Chores of the Bereaved
Now is no time to think of what you do not have...
Wednesday 250402 – 10am CST
Busy morning. Funerals are always like this. Bereavement... ha! I've seen many people over the years take time off for bereavement. I always imagined they just sat in a darkened room brooding over their loss and coming to grips with how to move forward. As I move up the echelon's of who is responsible for closing the book on a person's life, I understand now that for some it means lots of work. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done when a person dies, all related to the funeral. Thankfully, I'm not close enough to the head of the table to have to close bank accounts, change titles or liquidate a life's possessions, but I am adjacent. I watch it being done. That work starts weeks, months and in some cases, years, ahead of time. I will be a disaster at such planning.
While I am very good at hip-shots and scrambling, my pathological need to procrastinate prevents me from even an ounce of prevention. I guess I'm too good at brewing cures.
There is a wad of cellophane cluttering my desk. It's shoved between the monitor, a box of markers and a sketchbook. I stopped for a moment to extract it because it was obscuring part of this paragraph. When I unfurl the shiny, crinkly material, I see a white label 5”x8”— Foam-Cor Pro 18”x24” Foamboard. It is trash I stuffed there absentmindedly 57 days ago when we were mounting the poster for my wife's sister's funeral. How can I have ignored this for two months? I look at my desktop objectively for a moment and realize it looks like a garbage pile. My mind has been shuttered or shadowed or distracted or something for so long now that I can't remember basic things.
Last year, I added an apple tracker to my wallet and my keys. Nine times out of ten, I have to use the 'find-my' app to locate at least one of them when now leaving the house. This might be a neurological problem... but I suspect it's emotional. I suspect my burnout and depression have really run a train through my mental capacity.
We're leaving for a few weeks after the funeral. I hope time away and looking at new things and people for a while will give me some much-needed perspective. Break this cycle of self-doubt and worry that I've slipped in too. Objectivity to see the trash pile of my life, if you will. My brother-in-law keeps asking me where we are going. He is a very good trip-planner. I don't have it in me to develop an itinerary, so I just say 'west'. And he pitches a bunch of stuff that we should see. I'm making notes and once we get through this funeral, I think we'll manage a decent route to keep us busy for a few weeks. We originally planned to be on the road for a month to six weeks. But between our own illness, finishing van and my father-in-law's declining health and eventual death, it just wasn't possible. If finances and schedule allows, we'll try to make the eastern leg of our trip after a hard date we have here April 27th.
For now, back to finishing the obituary for dad. It drifted to nearly a thousand words again. We'll slash and burn, or I'll suggest it. If it goes like last time, the family will read it and love it and I'll think, 'no this is a first draft, you have to tell me it's terrible and rewrite it.'
I'll say this about my wife's dad: for being a fairly quiet and unremarkable man, he made a huge impact on a lot of lives. I joked that his wife was the hare and he was the tortoise. And just like in that fable, his slow, meticulous way about life made him a favorite among many, impervious to negative comments and wealthy beyond imagination in terms of respect and love. He won. He won the race and the world would be a much better place if more of us were like him.
#essay #memoir #reflection #confession #death #100DaysToOffload #Writing
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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