“…This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go…”

By Emily Dickinson

We have had another death to deal with in our extended family. Nicole, my cousin’s girlfriend, lost her mother. It was not expected. She had been physically well. She died in her sleep, most mercifully. But, now our Nicole is suffering an unbounded loss. And, I have no words to say to her to make anything better. I have read Shakespeare, the Greek Philosophers, a zillion others, too, and not a thing they have written give me solace, except the universality of the experience, the shared nature of it. But, to be honest, who the hell cares about these truths at times like these? I lost my father when I was 18 years old. My sister, Ann, was 16. People who tried to comfort me back then said stuff like this that made me crazy, and my mind responded in ways they would not have imagined:

“He’s in a better place now.” My mind’s response, “Fuck you.”

“God called him home,” My mind’s response, “Fuck Him.”

“God does everything for a reason,” My mind’s response, “Fuck His ‘reasons.’”

Please keep in mind I was very young, very young. But, so was my father. I had no patience for those typical offerings of condolence. I had no sense of grace or how to grieve. I was stuck in the easiest stage of grief without knowing it: anger. Anger feels like strength, but it isn’t. Anger feels like protection, but it isn’t. Anger feels better than pain, but that is what it is really masking. You want to yell and scream and strike out and hit things and curse people and beat the shit out of anything stupid enough to get in your way, but it is only the first of many stages of grief you will have to live through; and the longer you stay stuck in this one, the harder it is to get on with the rest. When my father died, I was just a kid. A teenager. And, for teenagers, anger is often the safest, easiest emotion to have. As I did whenever something went wrong in my teenage life, I turned to words and music for comfort:

“Oh very young ,
What will you leave us this time?
You're only dancing on this earth for a short while,
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now

They will vanish away like your daddy's best jeans,
Denim blue fading up to the sky,
And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will, you know they never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still…”

“Oh Very Young,” by Cat Stevens

My father only danced on this earth for a short while. He was 53 years old when he died. We had a difficult relationship, like the metaphorical faded and patched jeans of Cat Stevens’ song; and, yes the “patches” made the goodbye harder still.

I loved my father dearly, but I was, in some very important, difficult ways just like him. To quote Bruce, I was Adam’s Cain:

We were prisoners of love, a love in chains,
He was standin' in the door, I was standin' in the rain,
with the same hot blood burning in our veins,
Adam raised a Cain.

My little sister, Ann, at 16, had more sense than I, and a better relationship with my father. My father’s death and the devastation of that loss were exquisitely translated for me by one single act that has forever stood as the representation of love and loss throughout my life. She changed the carnation in his lapel. People were all over the place. They had to open up three chapels. It was back in the day where you had 2 or 3 day wakes before the funeral. It was brutal. And, in the overwhelming crush of condolences and the smell of funeral flowers, I see my little sister changing my father’s carnation. Because she wanted him to have a fresh one. Because she wanted him to look handsome. Because, even in death, he was still her father and she loved him and did for him. She took care of him. He was, and always will be, her “Daddy.” She was doing the loving while I was doing the warring. As a result, she was able to send him off without any stain upon her conscience. I, The Angry, was too busy plotting my revenge against God, too busy hating Him, too busy hating the guy at the gas station who wouldn’t sell me gas because there was gas-rationing going on at the time—1979—and the wrong last number on my dad’s license plate prevented the attendant from filling up the car. I remember I got out and went after the guy. “My father just died. I need gas to get to his wake.” “Sorry.” “What? What did you say? Didya hear me? MY FATHER DIED! YOU FUCKING MORON! MY FATHER DIED! FILL UP THIS CAR! WHAT? WHAT?! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU…” my aunt told me to get back in the car. Yeah, I was too busy hating the world to spend those last moments with my father in some kind of loving peace.

My sister changing his carnation was the simple act that powerfully brought me into reality, and will remain the singular representation of real, enduring love to me throughout my life. I love my sister.

I wrote an autobiography ten years ago. Writing it was truly a labor of love. It did strange and magical things to me. For my Aunt Sue’s 75^th birthday, my cousins threw her a surprise party. Almost all of our vast number of relatives came. At one point, my cousin Susan played a slide show of great family pictures, set to very moving old songs. I started to cry and found I couldn’t stop. I was crying from such a deep place, sobbing actually, and only figured out months later that I had reached the place where all the love and the pain was. A metaphorical door opened inside of me and out came a book. I have been up since 4 a.m. trying to decide if I should do this, should share any part of that writing more publicly. I am struggling over doing this. I want to know that I am not doing this gratuitously. I know I am not writing for the masses, that very few people actually read me, but excerpting my book makes me feel very vulnerable and open to criticism. I am not convinced that sharing it may help anyone who reads it to have some kind of catharsis. But, I don’t know what else to offer, so I am offering a part of me, to whoever will let me in. I only hope you get something out of it.

