sharing grief/funerals
The Last Goodbye
I have always hated funerals.
As a child, I was exposed to my grandmother’s funeral and the very dramatic, over-the-top behavior of my mother’s sister. And then, of course, there was my mother’s funeral. No one prepared me for the fact that my dead mother in an open coffin wouldn’t look much like the woman I loved. No one had told me that her skin had lost its warmth so when I leaned in to kiss her one last time, my lips were met with a rigid coolness.
I was the youngest Human at both events. The adults around me seemed oblivious, lost to their own pain. I watched my father and my sisters share their grief with the other adults assembled and I was mortified. As a shy child, baring my pain in front of nearly total strangers was completely unacceptable.
I could not be vulnerable, no matter how much I hurt.
I vowed to never put my kids through this kind of circus.
Then The Irishman died during the pandemic. He died before there were vaccines. He died when funerals were considered super-spreader events. He died with only his immediate family in attendance to celebrate All. The. Things. he was to All. Of. Us. who loved him. And it left a hole in my heart that will never close. An open gaping…
