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Days before she died, my cousin Marcia and I sat around her sister’s dining room table. The meal long finished, we chatted into the evening about old times. Perhaps it is the way karma works, but somehow the conversation came around to what people might say about each of us after we died. We both smiled at the thought that her brother born with cerebral palsy and a speech impediment would be the one who would draw the biggest crowd to his funeral, the one about whom there would be so much to say, a testimony to George’s beautiful nature and the unwavering devotion of his parents and siblings. I spoke with Marcia again the morning of her scheduled medical procedure, a procedure intended to clear a blocked artery. She felt a little “off” she told me, blaming the new medicine the doctor had prescribed prior to the surgery, but I had already heard it in her voice, and I felt it too. Something was off and it hovered. Marcia spent most of the day in surgery after a major blood vessel exploded during the procedure. She was delivered to intensive care in an unconscious state. She never spoke to us again. She died in the night after hospital visitation rules had sent us all home. Turns out Marcia drew a big crowd to her funeral. There was much to be said about her life, her significant accomplishments, and her beautiful nature. Yesterday in the mail I received a copy of the 2009 literary journal, Alimentum, containing Marcia’s first nonfiction essay, The Proof is in the Pudding, in which she described cooking and baking to keep busy after the death of her beloved father. She noted that she did not share the faith of those who offered condolences. She searched for God and proof of everlasting life in the mixture that would become dough for pies. She wrote: “Transfiguration. It is a miracle. I have witnessed a miracle. And what other comfort people derive from faith, I pour into my pie shell and begin to believe again that in the end we are transformed and we go on. I hold the proof here in my floured hands.” They come back to us these people we have loved. Today, I hold the proof in my hands: Alimentum, Issue Eight, Summer, 2009, pages seven through nine.
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Nothing like a family funeral to sow salt powder into the clouds. Everyone does their duty--puts on their funeral clothes and somber faces, fills their pockets with clichés: "I am sorry for your loss,” or “They’re in a better place.” Duties are done, flowers are ordered, donations are made but old hurts are awakened and they simmer as they keep the phone lines open: “Do you remember when…” As I near the peak of life expectancy, I can’t believe this is still going on--even in me and my own extended family. It seems to me that, by now, we are all older and should have some life experience and perspective. We’ve all been through stuff. Hard stuff. When we hope for understanding and acceptance, why is it so hard to give? Looking back, maybe that aunt wasn’t rude; maybe she was just painfully shy to the point of avoidance. Maybe an aunt literally shopped ‘til she dropped to keep memories of a savage beating in a public square at bay. Maybe the cousin who couldn’t hold a job wasn’t just a loser. Maybe he was a kid overwhelmed on the inside by a frantic level of anxiety and ADHD as he tried to negotiate life in a family so busy that they invented the word frenzied. Maybe the jovial aunt WAS funny, but she was also cruel and hot-tempered at times--and maybe a bit too often. Maybe the uncle with the bad temper wasn’t mad at the world. Maybe he was stuck in a grief that had overwhelmed him since childhood. Maybe a cousin wasn’t just an addict, maybe he drank to medicate horrific memories of losses that time would not heal. On earth, we are all flawed humans. Maybe we invented the idea of heaven because we all desire to be better, perfect even, and we know we just can’t do it on our own. The promise of the after-life is that we will be made perfect, but what is this perfection that gives us hope? Do we expect all of the manufacturing flaws that burdened us on earth to be erased? I wonder about that version of heaven and of God. Maybe heaven is heavenly because we surrender our defenses at the gate. Once inside, we won’t need them anymore because, just maybe, in heaven, the streets are not lined with gold, but our hearts are lined with mercy, mercy for ourselves and for each other. When I was a freshman in high school, I had to memorize “The Quality of Mercy” from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The words come back to me now: The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis the mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown… It is an attribute to God himself. At this personal moment and in these stormy times, we could us a gentle rain…Lord, have mercy.  “Mom, I hear her!” At the insistence of my seven-year-old son, we follow the laughter into the next aisle. But it is not her. It could not have been. She was murdered a few weeks before—a teenage girl with a life full of promise and a chest full of gunshot. A paranoid and obsessed boyfriend took her down in her own apartment. Her parents heard the news on the car radio while driving to work. And yet, here she is--a niece, a cousin--in Wal-Mart, aisle four. Attention shoppers! For a moment, she returns to us in notes of laughter, a song that should have been hers but wasn’t. Feelings of unreality, yearning, and hope unite with memory. Does she message us from heaven? *** I busy myself at my desk, peering intently into a computer screen. Suddenly, I smell her. “Sita? Is that you?” I follow the scent into the kitchen. But it is not her. It could not have been. She died 57 years ago from complications of diabetes. Three thousand miles away, my family got the call. And yet, here she is—a beloved grandmother—in my tiny galley kitchen. For a moment, she returns to me in the scent of lentils simmering on the stove. Lentils--a food we ate so often in her home that they became the eternal fragrance of her flesh. Is this comfort in a pandemic? *** It is midnight. We are watching Johnny Carson when the bells clang at the village church nearby. Across the living room, I see my aunt sit up straight in the recliner chair. Her body stiffens. “Can it be?” I follow her to the front door. We look outside. Never have I heard these church bells ring. My aunt tells me that the ringing ceased when World War II ended. With no more casualties of war to report, the bells went silent. And yet, here we are—in a town where families still grieve over soldiers lost, remains unreturned. On this dark, still night, is a son reaching back from the ashes of war to say I am found? *** Are they here? Or are these experiences sensory tricks played on suggestible minds? Are the heightened emotions and tensed muscles products of overactive imaginations? If so, explain that to the preschool child in foster care who collapses in grief at the smell of baking bread. He carries a burden of grief for a mother he can no longer name, a face he cannot recognize. And yet, her love reaches out to him through an oven door. *** No, these occurrences are not imaginings. They are more than the prosthetic memories produced by cell phones and machines, more than Hollywood special effects. They are not images distinct from our own beings. These special occasions are rememberings. Through a cosmic miracle, the remembered are present, a presence that is real though invisible in the same way that a giant sequoia is fully present inside a tiny seed. In these moments of remembering we are equally present and engaged with those we have loved. In his book, Remembering, Edward Casey wrote that remembering happens both WITH and IN the lived body. “…we come back to the things that matter.” Casey describes his own nostalgia for these experiences: “it is insofar as they are unrepeatable that these remembered times beckon so movingly and powerfully to me in the present.” In my own moments of remembering, I understand why the ancients believed in spirits and an afterlife and why those beliefs have persisted for thousands of years. The words of the Old Testament tell us that the giants of those Bible stories were “gathered to their people” when they died. I am grateful for rememberings-- when my people gather here for me.  The truth is out. Upon hearing it, I nearly fell over right there on the spot. The revelation came from a colleague of mine who owns a poultry farm. She and her family raise chickens for a giant national food corporation. Concerned about slow-downs at meat processing plants earlier in the pandemic, my co-worker happened to mention that the birds would have to be killed if they could not get to the processing plant in timely fashion. Apparently, if the hens’ breasts grow too large the chickens topple over. They fall and they can’t get up. THE END. It was an “aha” moment for me—a premonition. My life passed before me, and I realized--this is how I am going to die. Women of a certain age and build will know what I mean. Now history makes sense. This is how women became doormats in the first place. I took a whiff of ammonia to keep from fainting and recognized the smell of a multi-generational conspiracy to keep women down. There are oceans of little blue pills for men who can’t get up, but nothing for this age-old problem affecting women. Is there no little pink pill for pectoral dysfunction? While I can picture the final tipping point, what is harder to imagine is the coroner’s report. What exactly are the words used to describe the cause of death? Is it simply natural causes? Or is there something more medical, more official? Terminal sagacity? And what does one write in the obituary? Perhaps it happens suddenly, but at a certain point, it can’t be unexpected. Surely, a woman sees it coming. Should tributes be described as a battle? A journey? Would it be too crass to say, “She could no longer stand up for herself?” And what of the arrangements? Should it be open or closed coffin? After the cause of death is revealed, you know visitors won’t be able to manage their eyes. How awkward for the family. And what does one say in condolence? Something uplifting? Now that I have had this glimpse of the future, I can spare you that uncomfortable expression of sympathy. When my time comes, just say: “She was larger than life."  “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (1 Samuel 18:1) I treasure this ancient and beautiful description of friendship and the image of souls knit together into one fabric, a cloth fashioned from threads that are soft and strong and deep. A similar description in the book of Mark describes marriage: “and the two shall become one flesh” (10:8). Like Davidandjonathan, we all know relationships that share one name in our mental directory: Rickyanddennis, Maryandbill, Betsyandjoe, Bobbyanddenise, Momanddad, Nanaandpop-pop, brotherandsister, husbandandwife, parentandchild. When one dies, our minds struggle to compute. For the surviving half, the ache of loss can become like phantom limb pain. It is not psychological, as in “all in your head.” It is not “unresolved grief,” or “complicated bereavement.” As the brain continues to remember the missing limb and continues to try to communicate with it, so the soul still speaks, activating emotions, trying to connect with the missing member. Dr. Gordon Livingston who experienced the deaths of two sons, one from leukemia and one from suicide, writes in his book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: “Like all who mourn I learned an abiding hatred for the word “closure,” with its comforting implications that grief is a time-limited process from which we all recover.” During this year of 2020, we have experienced so much tragedy. The pandemic alone has generated a landslide of loss. Add to that disaster the unprecedented wildfires, a record hurricane season, increases in violent crime and murder, and deaths from drug overdoses and suicides. There are so many who have been ripped apart from their other halves, carrying on with aching, missing limbs. And there are the thousands of health care workers who were present as the threads were cut who will forever carry the memories of those moments and the grief absorbed. A vaccine is coming. This viral-crisis will end, but words like “let the healing begin” or “getting closure” will be inadequate. There is not a starting line and a pistol shot to mark the beginning, and there is no finish line. The effects of this difficult year will be felt not just individually, but in our national soul forever. In Greek mythology, Pandora opened a jar containing sickness, death, and evil. Before she could close the container, all of that darkness escaped into the world. Pandora hurriedly closed the container, and all that remained in the jar was hope. Dr. Livingston offers some advice to other survivors of loss. He writes not about closure or healing, but about hope: “This is what passes for hope: those we have lost evoked in us feelings of love that we didn’t know we were capable of. These permanent changes are their legacies, their gifts to us. It is our task to transfer that love to those who still need us. In this way we remain faithful to their memories.” Today, there are millions in mourning. We must call upon our better halves and transfer some of that love to those who need us.  I knew them both. A few short miles separated their houses. A greater distance separated their lives. He had everything, it seemed. She had nothing. Their ages differed by more than fifty years. He had passed the age of ninety. She was barely thirty-five. A wide gulf separated their achievements. He was a decorated soldier, a retired corporate executive, and a practicing lay minister. She worked in a hotel, making beds and scrubbing toilets. He created a family that spanned many generations, and he had lived to see the children of his great-grandchildren. She would not live to see her only child go off to kindergarten. His stately home was built of brick and sat beaming on a cul-de-sac in an old, established neighborhood. A yard sign advertised his house on the Holiday Tour of Homes. In the garage, a boat kept company with a luxury automobile. His home was paid for. He had money in the bank and two hefty pensions. He lived each day surrounded by tasteful furnishings and expensive collectibles. She lived in a modest tract home in a low-rent neighborhood where broken-down vehicles lined the streets. A security