We Gather Together

I am blessed. I recognize this every day. I give thanks for it every night. Of course, life has its challenges. Sure, some days (even some decades at this rate) seem like big, fat piles of poop but every day that I wake up is an opportunity to try again to make the world just a little bit better than I left it the day before. This past week finds another neighbor gone from this world too soon and it has me reflecting on the fact that not everybody gets the opportunity to live another day. It is not guaranteed to any of us. Seeing a little toddler at the funeral for my neighbor brought about an unexpected joy for me on a day I didn’t expect to feel a lot of happiness. She may have been little but she was there and that was important to me.

My grandmother’s second husband was the man I considered my grandfather. I did not have him in my life for long, but we made the years count. To say he was very special to me is an understatement of epic proportions. I never knew my biological grandfather because cancer claimed him while my mom was still pregnant with me. My grandpa Ted was everything I needed a grandpa to be. He had a collection of wool sweaters that zipped up the front and had suede patches on the elbows. He wore wide wale corduroy pants or Dickie work pants and always sported a pair of sturdy leather half-boots – even in the summer. Every day he would read the newspaper and smoke a White Owl cigar. Every night he would drink a highball and read some more. He was tall and skinny and mostly quiet and I thought he hung the moon.

He and my grandma would sometimes take me home with them for the weekend. I had the run of my grandpa’s office on those occasions. He would let me sit in his giant chair that swiveled around and around and around until I couldn’t walk a straight line. He never complained when I sharpened all the pencils on his huge, dark, pedestal table desk down to little nubs. He didn’t yell when I let the reservoir on the hand crank sharpener overflow and drop graphite shavings all over the slate floor. He didn’t even cringe (at least not that I noticed) when I would swing wide the antique glass doors of his cabinets and run my most likely grubby, little hands over the antique, leather-bound books with the embossed spines which he kept there.

There were all sorts of adventures while I visited and he took me on all of them. We would go on walks with his dog Brownie and he would point out various animal signs or wait while I chased a chipmunk. He would wink at me across the puzzle table where he would let me help with the 1000+ piece puzzles he would work on. I am sure I was more of a hindrance than a help but that didn’t stop him from sliding me part of his rum raisin ice cream across that table after I had eaten all of mine. He even let me sit on a stump and watch while he skinned a deer and talked with his close friend like I was “one of the guys” which was a pretty big deal for a four-year-old girl.

Despite our ever-changing adventures, there were certain things I could count on at all times with my grandpa. He would be patient. He would smell like wood smoke and something specific to him and soothing to me. He would do anything my grandma asked him to and he loved me unconditionally. We had this ridiculous game where I would climb in his lap and snuggle in. He would ask me for a kiss and I would shake my head no. He’d tap his cheek and I’d lean in with a smooch. Then he’d set me down and I would run to my special cupboard and remove my “payment” for the kiss from the ever-present packages of spearmint leaves, Canadian Mints and Payday candy bars that he kept there just for me. Now, in today’s world, I’m sure plenty of tongues would wag and agencies would be called about such an arrangement but I would have given the kisses freely and he would have offered the candy regardless and we both knew it. It was a ritual that was specific to us and so incredibly special to me. My grandmother told me years later that each time they went to the grocery store, the first place my grandfather stopped was the candy aisle and my special treats were the first items in the cart. “For my girl” he would say. I cherished my time with both of my grandparents which was why his death from injuries sustained in a fall left an unfillable void. His death was my first personal experience with loss. He was seventy-four. I was five.

Death and the inherent rituals that come along with it are all part of the life cycle. Funerals and memorial services may be in honor of the dead, but they are for the benefit of the living. They can serve as a way to put some order and predictability to a situation which is ultimately out of our control. A burial offers a framework for a community of people who share a common member to gather together. It allows them to share memories of the deceased and share in the burden of adjusting to a world without that person in it. For individuals who practice a faith, it provides an opportunity to lean on that faith and derive comfort from it. Grief, like death, does not discriminate based on age and therefore, I believe it is important for children to be introduced to funeral rites and customs at an early age.

Back then, it was not socially acceptable for children to attend funerals. I don’t think it was social compliance as much as a desire to protect me during a time of immense sadness that led to my parents leaving me in the care of someone else while they attended my grandfather’s funeral.  Not allowing me to participate in the funeral rituals for a man I loved beyond compare is a decision my parents regret. That experience (or lack thereof) is something that drove me to make certain my children were present and included each time someone we knew died.

As I attended the service for my friendly neighbor lady I observed all the funeral rituals we all take for granted – the religious ceremony, the flowers, the bringing of food and sharing of a meal, the toasts and the tears and the laughter and I smiled. I recognized that a funeral is not only a gift to the living but it is a way for people to participate in a shared experience. It is an opportunity to shed light on the various facets of a person’s life and maybe learn about a different side of them. I may not have been privy to my neighbor’s off-color sense of humor but listening to the stories her family shared I felt like I was. I imagined if she could have been there with her larger than life personality and her big, deep, belly laugh that she would have been sharing a whole boatload of stories herself.

Those memories have to be shared. The stories need to be retold – not just after the person dies but while they are in the room. At a birthday party or during family game night or out by the bonfire on a Saturday afternoon – it doesn’t really matter where or when but tell them. Tell the new boyfriends and girlfriends who venture into the fold. Traipse down memory lane with the older family members – even if everyone has “heard the story a thousand times!”. Recount and retell them for the children as they grow. Don’t pretty them up or leave parts out. We are all to a one, imperfect and the sharing and connecting to the imperfections is fully as important as all the rest- maybe even more so. It is in the recounting of memories that we not only get a glimpse of our loved one but perhaps we get a glimpse of ourselves and that connection is what will keep our loved one’s memory alive long after they are gone from this earth.

I may not have any grandchildren yet, but when I do, I will be encouraging their parents to engage them in the formal grieving process of funerals for as much as it is an acknowledgment of death, it is a celebration of life. Hopefully, it will be a long time before they attend my funeral, but when they do – I hope they all gather around, telling stories and eating candy from their special cupboard – the one right here next to this huge, dark, pedestal table desk at which I’m sitting.