“I could share her when she was alive. When she was alive, her presence was endless, time with her was endless, time was endless.
From Saving Tarboo Creek by Scott Freeman
Planting a tree is a way to apply hope. In restoration is the preservation of the world.
From “The Seals” by Lydia Davis
“I did not go over for the funeral. I had good reasons, to me they seemed good, anyway, having to do with our old mother, and the shock of it, and how far away it was, across the ocean. Really, it had more to do with the strangers who would be at the funeral, and the tenderness of my own feelings, which I did not want to share with strangers.”
I’ve never faulted our parents for not attending Amanda’s viewing and memorial in Tucson. Months before the viewing, I had already bought them plane tickets to visit me on the east coast. They were to arrive just 14 days after the day of the viewing, 22 days after learning their oldest daughter had taken her own life.
Once I’d arrived back home, I began to plan the memorial. Because our parents stayed with me for months, we got to talking a lot during my planning. Our mom had no desire to attend the memorial. Our dad was entering year three of his serious depressive episode, the first twoish years of which plagued by paranoid delusions. I had taken over his care and he was still trying out new medication. It was jointly decided that they would go ahead of me to California to arrange the inurnment.
In large part our parents’ absence from the viewing had been the result of the unexpectedness of there even being a need for a viewing in the first place. Their absence from the memorial I helped form into plan and effectuate. So I have no objective reason for faulting them for not being in attendance. But I felt emotionally compelled to do so much right away, I also never understood why they could just seemingly so easily have stayed away.
And now, 13 months after the memorial/inurnment, 17 months after my sister’s death/the viewing, I’ve just stumbled across the passage above that provided me a view into the reason(s) why someone might choose to miss the funeral/memorial/viewing of a loved one. Reading has long been great to me, but occasionally it grants me a precious and rare treasure, and that is the gift of new emotional understanding. I’m incredibly grateful for unexpectedly gaining some perspective. I know this much: keep communicating and keep learning, we’ll all be the better for it.
From Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis
I came across this:
“The Child”
She is bending over her child. She can’t leave her. The child is laid out in state on a stable. She wants to take one more photograph of the child, probably the last. In life, the child would never sit still for a photograph. She says to herself, “I’m going to get the camera,” as if saying to the child, “Don’t move.”
dream
The short story reminded me of a picture of Amanda I have from the afternoon of the viewing. It is the only picture I have of her from that day. I feel certain someone asked me to take it. I find it impossible to think it could have been my idea. I want to say it was our mother who couldn’t be there, who asked me to take it, but truthfully I cannot recall. What I do remember is not being able to do it. I didn’t have trouble looking on her, though I didn’t particularly enjoy that either. But I specifically couldn’t hover a hand above her face, phone in hand, and try to capture that silence, that stillness.
I asked my uncle Jack to take the picture. The request caused him to break into a sob but he didn’t hesitate to do what I’d asked. I didn’t check the picture when he gave my phone back. Now I wonder if I asked him to also send it to whoever had requested it. Because I plain don’t remember doing anything with the picture. I do remember when I got back home I asked my fiancé to upload it to his computer’s hard drive, and then delete all traces of it in my phone and on Google Photos, which is where my media files are automatically backed up to. And actually, I haven’t seen the picture since. I don’t think I’ll ever delete it, though. And I doubt I’ll ever need to look at it. Since the moment the photo existed, I’ve always had it and never seen it. I don’t want to change that. I think it a common thing that many people who experience loss are averse to change as if unchanging-ness can bring back the dead. Don’t move.
From Your Heart Is A Muscle the Size of A Fist by Sunil Yapa
“There where they learned that courage is not the ability to face your fear, heroically, once, but is the strength to do it day after day.”