The Final Goodbye

 

After my shower this morning, I replaced the urn into the cardboard box for the transport to Holy Cross Cemetery. I was reluctant to let it go; it actually occurred to me that I wish I had not bought a niche. On the other hand, I do believe in the formality of a final resting place and the fully panoply of a Christian burial.

The brief ceremony was set for 11 a.m. I wanted to get there early to make sure everything was prepared, not knowing what the preparation was to look like. I announced myself to the upstairs office and they told me that somene would be by niche 22 in section 7 to receive the official permit.

The marble slab covering that portion of the columbarium where my father would soon rest was removed, and a green velvet curtain was across the 11 by 11 by 11 by 11 space. A small lecturn was beside it and a dispenser for the holy water that would be sprinkled shortly on the remains and its container. Five or six chairs were across from it for the guests. That's just about how many were there, Len, from Len Speaks, Anonymous of the Barbara Judith Apartments, Fr. Paul, who had not been able to make it to the funeral, Delores, who sang at dad's funeral, the presiding priest, Fr. Murphy, and me. As Fr. Murphy and Fr. Paul shared the prayers of interment, a warm summer breeze wafted through the corridor and bird chirps reverberated. Life and death met as friends for a passing moment. I could not pray the Lord's Prayer for choking back tears. Monsignor asked for my father's intercession for all of us, now that he is closer to God than he would have imagined possible. How would my father found all of this, he the reluctant Catholic? I don't know. I think he would have enjoyed the ritual. He always loved the ritual, whatever questions and objections he had. I hope all his questions have been answered. I think they have been. That is my faith.

My friends left me and I let the two young men who were hovering to close the niche begin their work. I watched them seal the niche, closing my father's remains off from the world as long as they survive time and its remaining decay. They replaced the marble and they removed all the accoutrements that had been there to mark the occasion.

It is finished.

 

 

The Penultimate Goodbye

 

I had no idea what I would, or would not, want for the disposition of my father's remains until it came out of my mouth, and that after many vacillations. I decided on cremation. I have no idea if that would have met with his approval, because, as is common among children and their parents, we never really talked about it, or, if we did, it was highly generalized and very quick. When I still thought that my father might be around for a while, I had tentatively broached the idea of our selling his apartment and getting a bigger place together. That was about a week or two before the procedure that did him in. He said, in not entirely joking response, "Let's not worry about that now. Nature will take its course." That couldn't be anything other than a conversation stopper. So, after the funeral on Tuesday the 15th of April coinciding with that other inevitability, taxes, the shell of my father went off to Antelope Valley to be cremated. I was informed he'd be back about a week later. The next question was, do I take custody of the cremains, or have them held by the mortuary until he is interred?  Rather precipitiously, as all my decisions have been these last weeks, and perhaps without adequate guidance, I determined I would take custody over the weekend prior to my interring him, which will be tomorrow.

On Thursday afternoon, therefore, I drove to the mortuary and Peggy and I exchanged warm greetings (she has amazingly become like an old friend during this ordeal) as she explained that before I took my father, it would be a good idea if I saw the urn and got used to things. I don't know that one can ever become used to anything about this process, but I couldn't disagree. There should be some respect accorded and my father before I unceremoniously removed him. She brought me to one of the smaller office like, meeting, arrangement rooms. I had been there before to discuss one or another part of the arrangements in the last couple of weeks. This is an older mortuary. A family business since 1915, but just like in "Six Feet Under", it has been subsumed by a larger corporation, called "Simple Tribute". But because the mortuary is older, it has that slightly deteriorated look, again, not unlike in the fictional series. Everything is in brown, the windows covered by discrete plantation shutters, shutting out, as it were an also deteriorating neighborhood. The light is low. The electronic music coming from a DVD player suggesting a living tribute to a loved one plays Amazing Grace. And there is the urn, but not in the shape of one, rather a nice red wood in the form of a truncated collonade in which it is hard to imagine contains what was once my father. A couple of weeks ago I was kneeling in front of him, trying to get him to help me to look at a foley catheter and aware of the crisis that was about to unfold, hoping that it was only a passing one, when in fact, this would be the last time of any real contact between us. I can remember the fear I felt as I watched his right arm jerk with asterixis and his unawareness of who I was and the existence of the catheter attached to him. I was matter of fact then calling the ambulance and deceiving him as to why I wanted to know where his wallet was (to have his medicare card for the hospital).