……………

My father’s death. Here is how it went:

Two phone calls I can’t get out of my mind…My cousin Maria answers…a hot, cold streak of fear runs through me…“…but they can’t be in Puerto Rico that fast…” I go into my parents room, fall on my knees before the plaster saints on my Dad’s dresser, praying…the phone is ringing again…I stumble, trying to go from kneeling to running, and bounce into the hallway wall…Maria is crying, and still, but for a brief and bare second, it does not register… “Joanie, I’m so sorry, your father passed away…” that’s my Aunt Sue crying out these words to me…I feel like I have a concussion…I feel like I don’t know anything…don’t know anything but…but… “…I prayed…but I prayed…I prayed…to You…I prayed to You…You… “God Bless the Reale Home”…from a gilt-edged plate, a handsome, serene Jesus looks down on me from the lintel above the doorway to the kitchen…

Excerpt:

“Maria crying, Aunt Sue telling me she’s sorry, sorry that my father passed away, “Joanie, I’m so sorry, your father passed away.” Passed away. Passed away. “NOOOOO! NOOOOOO! I BEGGED YOU! I BEGGED YOU! ON MY KNEES! ON MY KNEES! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER! FUCK YOU! OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOO! NOOOOOO! NOOOOO! NO! NO! NO! NO! YOU BASTARD! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! Me, to the picture plate of Jesus saying “God Bless the Reale Home.” Punching the metal pantry doors like a punching bag. Punching and punching and punching and punching. And cursing. Spitting. Bleeding. Crying. Blind. Blind. With rage. With grief. Impossible grief. Breaking the doors. Aunt Sue crying. Telling God, “Oooh, please forgive her.” Roaring, roaring like a wounded, bleeding animal. “FORGIVE ME? FORGIVE ME? I DON’T FORGIVE YOU! I DON’T FORGIVE YOU! I DON’T FORGIVE YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! Jumping. Jumping. Fists flailing and bleeding. Jumping, swinging over Aunt Sue’s head. To punch Jesus, to knock that serene face from its broken promise. To try to kill Him. Kill God. Who deserted me years ago. Who proves I was right. Today. Today. After years of hoping I was wrong. To be right. Like this. Today. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” Aunt Sue and Ann trying to stop me. Trying to grab me. Hold me. Pulling me into the hallway, the bathroom. Slamming into the walls. With my head. Everything immoveable is God. And I am His enemy. Banging my head. Wanting to feel the walls give. My tears flying everywhere. Landing on the edge of the tub. Ann and Aunt Sue trying to hold me down. Ann on my left arm. Grabbing the towel rack, with my right hand, nearly pulling it off. Water running. I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see...

And it is as if I have not seen past that day, that moment for all these years. All these very many years. Still smelling the flowers from the wake on my black jacket. The one I threw in the corner of our room and wouldn’t let my mother clean. The sickening smell of something dying. The dream two weeks before. My father in a light blue gray suit and hat. He never wore hats. And a cane. A matching cane. Like someone from another time. Getting into his new, blue gray Bonneville. Me, asking, “Dad--where are you going?” He, smiling, telling me I can’t go with him. Me running to the car as he gets in. His casket, blue gray. The suit my mother picked for him, blue gray. Ann changing his carnation, so small and all alone. Before the crowd arrives. She is not afraid to love, I’m thinking, my little sister, just sixteen, doing this aching and beautiful thing. It is the most loving gesture. The most heart-wrenching. The one that tears me apart, over and over, each time I think of it. Thinking of it always, it representing the moment I realize he is gone. From this world. From us. Forever. Thinking of Ann and my mother the first day of the wake. Seeing them kneeling, crying. My mother talking to him. Me, running. Running up the aisle. Trying to run out, run out, run out of there. Running back to the grave. After finding the card from our cross of white and red flowers. From Ann, Tuffy, and me. Wanting him to be buried with it and finding it on the ground as we were leaving. Running back to the grave to throw it in. People running and grabbing for me. Scared I was going to go crazy, throw myself in. Showing them the card. Letting me go. Alone to the grave. To deliver this last message. This goodbye. The only goodbye I’d get to deliver. Walking to the limo alone. To him and from him through the stages of my life.

……………

Talk about anger. Talk about sorrow. Talk about regret and the need for forgiveness. Talk about reflection and the grace Time gives us. The only way out of it is through it. The only way out of it is through it. Give yourself that gift.

I hope anyone who has suffered a great loss can empathize with my experience. I hope anyone who reads this can access feelings that need to be let out. I hope anyone who reads this gets some small measure of healing from this sharing.

……………

To Terry,

I will remember your warmth and sweetness whenever we were together. I will remember the pure joy you showed, in a face lit up by a great inner light, when you opened the Christmas gift from Karen, Emmie, and me. An Italian horn, a perfect fit. But there is something else I want to say to you today:

Thank you for Nicki. She is your gift to us, and a perfect fit. Let me tell you what a woman you raised: Nicole is an exquisite human being. She is one of the rare, great ones that grace us all too little in life. Nic is a blessing. Her spirit and smile are offered to anyone, everyone. She is truly there for others. She is gentle, generous, and a God-given gift to this world. Nic is humble and gracious. She lives to love others better, setting the great example of fulfilling God’s Golden Rule. Nicole is love personified. We are truly blessed to have her as a part of our family. As you look down upon us from that most perfect place, may you empower the rest of your lovely family to gather together and help Nicole to get through the business of the living, which always remains.

May you rest in perfect love and perfect peace,

Standard Deviations

Saturday, February 11, 2012

"This Is The Hour Of Lead..."

Joan

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