I find myself repeating, please let me be alone at the end, please let their lives be over, don't make me give them up. I just don't think I'd survive it. Please, Lord, this is all I ask.
But of course it's not all I ask, not really. I also ask that my death not be a burden, that it come quietly and with minimum suffering and pain and not make it harder on the ones I love and leave behind. And that someone will arrange a cremation, then transport my ashes and the ashes of my little ones to Nova Scotia and scatter them from the breakwater at The Point in Freeport. And that somehow there'll be enough money to pay them to do it. But if none of that is possible, then please, Lord, just don't let me outlive my babies.
It's not a bad bargain, really. I haven't lived a sin-free life but I hope the balance sheet will be evened out and that in the end, I'll have done more good than harm. I hope for death to bring an end to anger and maybe even a little peace. I pray to be reunited with Joshua and Magic and all the animals I've loved. I want the afterlife, if there is one - and the longer I live, the more sure I am of it - to be Rainbow Bridge. If I've earned heaven, I want it to be with animals.
As I walk into the chapel for my friend Jim's visitation - nobody calls them wakes anymore - I think about living and dying and all the people and things we encounter on the way, how are lives are interconnected and entwined. I think about the choices we make and how we never know if there'll be a tomorrow, about my friend Henry, withering away in a nursing home, my friend Scotty, who drank himself into his grave. And my dear and one of a kind friend, Ran, taken cruelly and unjustly before his time. And I smile and hug all the old friends I haven't seen in years, wondering at how strange and sad it is that the only time I see them is when we're saying goodbye to someone else. And I'm glad that the deadly seriousness of wakes and the mourning of funerals has given way to visitations and memorial services. Better to celebrate a life well lived than a death too soon, I think, better yet to celebrate while we're all still here.
The thing that most struck me about the funeral was when the minister talked about the hole that's left in our lives when someone dies. Don't expect it to be filled, she said flatly, It won't be. This simple, direct, and painfully true remark went straight to my heart and I think, to the hearts of a great many others.
In the near to panicky rush to heal after such a loss, we can sometimes go a little crazy, rushing here and there to get over the pain and move on to a place that doesn't hurt so much. We want to put the dreadful sorrow behind us, to bury it like an old bone and plant flowers over it. Life goes on, we tell ourselves, and there's no time to stay stuck in what used to be. We try to make grief a whim, a temporary and passing bad patch, as if taking flight will heal the wound and fill the emptiness. Or we wallow - jumping headlong into the misery that death leaves us with and making no effort to reconcile, no effort to survive it. Days become grim with sadness and heartache, nights are to be endured. Every hour is a reminder of something we've lost, of how cruel and unfair life can be, how wrong. Healing is somewhere betwixt and between, I imagine, somewhere in the gray area we can't quite grasp. A strong faith may help a little, but in the end, if we come to acceptance, we come to it alone.
When I was a child, I liked to dig in the dirt in the narrow space between my grandmother's garage and the neighbor's fence. It was cool and dark and no grass grew there but the ground was soft and pliable, perfect for digging holes. I dug for hours, filling plastic cups with the damp dirt and lining them up in neat rows. It was purposeless but it took up the time and Nana never fussed as long as I emptied all the dirt back into the ground - this was, she reminded me, the route she took to the backyard clothesline and she had no wish to stumble in what she called one of my gopher holes and break her neck. Dig all you want, she told me, Just fill the holes in when you're done.
And so I did. The ground was never quite the same though, never as even and smooth as when I'd started and there were always soft spots where a heel might snag and sink, so Nana walked slowly and carefully, mindful of the risk but not willing to take the long way round. Perhaps, I think as I remember that narrow and dark space, that's how we get over the terrible hurts - by walking slow and careful over the ground we know and love and miss, respecting the holes, but walking just the same.
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