My friend Sherry came over for coffee last night. She needed time away from her house which is full of people from all over the country who have come to attend the funeral. Her mother Katherine passed away a few days ago.
It's funny how you only see relatives for weddings or for deaths. My poor friend is feeling so frustrated. She's trying to manage all the things that go along with noisy houseguests and preparing for a memorial and simply has no time to simply sit down and grieve.
Tempers are flaring.
Her father is dealing with things in his own way. If the obituary is not written,if the funeral doesn't happen, if nobody is allowed to get up and speak at the memorial then maybe this is not really real. The struggle to find a balance between respecting her father's pain and fulfilling the last wishes of her mother are very stressful.
While I am away, she will be watering my garden. I asked her if she'd like me to get my mother to do that job instead. "No!" she insisted. "I need a place to come to where it's quiet and I can be by myself!"
She is going to use some flowers from my garden to decorate at the memorial reception. She is welcome to as many as she likes. I used to bring Katherine bouquets of roses and I know she loved them. Also, lavender was one of her favourite scents and I have armfuls of it.
We sat and talked about Katherine's last days and how they were so cheerful and busy and full of friends, despite the hospital atmosphere. Towards the very end she became very weak and did not talk much, but she had a conversation with a friend one night as she drifted out of sleep and realized her friend was watching at her bedside.
She said to her friend, "I was just dreaming you were here. We two are angels, you and I. But me, I have a tiger inside". Sherry thinks she was referring to the cancer.
Her mother referred to friends of hers who had gone on before her, years before, and believed they were near her.
I think that is likely. If I died and years later I knew a friend was dying I'd try to be there for here too.
Sherry and I both strongly believe that the dead are there for you if you need them to be there.
Sherry also believes that her mother is nearby somewhere, shaking her head at all the hurt and frustration over her funeral. "I can hear her saying, 'Jesus Christ! what the hell's wrong with you people?'", laughed Sherry.
Yes, knowing Katherine, feisty lady that she was, that's probably exactly what she's saying.
2 comments:
My grandma is still hanging about, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at me, I'm quite sure of it.
It's a nice feeling, a comfort feeling thinking that despite the physical loss, nothing can take away the other.
Please, tell Sherry I'm thinking of her, will you?
My condolences to your friend. But funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living. We cry not because someone is gone, but because they left us behind. Or as Donne put it "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."
An interesting thought, the dead hanging around, watching us.
I have often seen animals barking and growling at something that is behind me, or beside me... yet nothing is there. I amuse myself thinking it is the ghost of a dog I had as a child.
He has to be dead by now. I only had him for the first six years of his life, and I gave him up in '83. But I wonder—why would he come find me, and not someone he bonded with later on in his life?
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