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There's not much else can be said. We celebrated my dad's life yesterday, and cried a lot about his death. I'm still crying, of course.
I am overwhelmingly grateful for my family, my Tribe, and all of the friends who have surrounded me with their love and concern, and held me up this week. This is all very, very hard, but it would be immeasurably harder without you.
My stepmother would like a copy of the eulogy I delivered. Unfortunately, the written version doesn't actually correspond very closely to what I said. I'll have to reconstruct from what I can remember.
( The eulogy I think I might have delivered )
Writing a eulogy for my dad is possibly the most difficult thing I have ever done. At the very least, it's the hardest writing job I ever hope to have.
( And these are the things I did not say )
It's been a dreadful, nightmarish blur, the past few days. A few things stand out. I continue to think that funeral homes are the weirdest places on Earth, with their tasteful furniture arranged around the outside of big empty rooms. Ours had a Tasteful Bookshelf, stocked with the Catholic Book of Worship, a copy of the Bible, one of Loyal She Remains, and a collection of demure-looking cloth-bound murder mysteries, tastefully arranged.
At the reception at my dad's Club, yesterday, some old guy came up to me, and to my brother separately, and informed each of us that he had known my dad longer than we had—40 years or more—and that he would therefore miss my dad more than we did. He didn't actually tell us who he was. Speculation runs rampant.
I remain convinced that open-casket visitations are just a Bad Idea. The body never looks like the person did, living, for the very good reason that the person is dead. So you have to look at the body and try to reconcile this construction with the memories of the living person. The cognitive dissonance does not help with the grieving process.
It's always macabre when you hear a knocking on the walls of your visitation suite.
I have more thoughts on blogging, community, and death, and I'll get those down later. For now, I'm going back to work tomorrow, and I'll continue with my slog through this liminal phase in which I (and my family) get to readjust our understanding of the world. The shape of my emotional landscape has changed, and I get to figure out how to readjust the furniture.
I am overwhelmingly grateful for my family, my Tribe, and all of the friends who have surrounded me with their love and concern, and held me up this week. This is all very, very hard, but it would be immeasurably harder without you.
My stepmother would like a copy of the eulogy I delivered. Unfortunately, the written version doesn't actually correspond very closely to what I said. I'll have to reconstruct from what I can remember.
( The eulogy I think I might have delivered )
Writing a eulogy for my dad is possibly the most difficult thing I have ever done. At the very least, it's the hardest writing job I ever hope to have.
( And these are the things I did not say )
It's been a dreadful, nightmarish blur, the past few days. A few things stand out. I continue to think that funeral homes are the weirdest places on Earth, with their tasteful furniture arranged around the outside of big empty rooms. Ours had a Tasteful Bookshelf, stocked with the Catholic Book of Worship, a copy of the Bible, one of Loyal She Remains, and a collection of demure-looking cloth-bound murder mysteries, tastefully arranged.
At the reception at my dad's Club, yesterday, some old guy came up to me, and to my brother separately, and informed each of us that he had known my dad longer than we had—40 years or more—and that he would therefore miss my dad more than we did. He didn't actually tell us who he was. Speculation runs rampant.
I remain convinced that open-casket visitations are just a Bad Idea. The body never looks like the person did, living, for the very good reason that the person is dead. So you have to look at the body and try to reconcile this construction with the memories of the living person. The cognitive dissonance does not help with the grieving process.
It's always macabre when you hear a knocking on the walls of your visitation suite.
I have more thoughts on blogging, community, and death, and I'll get those down later. For now, I'm going back to work tomorrow, and I'll continue with my slog through this liminal phase in which I (and my family) get to readjust our understanding of the world. The shape of my emotional landscape has changed, and I get to figure out how to readjust the furniture.
