and swept it from left to right across the room showing me what she believed to be party decorations from the previous night.

She looked so darn happy in fact I saw more emotion than I'd seen in a long long time on her face. "A party?"
I asked playing along not wanting to break her mood." Look at the decorations, aren't they beautiful?" she repeated.
" Daddy {my Popa} was here, and The Moores and The Lynches {both old family friends from Brooklyn and others to many to name} were here.
Contented with her memory of the night before she leaned  back in the bed and said,  "it was so much fun and there was music and dancing."

This gave me a few moments to think, my grandmother was telling me she attended a party the night before and every single person she mentioned that attended  was dead except her! My grandmother saw all those people in her bedroom in the house she lived in since 1960, in the same room my grandfather died in when I was six. Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I was overcome with emotion. At that moment I became overwhelmed with the feeling that my grandmother would not live much longer that that day would be her last day.

Then she calmly turns to me and said.
"Do you hear it?"
"Do you hear the parade?" "I so love a parade, don't you?" I nodded as I watched her as her face transform before my eyes and I saw joy.  She strained to here her parade drummers drumming and horns blowing and she smiled and tapped her hands to the beat of the music, her music.

I've seen my share of death. I cry, I mourn but I always always always try to celebrate the life of the person who died. No matter how painful I remember and then I celebrate their life. I remember.

Was there a parade? No
Did Popa and those old friends come to take her Home?
I'd love love love the thought that they may have.

She died three hours later.

I've heard accounts about a white light. On the day I die I'm thinking I want a party and a parade, just like Nana.

,