Death Is Not For the Faint of Heart
by on July 21st, 2009
filed under Undecided
Last weekend I attended The Romance Writers of America annual national convention in Washington DC. It was soooo much fun and so very tiring.
Some of my favorite workshops were Donald Maas, Jenny Cruisie and my most fav was called Mauled Men, Drowned Dames & Crispy Critters. When I told my roommates I was attending this workshop they all crinkled up their noses and shook their heads. You see it was all about how a body gets dead and what happens to it afterward.
Did you know that embalming fluid is tinted to match the color of blood so that the skin has (ehem) a healthy glow to it? And that once a body has been embalmed it becomes totally stiff so the funeral attendant has to block the arms, legs and head in position before embalming begins.
Did you know that when a body is autopsied and the organs are removed they are never put back into the body, but are incinerated as medical waste including the brain?
Did you know that your body becomes your next of kin’s personal property to do with what they want even if you’ve stipulated a certain type of preparation and burial and have paid for it in advance?
Did you know that caskets are sealed in a cement grave liner that makes it nearly impossible to rob a grave without heavy machinery like a back hoe?
Did you know that if you have a military funeral that your body becomes the property of the US military?
I won’t get into how a funeral attendant prepares the body when there’s been an unfortunate incident that not only caused the person’s death but also damaged it in a major way. Let’s just say it involves wax, high collars and a really good make up artist.
See now you’re squinching up your nose and shaking your head.
Walking on the Moon
by on June 25th, 2009
filed under Undecided
Many things can be said about Michael Jackson, not all of it good. But, in his heyday there was no one better. I remember buying the record (yeah vinyl!)Thriller at Kmart. I also bought Duran Duran’s Seven & the Ragged Tiger at the same time. I dont’ know why I remember this so well. Maybe in some oddly prophetic moment this memory was burned into my brain. Listening to the album I knew this record would be HUGE. When Michael Jackson sang Billie Jean at Motown’s 25th anniversary special he did the moonwalk and the crowd gasped.
Watch it now and remember him when he was at his best, before he became a characiture of himself, before the allegations of child molestation and before he nearly dropped his son off a balcony. Appreciate his brilliance, his innovation, his talent this one last time.
The Persistance of Memory
by on December 17th, 2008
filed under Undecided
At Thanksgiving every year, instead of saying grace we have a tradition of thanks.
We go around the table from youngest to oldest and say what we are thankful for. My mom says the same thing every year, “I’m thankful for memory so that I can remember those who are no longer with us.”
Well, now we have another reason to be thankful for memory as we remember my grandfather who passed away Monday evening.
He hid from us just how sick he was until it caught up with him. He didn’t want to be a bother to us. He just kept smiling and joking and telling us he was fine. But he wasn’t.
When he landed in the hospital last week he was in the advanced stages of leukemia and bone cancer. He had tumors on his spine that had crushed his vertebrae and he was in excruciating pain. We made sure the nursing staff gave him his pain medication on a routine basis because we knew he would never ask for it. He didn’t want to be a bother to them.
The nurses loved him, as most people did. He always smiled and joked with them. One nurse told me that he always made sure they were comfortable when they were caring for him. She said that he was like her honorary God father.
He wanted to be at home when his time came, so my mom and her brother arranged for a hospital bed and all the other things he would need and brought him home on Saturday.
On Sunday he slipped into a coma. The family was called and we all gathered at his bedside. We spoke to him. Rubbed his hands and arms with lotion and held his hands. We laughed and joked with each other as he would have wanted us to do. We told him we loved him. Later that evening he had a few moments of lucidity and would respond to questions and voices. By late that night he no longer responded.
I arrived Monday mid day to find him completely comatose and unresponsive. The hospice care nurse said that although he couldn’t respond, he could hear us. We spoke to him often and never left him alone.