The urn was on the little desk. I sat in front of it and let my hand lay onit. I couldn't really cry because this was just so, odd. Lovely, but odd. I went to the flowered couch that was across from the desk to contemplate the urn at a distance. I was there about 20 minutes until I came out and asked for the "what's next" in this surreal process. The urn was replaced in a box, along with an envelope containing the critical permit that will allow me to inter him in the niche in the columbarium. The box was carried to my car, the very front seat where my father sat only a few weeks ago on the way to his last treatment. In a moment either of logic or insanity, I put the seat belt around the box. He is here now, out of the box, surrounded by two candles and a crucifix. I have found having him here comforting, even though he is not here in fact. It is the second to last goodbye, this weekend. Not that I have been sitting in front of the urn unceasingly. In fact, I have taken to heart the recommendations of friends that I take all invitations, so that Friday night I was at a seder, Saturday, I went to see "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Alex Theatre, and today I had breakfast at a friends with other friends and acquaintances before Church and later sorted through some of my father's short stories at his apartment I am slowly emptying. But I have had a few conversations with him before the urn. I have wondered whether he'd be mad at me now, assuming he has the lucidity in heaven that he did not have at the end of his days here on earth. Did I do what I should have Dad? Too little? Too much? I will never know, not in this life. And tomorrow, the final goodbye awash in the confusion of grief and unanswered questions.

 

 

A Daughter's All Too Inadequate Words on the Loss of Her Father

My father did not make it. Four days after he was brought to the hospital, so altered mentally he saw me as one of his captors rather than as his daughter, sedated, the broad spectrum of antibiotic drips poured into him to counter the pervasive sepsis that was making its sinister assault on his weakened system, he died. I hated, I hate, the anticlimax of that moment of passing between life and death, the world outside his room, the world outside the hospital, the world of Los Angeles, the world, going on as if nothing had happened. Then not. 

 

The funeral and my faith restored the hope of the more, the Transcendent more, as it were, as did the rallying round of a cousin who knew him when we were children, and old friends whose kindness, up to and including going to the mortuary and cemetery, blew me away. I wish I had the homily/farewell given by my former pastor, in print. They were the words not only of a church's shepherd of souls, but of a friend. His friend. He knew my father in a way I had not realized. In lieu of that, I offer for the internet cosmos and those few readers I know of, my words of goodbye given on Tuesday, April 15, 2008.

 

My cousin and several of my friends here present were in my father’s apartment last week, sharing wine and reminiscing about him while looking through his photographs. 

 

There were some photos of him with the child of a friend of his who had visited him some years ago. My father had often said to me over the years that he did not much like children. My friends agreed that indeed he had said so, to them, and so, my recollection was not faulty. I took him at his word. But one photo showed him playing the mandolin to which the then three or four year old danced. There was no missing the engagement of them both in that frozen moment. In another, he seemed, warmly at that, to be explaining the intricacies of the computer, and though she was happily clutching his arm, she was paying no attention to the lesson. In a third he toasted orangejuice with her. And my cousin, Carol, to whom Constantine was known as “Uncle Buddy”, insisted that those photographs told the true story of his feelings---feelings that he covered with contradictory words, for whatever the panoply of psychological reasons we all do such things.   

We were not an overtly affectionate family, my mother, father and me. Yet, the truth is he would have thrown himself on railroad tracks for me.

 

In many ways, subtle circumstances assigned him the roles of both mother, and father, to me, while I was growing up in the Bronx. He reminded me of that a week or so before he died. It seemed important for him to remind me. I hadn’t forgotten, even though I sometimes acted as if I did in my particular quest for individuation. “I know you were” I said to him with an unease that we were coming to the end of a road together.

 

I have flashes of recollection. They have kept me awake this last nearly two weeks, providing solace, and sadness, both. There are so many. I regret I can only mention a few.

