Farewell, Aunt Lil
Bobby's great aunt, Aunt Lil, died on Tuesday at the age of 86. It was one of those long-time-coming and almost merciful deaths: She had been suffering from severe dementia for the past few years and had recently broken her hip. I've known Aunt Lil (and her husband Uncle Frank--he died back in '08) since Bobby and I started dating. Without children of their own, Bobby's family served as the children they never had. Aunt Lil was unfailingly generous--she was always slipping money to children and grandchildren--and had a certain my-way-or-the-highway attitude that was hilarious without being overbearing. In the later years of her independent life, she was known for crossing Merritt Boulevard--a busy divided highway near her home--by sticking out her hand and just going, no matter the traffic. If someone dared to honk at her, she gave them the finger. Only, to Aunt Lil, "the finger" wasn't the middle finger; she would jab her index finger repeatedly up and down in the air while scowling at whomever dared suggest that she wasn't Queen of the Road!
All of the women in that branch of the family tree are set in their ways and very outspoken about it. Now, with Aunt Lil gone, Bobby's grandmother is the only one left.
Aunt Lil once, upon leaving a family wedding, loudly declared, "Well, I thought it was a beautiful wedding. And anyone who doesn't like it can go float!" On another occasion--possibly the same wedding; this was before Bobby and I were together, so the stories have been passed down to me--she arrived in the midst of busy preparations, stood in the middle of the room (apparently wearing a huge black hat with a feather nodding against her nose), and shouted, "Everybody shut up! Shut up! Ludja has arrived!" (All of the sisters call themselves and each other by their Polish names ... well, "Polish" in the sense of the mutilated version of the language they speak. I don't actually know if Ludja is a Polish name, but Aunt Lil has been Aunt Ludja or Aunt Ludj to me for as long as I've known her.)
At the funeral home yesterday, Bobby's mom asked us if we had been up to see her yet, and I realized that I didn't need to (I never do; I don't like viewings) because I had so many memories and stories of her that meant much more than the physical manifestation of the woman she was.
It was actually one of the nicer funeral services I'd attended. One of my biggest gripes with funeral services I've attended (all Christian and predominantly Catholic) is that the focus is less on remembering or honoring the deceased person than in trying to eke out religious conversions/affirmations from the grieving attendees; this feels low to me (but then so does requiring hungry people to listen to a religious service before giving them something to eat at a soup kitchen, so maybe I'm just incapable of understanding American Christianity. I can't talk myself out of being bothered, though, no matter how many times I tell myself that it's not my spiritual tradition and I shouldn't even care. I still care, probably because it's so widespread to the point of being mainstream, which then makes it everyone's business, even little ol' Druid-agnostic me.)
The minister who did Aunt Lil's service wasn't Catholic (although she was) but was the minister of Uncle Frank's church. Therefore, he knew her. And in addition to his own memories of her, he went around and spoke to the family ahead of time, asking for memories and stories so that his service would reflect her--what a novel concept! And he did a great job with that. Oh, there was the usual religious mumbo-jumbo, including a *facepalm*-inducing tangent on the Rapture, but everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs, and so long as they do no harm to others (including being forced on others), then I do not care. I do not claim to own Truth-with-a-capital-T, and I think everyone has to make their own meaning of life and the world.
The graveside service was quite beautiful; it was a beautiful day, and the memorial gardens were teeming with life. Birds were singing, butterflies went bobbling past, cones were forming on the white pines that bordered the grounds. The minister spoke but I honestly didn't listen. I did catch him say, at one point, that Aunt Lil was enjoying the promise that death is not the end, that there is life beyond, and I found myself thinking, How can you look around this place and doubt that? And no, I'm not talking about resurrection and ascendancy, neither of which I believe in (and find, in truth, dangerous ideas that show in the mess we've made of this planet). There was a grave covered in clover, taller and darker green than the grass around it. It was teeming with fresh blossoms: The clover has just begun to bloom, so the blossoms are full and white and haven't yet begun to wither. I found myself thinking how much my bees would love to find that patch of clover. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass:
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you, curling grass;
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men;
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps;
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers;
Darker than the colorless beards of old men;
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;
And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward-nothing collapses;
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/295554.html
All of the women in that branch of the family tree are set in their ways and very outspoken about it. Now, with Aunt Lil gone, Bobby's grandmother is the only one left.
Aunt Lil once, upon leaving a family wedding, loudly declared, "Well, I thought it was a beautiful wedding. And anyone who doesn't like it can go float!" On another occasion--possibly the same wedding; this was before Bobby and I were together, so the stories have been passed down to me--she arrived in the midst of busy preparations, stood in the middle of the room (apparently wearing a huge black hat with a feather nodding against her nose), and shouted, "Everybody shut up! Shut up! Ludja has arrived!" (All of the sisters call themselves and each other by their Polish names ... well, "Polish" in the sense of the mutilated version of the language they speak. I don't actually know if Ludja is a Polish name, but Aunt Lil has been Aunt Ludja or Aunt Ludj to me for as long as I've known her.)
At the funeral home yesterday, Bobby's mom asked us if we had been up to see her yet, and I realized that I didn't need to (I never do; I don't like viewings) because I had so many memories and stories of her that meant much more than the physical manifestation of the woman she was.
It was actually one of the nicer funeral services I'd attended. One of my biggest gripes with funeral services I've attended (all Christian and predominantly Catholic) is that the focus is less on remembering or honoring the deceased person than in trying to eke out religious conversions/affirmations from the grieving attendees; this feels low to me (but then so does requiring hungry people to listen to a religious service before giving them something to eat at a soup kitchen, so maybe I'm just incapable of understanding American Christianity. I can't talk myself out of being bothered, though, no matter how many times I tell myself that it's not my spiritual tradition and I shouldn't even care. I still care, probably because it's so widespread to the point of being mainstream, which then makes it everyone's business, even little ol' Druid-agnostic me.)
The minister who did Aunt Lil's service wasn't Catholic (although she was) but was the minister of Uncle Frank's church. Therefore, he knew her. And in addition to his own memories of her, he went around and spoke to the family ahead of time, asking for memories and stories so that his service would reflect her--what a novel concept! And he did a great job with that. Oh, there was the usual religious mumbo-jumbo, including a *facepalm*-inducing tangent on the Rapture, but everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs, and so long as they do no harm to others (including being forced on others), then I do not care. I do not claim to own Truth-with-a-capital-T, and I think everyone has to make their own meaning of life and the world.
The graveside service was quite beautiful; it was a beautiful day, and the memorial gardens were teeming with life. Birds were singing, butterflies went bobbling past, cones were forming on the white pines that bordered the grounds. The minister spoke but I honestly didn't listen. I did catch him say, at one point, that Aunt Lil was enjoying the promise that death is not the end, that there is life beyond, and I found myself thinking, How can you look around this place and doubt that? And no, I'm not talking about resurrection and ascendancy, neither of which I believe in (and find, in truth, dangerous ideas that show in the mess we've made of this planet). There was a grave covered in clover, taller and darker green than the grass around it. It was teeming with fresh blossoms: The clover has just begun to bloom, so the blossoms are full and white and haven't yet begun to wither. I found myself thinking how much my bees would love to find that patch of clover. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass:
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you, curling grass;
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men;
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps;
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers;
Darker than the colorless beards of old men;
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;
And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward-nothing collapses;
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/295554.html