On Death
In the next room, on an unattended television, an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond plays out. This show has always frustrated me a great deal. Not because of it's lack of anything funny, but because this Raymond character has nearly everything I want in my life, and he's apathetic and ungrateful about it.
There's something about a life well-lived . . . it brings people together. It makes the process of grieving easier. Such was the case over these last two days. These days were a numbing blur of family and running around and, well, a lot of people-watching, really. It occurs to me that I haven't been to a funeral in some years. Perhaps the last was for my last landlord in Waterloo - Mr. Sven Maas, which I attended with Chan. That one contrasts sharply in many ways with the one this week: the circumstances, the attendees, those left behind, the way people mourned and - for some odd reason it stands out - the weather.
I guess, as is usual, a funeral makes you re-evaluate and take stock of all that you do have in life. And it brought in the family from Arizona. It's staggering how I haven't seen some of my cousins for close to ten years, but it's strangely natural to talk them again, and it feels as if little time has passed. Perhaps this is a product of not seeing my extended family much at all, anymore. Or perhaps it's just the innate need to bond in a time of grief. At any rate, it seemed that all the ones we never see were out in full force, while others seemed conspicuously absent. But, that's where I hang my hat on that subject - I hate the family politics and in-fighting and refuse to perpetuate the little squabbles. It seems that in my generation of cousins, we could really move past all of that - we take a very outsider, head-shaking view of it all. And we all get along swimmingly . . . maybe because we never see eachother.
Yes . . . so, taking stock . . . I'm thankful for the family that I do have. And thankful to have known some of the gems that walk the Earth. A life well-lived. From a long lunch with many family and friends, back to standing on packed-down snow over other peoples' graves, back to a mass (half of which was in Polish), back to the Rosary and visitation last night, it was quite the snapshot of a person's life - or, rather the celebration of that life, at its natural conclusion.
The one thing that got to me the most . . . during the standing-room-only Rosary, a few of us spilled out into the hall . . . there was a lot of talking all the way through the half-hour ceremony. Loud talking. Laughing. Joking. Especially this one person to whom I continually flashed dirty looks, but he never saw me. It turned out he was someone close to the family, but I'm not sure exactly who he is. May have been a grandson on the other side. At any rate, he was loud . . . laughing . . . talking . . . not paying attention to the formality that was going on just through the doors. People were everywhere - visiting with new babies, making dinner plans, greeting people they hadn't seen in ages, going to the washroom, milling around and just generally being there, without being there.
And I know she wouldn't have had it any other way.
God bless, Sylvia. Yours was a life well-lived.
There's something about a life well-lived . . . it brings people together. It makes the process of grieving easier. Such was the case over these last two days. These days were a numbing blur of family and running around and, well, a lot of people-watching, really. It occurs to me that I haven't been to a funeral in some years. Perhaps the last was for my last landlord in Waterloo - Mr. Sven Maas, which I attended with Chan. That one contrasts sharply in many ways with the one this week: the circumstances, the attendees, those left behind, the way people mourned and - for some odd reason it stands out - the weather.
I guess, as is usual, a funeral makes you re-evaluate and take stock of all that you do have in life. And it brought in the family from Arizona. It's staggering how I haven't seen some of my cousins for close to ten years, but it's strangely natural to talk them again, and it feels as if little time has passed. Perhaps this is a product of not seeing my extended family much at all, anymore. Or perhaps it's just the innate need to bond in a time of grief. At any rate, it seemed that all the ones we never see were out in full force, while others seemed conspicuously absent. But, that's where I hang my hat on that subject - I hate the family politics and in-fighting and refuse to perpetuate the little squabbles. It seems that in my generation of cousins, we could really move past all of that - we take a very outsider, head-shaking view of it all. And we all get along swimmingly . . . maybe because we never see eachother.
Yes . . . so, taking stock . . . I'm thankful for the family that I do have. And thankful to have known some of the gems that walk the Earth. A life well-lived. From a long lunch with many family and friends, back to standing on packed-down snow over other peoples' graves, back to a mass (half of which was in Polish), back to the Rosary and visitation last night, it was quite the snapshot of a person's life - or, rather the celebration of that life, at its natural conclusion.
The one thing that got to me the most . . . during the standing-room-only Rosary, a few of us spilled out into the hall . . . there was a lot of talking all the way through the half-hour ceremony. Loud talking. Laughing. Joking. Especially this one person to whom I continually flashed dirty looks, but he never saw me. It turned out he was someone close to the family, but I'm not sure exactly who he is. May have been a grandson on the other side. At any rate, he was loud . . . laughing . . . talking . . . not paying attention to the formality that was going on just through the doors. People were everywhere - visiting with new babies, making dinner plans, greeting people they hadn't seen in ages, going to the washroom, milling around and just generally being there, without being there.
And I know she wouldn't have had it any other way.
God bless, Sylvia. Yours was a life well-lived.