I was at his bedside when he opened his eyes and his breathing changed. The breaths were shorter and farther apart. He didn’t struggle for every breath as he had been. I asked my dad to get everyone from the kitchen. The hospice nurse said he was going. As she petted and stroked him, she told him he could go. It was his time.
We were there surrounding him as the pauses between breaths lengthened until they stopped coming altogether. I expected every breath to be his last and when the last one finally came I found myself looking for just one more.
Being at his side as my grandfather passed was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I am so grateful to have been a part of his life and his death.
As he would have wanted, we stayed up until 2 in the morning drinking and laughing, enjoying each other and honoring his last wish.
This Saturday in lieu of a traditional formal service that he didn’t want, we will gather together again. We’ll eat beans and cornbread, tapioca pudding and sweet tea-all of his favorites. I’ll burn the first batch of chocolate cookies as I have since I was eleven. When I pull them out of the oven I know that I will expect his knock at the door. He had the most amazing psychic cookie sense, he somehow always knew when I was baking cookies and he wouldn’t eat any other cookies but the burnt ones.
I’ll save one for you grandfather.
Morbid monday
by on October 5th, 2008
filed under Undecided
When I first started this blog I was told to make it about something. I couldn’t think of one or two somethings so I made it about the odd things that pop into my head or things that come across the TV and Internet at me.
Today I’m thinking about death.
While I write this my mother is composing an email to our family about her mother’s condition that I am to forward on to the rest of the family. My grandmother has been experiencing multiple strokes in her cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls the body. There have been and continue to be so many so close together that the doctors have not been able to map out the damage but they know that it is extensive.
The email is about her imminent death.
With my grandmother so close to the end of her life I started to think about what I would do if I knew I was dying. What wrongs I would make right, what words I would say that never got said and what difference I had made in the lives of others. Morbid I know, but death is after all, a part of life. I like to think I will die as I lived-loving fiercely, making people laugh as often as I could and knowing I did the best I knew how with what I had to work with.
What fences would you mend? What would you say that you wish you would have said? How would you like to be remembered? What would you like your last words to be?
PS-On a good note, mother-in-law came through her surgery just fine. She has a long recovery ahead of her and a lot of support to help her.
Forget who wore what… Who died?
by on February 26th, 2008
filed under Undecided
Sunday night I invited my family over for dinner (see Lentil Loaf recipe) and to watch the Oscars. I don’t know why I even watch. The only movies I had seen were Ratatouille, Pirates of the Carribean-At Worlds End, Surfs Up and Transformers. All the movies I took my kids to and then bought the DVDs.
It’s so sad how my life has changed.
In the olden days… by the time the Oscars would come around I would have seen at least 3 or 4 of the nominiees for best picture. My hubby and I would get the list of nominations from the paper and then would pick who we thought would win in each catagory (the winner would get to choose the um… activity of their choice).
But now the only reason I watch is to find out who died since the last award show. I know! How crass, how morbid and how horribly disrespectful I am. Only my hubby knew of my terrible secret until Sunday night. You see, my sister, mother & I were swigging wine, picking at the left overs at the dining table and gossiping while hubby and my dad actually watched the show (they hadn’t gotten to the big 3 awards yet mind you), when I suddenly shouted out to hubby to let me know when they get to the part where they show the dead people. Right as I realized what I had revealed (I blame the Chardonay), my sister said, “Oh my God, that’s my favorite part!” Then my mom chimed in that she liked that part too. I didn’t feel like a big fat morbid freak any more. There were other people like me.
Anyway… when it finally came on the 3 of us rushed into the living room and subsiquently lapsed into: “I didn’t know he died.”, “Oh I loved her.”, “Aaw.”, “He was such a good actor.” “I thought she died a long time ago.” and for Heath Ledger, “Oh that’s so sad.” because it was. It really was.
So, what was your favorite part of the Oscars? Who had the ugliest/best dress? Other than Jennifer Hudson’s giant white uni-boob?
