Another true confession: I actually took pictures of my dead husband. I found I couldn't touch his body. But I took several pictures, something I've always thought of as morbid. I don't know why I did this, and I haven't looked at them since. I think I took the pictures because my mind couldn't take in the picture of reality it was faced with. I felt like one of those big Victorian cameras but with no glass plates. I wanted to remember, but my mind had no film in it at that point. I needed the help of a camera.
At the funeral home I remember chatting and even joking somewhat, as I am wont to do. I remember sitting with Greg and the girls reading scripture. But we sat across the room, away from the body. There was a definite elephant in the room, but we weren't going to acknowledge it.
Bill's hair looked better than it had in forever. There was a little bruising across the bridge of his nose where they'd taken his eyes. Otherwise, he looked just like any other corpse laid out in a funeral home, except he was on a guerney, not in a casket. He had a heavy quilt over him so that with his jacket and turtleneck on he looked like himself--only dead. The funeral home had done a terrific job. The only thing I could have liked was perhaps a skirt on the guerney, but then he might have looked like a big cake on a reception table, which wouldn't have been good.
My chest ached. And I was still a bit shakey. When Bill's mother and sister Sherry and her husband Mark got there, I was relieved to see them. It hadn't been until that moment that I'd realized how isolated and closed to the world I'd been. Bill's mother, Ettie, was frail but beautiful as she hobbled in with her cane. Sherry was nervous, and Mark quietly helpful, as he'd been when my father-in-law died. There was no wild emotion, just perplexed confusion, like that of victims coming forth from the rubble after a tornado.
"How?" I gave them the details without the awful reality.
I'd always wanted to be holding my husband when he died peacefully. That's a dream that's not likely to happen to anyone, I know now. In truth, I was holding him--after he'd already died. And I was trying to shake him awake, feeling instead the dead weight of limp limbs. "Come back to me!" I remember crying. "You can't die. The girls need you. I love you. Don't go!" I spared his family the histrionics.
But he was gone. And we were sitting around him discussing strange things. All I remember is Ettie mentioning something about almost wearing her new blue dress instead of the beautiful brown suit she had on. At the mention of a blue dress, Barb quipped that Bill Clinton might do more than just call her, as he had done during one Presidential campaign, if she'd worn that one. "Yeah, be sure not to have that dry cleaned," someone said. For all I know, it might have been me.
Looking back, the conversation seems so callous, so trivial, even disrespectful. But it's how we got through. Pastor Greg looked on like he'd fallen down Alice's rabbit hole, but he, too, was shaken by Bill's death and, at one point, moved to tears. He was soaking up our grief like a gravy mop, and he represented that a caring God was indeed our fortress in whom we could take shelter.
When Bill's family got up to leave, I wanted them to take me with them. I felt like a lost puppy who needed someone to take care of her. I was grateful for their presence. For some reason, perhaps because this is the way my life had always been, I honestly figured I'd have to do everything alone and was pleasantly surprised to find angels surrounding me with the gifts of themselves.
Maybe it's just me who wants to remove the dead and march on, not society.
At the last I wanted to be alone with the body, but I wasn't. Like so many other things in my life where I'd had to move quickly, I only paused for a wistful glance back at the past before moving into the future. I kissed the ice cold forehead of my husband. Then I shut the door to the warmth of the funeral home to face the chilly wind outside alone.
At the funeral home I remember chatting and even joking somewhat, as I am wont to do. I remember sitting with Greg and the girls reading scripture. But we sat across the room, away from the body. There was a definite elephant in the room, but we weren't going to acknowledge it.
Bill's hair looked better than it had in forever. There was a little bruising across the bridge of his nose where they'd taken his eyes. Otherwise, he looked just like any other corpse laid out in a funeral home, except he was on a guerney, not in a casket. He had a heavy quilt over him so that with his jacket and turtleneck on he looked like himself--only dead. The funeral home had done a terrific job. The only thing I could have liked was perhaps a skirt on the guerney, but then he might have looked like a big cake on a reception table, which wouldn't have been good.
My chest ached. And I was still a bit shakey. When Bill's mother and sister Sherry and her husband Mark got there, I was relieved to see them. It hadn't been until that moment that I'd realized how isolated and closed to the world I'd been. Bill's mother, Ettie, was frail but beautiful as she hobbled in with her cane. Sherry was nervous, and Mark quietly helpful, as he'd been when my father-in-law died. There was no wild emotion, just perplexed confusion, like that of victims coming forth from the rubble after a tornado.
"How?" I gave them the details without the awful reality.
I'd always wanted to be holding my husband when he died peacefully. That's a dream that's not likely to happen to anyone, I know now. In truth, I was holding him--after he'd already died. And I was trying to shake him awake, feeling instead the dead weight of limp limbs. "Come back to me!" I remember crying. "You can't die. The girls need you. I love you. Don't go!" I spared his family the histrionics.
But he was gone. And we were sitting around him discussing strange things. All I remember is Ettie mentioning something about almost wearing her new blue dress instead of the beautiful brown suit she had on. At the mention of a blue dress, Barb quipped that Bill Clinton might do more than just call her, as he had done during one Presidential campaign, if she'd worn that one. "Yeah, be sure not to have that dry cleaned," someone said. For all I know, it might have been me.
Looking back, the conversation seems so callous, so trivial, even disrespectful. But it's how we got through. Pastor Greg looked on like he'd fallen down Alice's rabbit hole, but he, too, was shaken by Bill's death and, at one point, moved to tears. He was soaking up our grief like a gravy mop, and he represented that a caring God was indeed our fortress in whom we could take shelter.
When Bill's family got up to leave, I wanted them to take me with them. I felt like a lost puppy who needed someone to take care of her. I was grateful for their presence. For some reason, perhaps because this is the way my life had always been, I honestly figured I'd have to do everything alone and was pleasantly surprised to find angels surrounding me with the gifts of themselves.
Maybe it's just me who wants to remove the dead and march on, not society.
At the last I wanted to be alone with the body, but I wasn't. Like so many other things in my life where I'd had to move quickly, I only paused for a wistful glance back at the past before moving into the future. I kissed the ice cold forehead of my husband. Then I shut the door to the warmth of the funeral home to face the chilly wind outside alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment