Dealing With It
by
Dick Prosapio © 2005
So shalt thou rest -- and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
Excerpt from Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
My
father died ten years ago this past Labor Day weekend. I've had a
few shocks in my life but that one is right at the top. Funny thing
is, I'd been rehearsing it for years you know, the, "Where will I
be? How will I feel? What will I do? kinds of fruitless ruminations.
My biggest fear was that I'd be in the middle of
some big ceremonial event somewhere in the mountains and not hear
about it till a week later. Or maybe be in the Grand Canyon and not
get the message till two weeks later.
I don't know what difference that would have made.
The worst case scenario was that he would have a heart attack, be
alive for that time and I would not be able to get to his bedside to
be with him.
It didn't happen that way of course. There was
just this phone call about eight in the morning from some stranger,
the EMS people, "I'm sorry to tell you that your father has passed
on." And me thinking in the moment, or rather not thinking at all,
but reacting to what seemed like some kind of wrong number; "Who is
this? What are you saying?" etc.
Shock.
Well, that was ten years ago and in case you
haven't gone through this yet, yes, I still miss him. Not daily,
just every now and then. He was 84. "Too young." I still think. But,
obviously, it was time. He'd had a small stroke and lost vision in
one eye. There might have been more to come and he would not have
done well with incapacitation. Especially not if my mother had to be
in charge.
She went at 90+, and it was time for her too. She
was not doing well mentally, starting to get paranoid and always
very anxious about crime and so on. She was tough and a survivor,
but really, she was ready. She had a stroke first which left her
happily confused. By this I mean, handed a deck of cards, my mother,
who played solitaire every morning for, ummm, at least 75 of her 90
years, could do nothing but push them aimlessly, but happily, around
the tabletop.
She also took a damp cloth to the countertops in
my sister's house and did that cheerfully too. She was keeping
herself occupied, doing what she had always done, or at least what
she thought of as being useful. She never was one to just sit
and stare. Unless "General Hospital" or "Wheel of Fortune" was on.
One sure indication that she was going way round
the bend was when she began seeing "a big eye." in the pattern of a
tree shadow on a garage roof across the street. That might seem a
natural thing to happen if you stared at a particular spot long
enough at a certain time of day, but she claimed it was there all
day long. When I visited, I tried to make it out but couldn't see
anything resembling the mysterious "eye".
Maybe the cataracts contributed something to it I
don't know.
But in the end, she was ready to go. No doubt
about it.
My Aunt Mary, I referred to her as "The one who
raised me." Was the light in my family. Tough, funny, always called
a thing what it was, and was, mostly, accurate in her assessments.
She the last link I had with the Italian side. When I was sad as a
kid, she was the one who insisted I snap out of it, usually by
getting me to join her in singing, "Casey would waltz with the
strawberry blond" an old Irish tune, to which she would add the
drums, the tuba, the cymbals, and the trumpets ala the Italian
carnival band that would play at the church "picnics" once a year.
She could do the whole band and we would have a ball any morning I
woke up at my grandmother's house and I jumped into her bed for a
songfest. She went to soon I thought, in her mid 80's early this
year, but she was beginning to lose it too. Beginning to see visions
and ruminate about them. In the end her heart gave out.
The loss of John Peterson, good friend, husband,
father, brother, men's group member, Long Dancer, artist; so many
things to so many people, the fact that he had to go at all
was hard for everyone. The brain tumor was inexorable and when
"inevitability" set in, we all knew he was ready and so were we.
Still hard though.
And then there was "Wuf", the faithful "spirit
dog" everybody got to know when they visited our land. He must have
been about 17 when his heart couldn't handle the stress anymore. He
died in "the mud room" where he slept most nights and from where he
bounded in the mornings to be greeted by his "brother-dog" Tie Dye.
It was time for him too but that's something Tie Dye still doesn't
understand. He is very subdued these days, and spends most of his
time under the deck staring out into the distance across our land.
I don't dwell on any of these losses. They come in
and out of my consciousness and I just thought I'd tally them up
here. But now and then the specter of "What if..?" sneaks in. Sort
of a, "Who's next?" pang. I dismiss that kind of stuff fairly
quickly, especially when it involves Elizabeth or one of the kids.
Objectively speaking, each of these souls left us
at the "right" time. Though John, without a tumor, would have had at
least another 20 years, the fact of the tumor shortened his life
"expectancy", which he outlived by almost two years.
When my "editor" Elizabeth read this she said it
seemed "depressive". I suppose, since I'm not writing about "hope",
or "courage-in-the-end" or any of those more positive themes, it can
read that way. But I don't feel depressed writing any of it.
Each of these lived as full a life as they could live and perhaps
that's all I mean to say in this kind of summing up.
I've written a lot about my father and mother, and
a little about good ol' Aunt Mary. I've certainly written about John
and the shock and sadness I, and we, all felt as he went through the
process we all wished he did not have to endure.
And I've written about that great dog of ours.
No, I don't feel sad about any of these passings.
But that doesn't mean I don't miss the times we shared together and
regret the fact that they are gone.
I guess this is about acceptance. And it's
about love. About learning, again, how important it is to love those
who are still here before it becomes an exercise in abstraction,
regret, and yearning. Not that I didn't love each of these actively
while they were around to receive it. Fortunately, I had enough
consciousness and time before each left to let them know I loved
them. But, like any good stage act, "Always leave 'em wanting more!"
still plays for each of them.
A few more days, months, years for them to be
around would have been just fine.
I wish my dad was around to approve of my home
upkeep skills for one. He was a "This Old House" fan and I wasn't at
the time. But I watch it for tips now just as he did. It would have
been one more point of connection we would have had if he'd stuck
around just a bit longer.
And if John were still here he and I would have
worked on figuring out "Photoshop". That was a struggle we were both
into.
And the next time I visited Chicago I would have
liked to have spent more time with Aunt Mary and perhaps been
successful at getting her to overcome her irrational fear of snakes
and flying long enough to get her to the southwest so she could
experience a Pueblo corn dance. That would have fulfilled one of her
long time and never realized dreams.
I would have liked to be able to call my mother
and tell her about the hail storm that destroyed our roof last week.
And the next time I walk down the trail to the
sweat lodge, it would be nice if I could turn around and expect to
see Wuf walking along behind me where he was every time for ten
years.
Simple, small, empty places once filled by these
fine souls now populated by their ghosts either in my memory or in
another reality. Discovering whichever it is hardly matters. I carry
them with me one way or the other missing their physical presence,
sensing their spirits in my life.
