Just Die Already!
by Amy Austin on August 24, 2006
Okay... so it's finally time to write a second post.
The main ingredient this time would be the recent passing of a friend with cancer (only 36). Add to the mix my love for Denis Leary's awesome series "Rescue Me" (coming to the close of its 3rd season, with the expected amount of drama... i.e., a sudden death) and Aaron's very saddening and guilt-ridden "Happy Birthday" blog post, and you have the makings for some weird night-time shit-soup in my head...
The funeral for my friend was Monday, in Florida. I debated about whether or not to go -- not just because of the expense and inconvenience, but also because of that horrible truism that people will often place greater importance (or priority, anyway) on being at someone's funeral than in getting there to be with them in their last days before that point. There's a reason that cancer has the reputation it does, though. It's as devastating to those around -- family/friends -- as to the patients themselves, and when terminal, brings with it the sad and guilty hope for the end to come sooner rather than later. I finally saw this first-hand with my grandfather, and I wouldn't wish that type of end on anyone... least of all someone close.
To make matters worse, however, this was not the first for my friends' family (his sister is my best friend) -- six years ago, they watched their father go in the exact same fashion. My heart aches for their mom, who has now lost a husband *and* a son to the same horrible illness -- with another close family friend passing of lung cancer in between. Naturally, this was taking quite a toll on my best friend, too... and I share in her guilt for the growing desire to stay more distant as the end came nearer.
The upside to this, of course, is in being spared the sight of someone growing weak and wasting away, both physically and spiritually. I won't be able to remember my friend in any other way than I knew him... not as his sister described him to me in his final days, because I never saw it for myself -- this makes me luckier than his mother and brothers and sisters. Kind of hard to go to someone's funeral with that sort of guilt.
Also... my best friend was to be starting her vacation (planned months in advance) with her husband and friends -- another couple who goes back to high school with them, that husband a designated pall-bearer. They took the time out of their planned trip (only a couple of hours away) to return for his funeral. I didn't want to add to that burden by becoming a "fifth wheel"... since I would naturally want to spend some time visiting with my friend and not just mourning at her brother's funeral. So I didn't go, despite her protestations that I would not be an unwelcome intrusion on their vacation.
In my dream this morning, the undertakers were somehow more like Keystone Kops: the service was post-poned, and things -- like the embalming -- were botched... all in the most surreal fashion that makes such dreams almost impossible to convey in the retelling. And when I say "surreal", I mean just that -- the embalming did not "take", and my friend was alive and well, just as I remember him... and weirdly and inappropriately giddy! We were all telling him that he needed to "be dead" now, as his funeral was about to take place. It was tripping me out, even as I slept, that he was alive and well... with nothing but embalming fluid (not) coursing through him! I had the most bizarre sensation... as I might imagine feeling if I had to put down one of our beloved dogs -- a sort of distress and lack of acceptance about having to do such a thing -- paired with utter disbelief at the circumstances. To say "it was weird" seems a bit of an understatement.
The couple who ran the mortuary services -- and looked like Condoleeza Rice and the white guy from the Jeffersons, I guess -- were also a very odd pair... they had some sort of a mini-turntable that they held as their credentialling, saying that the very blood of Jesus had been spilled on it (never mind that turntables -- yes, as in "record players" -- certainly did not exist in the time of Jesus!)... and that was supposed to be the proof of their lack of ineptitude. WTF?
I don't think I can pull all the details together any more coherently than that, but suffice it to say that I woke up puzzled and in need of a recount. So there you have it... another look into my Dadaist dreamscape.
Five Replies to Just Die Already!
Lori Lancaster | August 25, 2006
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Scott Hardie | August 27, 2006
Same here, my condolences. From someone else still plagued years later by nightmares induced by guilt over skipping funerals, I wish you a clean conscience soon.
Amy Austin | August 30, 2006
Thanks, y'all...
I'm pretty sure I remember you mentioning that around the time of my grandfather's funeral, Scott -- and I really couldn't relate to it then, but now I think I understand. Since funerals are more for the living than for the deceased, though, my guilt is more about them (my friend's family) than about my friend -- and I know that it won't be held against me, either way (at least, I don't think so!)... so I will be fine.
But I can also certainly understand my bf's concerns about it overlapping her vacation plans and her not wanting to return the night before (for the viewing). She was already pretty accepting of the inevitable and didn't need the ritual of a viewing for psychological closure, the way I expect some of her other family members might have... and the concern in that case is naturally for perception/"appearances". *I* know that it wouldn't mean that she loved her brother any less for her not to be at the viewing, but I also know her other family members. (Who wants to see a sad painted shell, anyway??? I ask that, knowing full well that doing so at my grandfather's funeral somehow *did* make me feel better... grief is a very personal process, and it's a shame for it to be turned into a measuring stick of love by which to judge fellow survivors -- but I know that it happens...)
So, which is it for you, Scott -- guilt for the living, or guilt for the deceased? If it's the former, then it's likely that it can be resolved just by talking about it with those in question. If it's the latter, then that's something that only you can give yourself permission to let go of, because it calls a lot into question: your belief/non-belief in what comes after life, knowing in good faith what your relationship to that person was and that he/she knows it, too, etc.
Whichever the case, I hope that *you're* at peace about it now or someday soon -- and thank you lots for your kind words and empathy.
Scott Hardie | August 30, 2006
Thank you too. This is quite a thought-provoking subject.
In my case, it's a form of guilt for the deceased. I come from a tiny clan that upholds few traditions, so it troubles me greatly that I failed to honor our departed members on one of the only proper occasions I would ever get. It's about having sunk below my own minimal standards for self-conduct and being genuinely disgusted with myself for it. But, hey, if you'll pardon the expression, life does go on.
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