but now you're in my way
It was hard, Friday and yesterday. I don't have anything profound to say about it - it's just hard. I don't remember crying so much at the wake for my mother, but I think that was partly because we were all trying to support my dad, and also I don't think I fully processed everything until afterwards. This time, with the shock of seeing him last Friday night and also having had the experience with my mother, it was all too real and final without the shocked disconnect of "wait, what? what?" to insulate me from the reality of it. I was like holy shit, we're orphans now! Which is an utterly ridiculous sentiment to have at 46 years old, but nonetheless, it's just us now.
I mean, two Sundays ago I was visiting him in his room at the rehab facility, watching Star Wars! And now he's gone. (At least he got one more year of St. Joseph's pastries - my sister-in-law brought him one while he was in the rehab place. I think I'd have to go down to Ferrara's to find one today. I don't know that Agata and Valentina has them. I might have to go look.)
My niece wrote and read a really sweet and heartfelt poem at the wake and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. We told stories about him, and it's always so nice to hear from other people's perspectives how liked (even loved) he was - I think because the past couple of years saw his decline cognitively, it's hard to remember that most people hadn't seen that, that they were still used to the man who didn't talk a lot but who usually had good advice or an unexpected flash of humor in conversation.
One of my cousins had a picture of him holding her when she was a year old (and he was ~17) - she said for some reason she'd always carried the picture and just transferred it from wallet to wallet over the years, and she showed it to us and it was a really lovely photograph not just for the memories, but also because it was in brilliant color and hadn't faded at all - it looked like it could have been taken ten years ago instead of 60+.
Considering that neither of them knew him, I thought the priest at the funeral mass and then the priest at the cemetery both did a really good job of talking about him - the three of us have somewhat conflicted or even contentious relationships with the church, but my dad in his day was a lector (he used to love doing the Easter vigil mass with the seven readings? And I have very vivid memories of him practicing the reading from Exodus about pharaoh's chariots and charioteers) and a Eucharistic minister and he was at one time an active member of both the K of C and the Holy Name Society, and he still said his prayers every night - when we were picking the text for the memorial prayer cards my brother was like, "The prayer of St. Francis. He said it every night." and my sister was like, "How do you know that?" and my brother was like, "his bedroom was next to mine. I could hear him!" So that was an easy choice. (I mean, I think we would have chosen it anyway? I think we also chose it for my mother? Because it's a great prayer. Just like we were in basic agreement about the songs for the mass. though I must complain about them changing the wording on certain prayers and responses. My niece was like, they do that to catch out people who haven't been to mass in a while and I don't appreciate being called out like that, but I was like, why would you change a beautifully composed response like "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed" to "I am not worthy to have you under my roof etc." I mean. It's more literal, sure, and more colloquial, but it's mass! It should retain some grandeur of language! Otoh, the cues are the cues, and though I haven't regularly attended mass in fifteen years, I still knew when to sit/stand/kneel because you don't erase all those years of Catholic school and mass attendance. It's just drilled into you. We were talking about how when we were in grammar school, we went to mass every morning during Lent, and my nieces and nephews were like, EVERY MORNING!!! and we were like, yeah, and you just prayed you got Father Gordon, who could bang out a mass in fifteen minutes on a good day, and not Father Vogel, who liked to drone on and on - though I'll be honest, it's Father Vogel's voice that comes back to me when I mouth along with the Eucharistic prayer during the consecration. And also his homilies were always the same 'I do always what is pleasing to the will of my Father.' gosh, it must be thirty years since I heard the man say mass and yet.)
And both the meal between viewings on Friday and the lunch after the funeral yesterday were good celebrations of him, and of our connections with each other, both family and friends. I mean, that's what all this is for, right? The person is gone, all of the other stuff is to help us process our grief and trade stories about them.
We had asked to have the prayers at the grave site, but the cemetery made us do it in the chapel, and my sister and niece were both extremely upset about this (I mean, I was also upset, but it was cold so I was okay with being inside for it) but then, in an example of what my brother-in-law insists is divine providence (not that he used those words), the limo driver couldn't figure out how to exit the cemetery so we were driving around, knowing we had to head north and east, and as we finally pulled up to the exit near the railroad tracks, my sister looked over and was like, "There it is! That's our plot!" and you could see the workmen lowering the casket off a truck and onto whatever they use to put it in the grave. So that was unexpected but good - my b-i-l was like, "that had to be your father. you know he would have been like, 'watch and make sure they put me in the right spot!'" So. Whether you believe in that stuff or not (and I am skeptical but open to the possibility), it makes for a good story.