camera on the house next door blinked the steady reminder of a break-in. Her small Ford was parked in the driveway, but it really belonged to the bank, not to her. She had no savings. Bill collectors called. She hoped to receive a disability check. Holes from a man’s fist, holes from her head accented the walls. He had the pleasure of a marriage that lasted more than fifty years. He said his wife was his closest friend. She awaited the arrival of a divorce decree. She said she still loved the man who put the holes in the walls. Despite his training and ministry to others, he believed that God was a son-of-a-bitch with a bad sense of humor. She had no religious instruction but hoped that God was kind and watching over her. He had many well-educated and capable adult children who tried to care for him, but he chased them away with his irascible disposition. With grace and patience, she allowed a mentally ill mother and a drug-addicted sister to care for her, to rise above their means and their own problems, to be better and braver than they might otherwise be. He greeted every day with contempt and hostility. He behaved so badly that a sigh of relief was offered to heaven when he passed suddenly and alone. She was surprised and grateful to open her eyes each day. She was showered with attention, tender care, and kisses. Heaven’s gate opened wide to a woman loved. Appearances can be deceiving. He that dies with the most toys is not always the winner. In the end, when both had died just days apart, she was the one who had everything.  In a year in which we have felt that everything we hold dear is in jeopardy, a final blow—we lost the man with all of the answers. Jeopardy! has been on the air since 1964 beginning as a daytime television show, but those first twenty years were just a warm-up for the real headliner, Alex Trebek, who stepped onto the set in 1984. Folks like Khloe Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg, LeBron James, Mandy Moore, and Lindsey Vonn who were born in 1984 spent their entire lives with Alex Trebek. He was Jeopardy! Several generations have grown up or grown old with him in their living rooms each evening. Jeopardy! is the game that brought us all together. It was a TV trivial pursuit, but it didn’t feel trivial. We played along with those Jeopardy! contestants feeling scholarly and wise. Young and old, we shouted out answers. I knew my children were grown up when they became the ones with the correct responses. Unlike so many other contests in life, there were no losers on Jeopardy! It was an honor to play the game. To be chosen as a contestant elevated a person to the category of intellectual. For those of us playing from home, a single correct response gave us hope, elevating our own self-esteem. For those thirty minutes each evening, we experienced the power of engaged minds. There was nothing else in the universe. No worrying. No arguing. No ruminating. We played the game. This week, I have come to an aching acceptance of an empty chair in my living room. The game will go on, but there will always be someone missing. There will be dinner each evening, but no dessert. There was the game, and then there was Alex Trebek. He was handsome and recognizable at age 50 and still at age 80. Alex was a star in his own right, but not tabloid fodder. He was low key and projected a world that was better than we thought it could be. The most shocking thing he ever did was shave his mustache. He was not one to be outrageous for the purpose of seeking attention, but he was known for his sharp wit—even his humor was intelligent. He was a good sport and made an occasional appearance on Saturday Night Live and once traded places with Wheel of Fortune Host Pat Sajak as an April Fools Day joke. His gentle life was a lesson though he did not preach. We felt the lesson just as much as we could see it. He emanated decency and old-fashioned manners. Alex Trebek was smart, articulate, steady, graceful, and gracious. His presence was comforting and reassuring. A stickler for the rules, he was not a judge. If the clue was “Salt of the earth,” the correct response would be: “Who is Alex Trebek.” In spite of the popular advice to “find your passion,” we saw a man who had found his niche. He seemed to understand that life’s answers often come in the form of a question. Equipped with knowledge, a person can ask the right questions. As Jeopardy’s Executive Producer Mike Richards recently stated, Alex Trebek “made being smart cool.” A Holocaust survivor once told me that he looked forward to heaven because “that’s where all the answers will be.” I smile now as I recall those words that this week became a prophecy. Heaven is where all the answers will be. Alex Trebek will be our host. “I’ll take ‘Enlightenment’ for a $1,000, Alex.” |
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