Death of a stranger

The phone rings. It is 7am on Thursday. My wife yells up from downstairs that it is my mother. My mother never calls at odd times unless someone has died, and I merely have to pick up the phone each time to find out who it is.

The last time she called it was my uncle Roy. He was a gregarious man that went through life enjoying it, and had as many girlfriends/wives/lovers as shoes he had owned during the course of his life. He had three sons, two of which had taken the wrong path in life and found their way into long prison sentences, and one that committed suicide at the age of twenty two.

She always details to me the nature of their death, what family members are planning on attending, and how the family is reacting. It is like having my own obituary service, and while appreciated makes for a certain hesitancy to answer the phone when it is not time for her weekly catch up call on the weekends, as it means someone life that I knew has ended.


She always details to me the nature of their death, what family members are planning on attending, and how the family is reacting. It is like having my own obituary service, and while appreciated makes for a certain hesitancy to answer the phone when it is not time for her weekly catch up call on the weekends, as it means someone life that I knew has ended.

This time is was someone I knew, but did not know. It was my father. Estranged does not really go far enough to describe the situation as I never knew him well enough to ever have felt alienated from him, or missed him, or to feel any bitterness toward him. He was for all practical purposes just a distant relative, like we all have but never see, and I never had any delusions as to some grand connection between us. We had some contact after I graduated from high school, but as my life busied with work, I moved away from town, and in the midst of just the day to dayness that life can become we lost contact over twelve years ago.

My mother details the information to me, as to when the funeral and what not will occur, but it coincides with plans that I already have, so I see little chance of me attending, but she wants me to call my sister and talk to her, as my mother thinks she is taking it pretty rough.

I call my sister and indeed she is not taking it well, and has taken the day off as she feels she will not be able to make it through the work day. She is planning on attending and I tell her that I will go with her if she goes so that she does not have to attend alone, as she will be among strangers and may be, or may not be welcome.

My sister and I have only recently moved beyond the preexisting brother-sister relationship into an adult relationship, so it is important to me to be there for her regardless of my feelings on the subject, and I begin to rearrange my schedule for the next couple of days.

Unlike myself, I think that my sister had held on to the sliver of hope that she and he would one day sit down and talk. Talk about the important things and the past. Talk about her life, and his life. Learn about him and get to know him. I think she had pinned some small part of herself on this hope. That she felt it would validate a small part of her if she knew this man. That she would be made whole and reclaim a part of her that she felt had been missing. His death has sealed off this hope with the finality that only death can bring, and this now only adds weight to the feelings of incompleteness that she has.

The next thing I do is to go onto the internet and read the obituary. A death announcement is a strange thing. It is pristine and washed. It is a summary of the days we spent alive, and those we leave behind. It is the good without the bad and the ugly. All things are forgiven in an obituary and we are redeemed. I think I will write my own and add some seedy details.

I travel with my wife and daughter to the Falls and meet my sister at her home. We go to the funeral home, and sit in the back. We do not want our presence to disrupt the proceedings, or add another layer of tension to what already is not a good experience for anyone involved.

It is an open casket funeral and his upper body is on display for the attendees to take in. I think about the finality of it [Death]. Its impact. Its unanswered questions. Its many meanings. The symbolism of it. The reality of it. I am affected differently than my sister. It is not his death in particular, but death in general that swarms my thoughts. I feel as if I am moving into another segment of life. I have buried all of my grandparents and great grandparents, and I am now moved up a position where those that gave me life will now lose theirs. It is only a matter of time before I move up another notch and into waiting for my own death. This has profound meaning for me beyond just the fact that I will no longer be alive, but how will those that survive me get on with things. Who will ensure that my wife is taken care of, and not taken advantage of in her declining years as barring any accidents she shall surely out live me by many years? Who will insure that my children have guidance and direction? Who will take on the weight the world offers and that they may need help with? The fact that time is limited is hammered home with me. That the days, hours and minutes are ticking off. The time I have left must count and be well spent.

My minds wanderings are interrupted by the entrance of his family. He had a wife that he was married to for twenty-eight years. He has two stepsons, a son and a daughter. He has ten grandchildren. I feel bad for them, and for my sister, for he who was a stranger to me was a beloved of them. I sit through the rest of the service and listen to the preacher give his sermon. He weaves from talking about the love of a redeeming Christ to the hellfire that awaits those of us that do not believe. I smile to myself and think I should be buried with a big bag of marshmallows just in case.

The service ends and we make a quick exit out the rear doors. We do not join the procession that slowly walks by the body. We do not pass go.

I worry that my sister will only see and feel the hole that she thinks is there. That she will overlook the many blessings in her life, and focus in, for awhile or for the rest of her life, on what she feels is missing. That she will not see past the illusion, and let it remain real to her. It is difficult, if not impossible, to discuss it with her. How can I say to her that the meaning of her, the essence of what she is and will be, is not tied up in or to another person that she never knew. I can only hope that she will allow herself to come into the realization that she can be a creation of her own. That she has a freedom to chart her own course, and to make her life truly her own without the confines of another's beliefs, limitations, or preconceptions. I do not think she would be overly accepting of this now, but have hopes for the future.

I am ever hopeful of the future, and that with effort a better one can be made.