Anyway, please don't feel obligated to comment. I appreciate the comments I've received already more than I can possibly express, especially since I don't think I'm going to be up for responding yet. Hopefully we'll return shortly to our regular programming of complaining about work and talking about TV shows.
<333
*
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/917604.html.
people have commented there.
I mean, two Sundays ago I was visiting him in his room at the rehab facility, watching Star Wars! And now he's gone. (At least he got one more year of St. Joseph's pastries - my sister-in-law brought him one while he was in the rehab place. I think I'd have to go down to Ferrara's to find one today. I don't know that Agata and Valentina has them. I might have to go look.)
My niece wrote and read a really sweet and heartfelt poem at the wake and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. We told stories about him, and it's always so nice to hear from other people's perspectives how liked (even loved) he was - I think because the past couple of years saw his decline cognitively, it's hard to remember that most people hadn't seen that, that they were still used to the man who didn't talk a lot but who usually had good advice or an unexpected flash of humor in conversation.
One of my cousins had a picture of him holding her when she was a year old (and he was ~17) - she said for some reason she'd always carried the picture and just transferred it from wallet to wallet over the years, and she showed it to us and it was a really lovely photograph not just for the memories, but also because it was in brilliant color and hadn't faded at all - it looked like it could have been taken ten years ago instead of 60+.
Considering that neither of them knew him, I thought the priest at the funeral mass and then the priest at the cemetery both did a really good job of talking about him - the three of us have somewhat conflicted or even contentious relationships with the church, but my dad in his day was a lector (he used to love doing the Easter vigil mass with the seven readings? And I have very vivid memories of him practicing the reading from Exodus about pharaoh's chariots and charioteers) and a Eucharistic minister and he was at one time an active member of both the K of C and the Holy Name Society, and he still said his prayers every night - when we were picking the text for the memorial prayer cards my brother was like, "The prayer of St. Francis. He said it every night." and my sister was like, "How do you know that?" and my brother was like, "his bedroom was next to mine. I could hear him!" So that was an easy choice. (I mean, I think we would have chosen it anyway? I think we also chose it for my mother? Because it's a great prayer. Just like we were in basic agreement about the songs for the mass. though I must complain about them changing the wording on certain prayers and responses. My niece was like, they do that to catch out people who haven't been to mass in a while and I don't appreciate being called out like that, but I was like, why would you change a beautifully composed response like "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed" to "I am not worthy to have you under my roof etc." I mean. It's more literal, sure, and more colloquial, but it's mass! It should retain some grandeur of language! Otoh, the cues are the cues, and though I haven't regularly attended mass in fifteen years, I still knew when to sit/stand/kneel because you don't erase all those years of Catholic school and mass attendance. It's just drilled into you. We were talking about how when we were in grammar school, we went to mass every morning during Lent, and my nieces and nephews were like, EVERY MORNING!!! and we were like, yeah, and you just prayed you got Father Gordon, who could bang out a mass in fifteen minutes on a good day, and not Father Vogel, who liked to drone on and on - though I'll be honest, it's Father Vogel's voice that comes back to me when I mouth along with the Eucharistic prayer during the consecration. And also his homilies were always the same 'I do always what is pleasing to the will of my Father.' gosh, it must be thirty years since I heard the man say mass and yet.)
And both the meal between viewings on Friday and the lunch after the funeral yesterday were good celebrations of him, and of our connections with each other, both family and friends. I mean, that's what all this is for, right? The person is gone, all of the other stuff is to help us process our grief and trade stories about them.
We had asked to have the prayers at the grave site, but the cemetery made us do it in the chapel, and my sister and niece were both extremely upset about this (I mean, I was also upset, but it was cold so I was okay with being inside for it) but then, in an example of what my brother-in-law insists is divine providence (not that he used those words), the limo driver couldn't figure out how to exit the cemetery so we were driving around, knowing we had to head north and east, and as we finally pulled up to the exit near the railroad tracks, my sister looked over and was like, "There it is! That's our plot!" and you could see the workmen lowering the casket off a truck and onto whatever they use to put it in the grave. So that was unexpected but good - my b-i-l was like, "that had to be your father. you know he would have been like, 'watch and make sure they put me in the right spot!'" So. Whether you believe in that stuff or not (and I am skeptical but open to the possibility), it makes for a good story.
Anyway, please don't feel obligated to comment. I appreciate the comments I've received already more than I can possibly express, especially since I don't think I'm going to be up for responding yet. Hopefully we'll return shortly to our regular programming of complaining about work and talking about TV shows.
<333
*
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/917604.html.
people have commented there.