 

It was he who took me out and about as a child. When I was young, it was to the park on Mt. Eden Avenue, to swings and a certain to follow chocolate Good Humour Bar from the passing truck, or to the roof of our building, aka tar beach, where we would both cultivate a tan. Once I was in school, it was he who interacted with my teachers. It was he who discovered that I was so nearsighted that in the front of the classroom, I could not see anything on a blackboard. I remember him taking me home from a Saturday at his first office, a baby photography studio, where I watched the artists tint black and white photographs to color. Driving home on the FDR drive, he told me the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, that early sparked my interest in Greek mythology. It was he who arranged outings not only for me, but for four or five of my best little girlfriends, outings traditional, like an amusement park, or a boat trip to West Point, or Governor’s Island, and untraditional, a lunch at La Fonda del Sol in Manhattan where we watched the flamenco guitarists and dancers or renting a small ball room in the Concourse Plaza Hotel for an 8th birthday party for my entire 3rd grade class from Mount Saint Ursula, when he then really could not afford such an extravagance. A favorite memory is once coming home with him on the D train, I wanted him to carry me, so I pretended to be asleep.

 

By the time I was in college and my mother had died, all too young, he was catering New Year’s parties for me and my Fordham University friends complete with chafing dishes and sterno. He was mixing the drinks and joining the fun.

 

He came to California from New York, because I was here.

 

I believe my father became a Catholic, in large part, because of his love for me, and found a home in the faith and in this community’s expression of it. He’d stride down these very aisles as usher, looking not at all a man of his age. As long as he can do that, I thought, all is well.

 

Child of the depression, he was my personal Cassandra warning me against spendthrift habits, like our eating eggs and bacon after Church at a restaurant, when he could make them just as good for a lot less.

 

This was a deep man. A Renaissance man, with many interests, articulate and witty. He was an exceptional story writer, with a keen eye to context and people. He never realized it.  Relighting his pipe, and taking a deep puff, he wondered why anybody would pay attention to him.

 

When he turned 90 a few weeks ago, a friend he had not seen in nearly 30 years came out to share the milestone. We went to Madeo on Beverly where he regaled the owner with his still beautifully accented Italian, honed in his year or more in Florence during WWII, living near the Palazzo Del Vecchio. He noted that the linguine with clams was wonderful, but he could have made it for a lot less than $25.00.  

 

My effort to capture him with a few words is woeful, really.  If you knew him, as so many of you did, you have your images. Remember him. Pray for him. He is probably asking God a few pointed questions over a nice glass of red wine.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surprised by the Inexorable

 

Short entry. I have been spending time in an ICU, the single child of a 90 year old man. I hope, as I write, that his 50-50 chance of survival from an assault of sepsis (blood poisoning) caused by an infection, will be improved by morning. The doctors say that things take time to come to a point of either turning a corner or an end. One doctor, this morning at least, was cautiously optimisic.

He arrived there, at ICU, at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, not even two days as I write. And the family of a woman, two doors down from him, lost their mother. She had 16 children and 39 grandchildren. As they wheeled in a large empty bed covered by a black plastic, they cried, consoled each other, and it occurred to me as it has several times in this long short weekend that no matter what the age, or the condition, and the fact that we know that death is coming---when someone dies, it is as if we are surprised when it inexorably does.

I am hoping against hope that my father doesn't die, because they say that if they can treat this, turn that corner, he will recover quickly. But it's almost as if I am at some level thinking that there would never be a next time, when he would come this close, or that it would happen. A paradox of our psyches? Psychological self protection no doubt.

How could we live if we really thought we might actually die, so in a way, we reject the facts, the fact that no one escapes. Even if we believe that we go to a "better place" most of us would rather not get to that door and have it opened for us. There is always a little piece of us I am thinking that when that door is opened, we say, "Are you kidding me? You don't mean it right? Not now, right?" Sometimes the answer to that cosmic question is "yes, now".

But for my father, not today, not tomorrow, please. Bring back a status quo. We need to talk. We have never really talked. Isn't that another inexorable reality for so many of us?