From time to time I read the obituaries. Like just in case someone I know has actually passed away and I didn't know, or because I'm a writer and I read between the lines - looking at the birth and death dates, the life histories, the old people whose obituaries are accompanied by their picture from World War II. And sometimes I read them because we just need to pay attention. They're there and they memorialize someone's life and I can give them my time.
So I was really surprised when pricing obituaries yesterday, how much it costs to run one. Two hundred dollars for one day and fifteen lines. More for extra days and lines, and even more for a photograph. Somewhere in my naive little mind I thought these ran as community announcements, as community service. Not as ads.
If you read this blog back in 2009 and 2010 you may remember the madcap adventures of the elderly in my life - my Holocaust Survivor Jewish mother and my Ohio Farmer Methodist Stepfather. Her yelling and his deafness, which actually made an ideal combination; his constant puttering, gluing and winching, involved in dozens of mystifying projects around the house, like gluing together ice cube trays and winching broken laundry baskets, because nothing ever needed to be replaced, yet the house was still falling down around their heads. And my mother sat in her place on the couch in the family room, phones and remote controls in front of her - her command center - the living switchboard of our seven daughter family. Who knew those were the good old days?
But then there was decline and a decision that our mother needed to live with one of us due to her need for twenty-four hour a day care. Stepfather did not want to make the same move. He continued puttering about the empty house, still busy with projects, with ham radio, with driving his truck fifteen miles an hour down the road seeking garage sale finds. I saw him often, brought soup. But still I thought, he's 87. He can't live there alone forever.
There were a lot of options available to him, one of which was to move to be close to one of his daughters. And I swear he was alive and well this past January as he shuffled off with his kids, the yard sale items with which the house had been filled compressed finally into six suitcases and a mobile mini.
Who knows what it is that keeps a person in one piece, that keeps a person going? Who knows what strange collection of circumstances and location and relationships - and maybe glue and winches - keep a person going? Because by the end of March, and his 88th birthday, Stepfather was hospitalized, and on May 6th he passed away.
And on May 9th I was on a website trying to figure out how to condense the life of one man into fifteen lines and one day and found that it is impossible.
Rest in peace, Bob Milburn.
I don't know what "strange collection of circumstance and location and relationships keep a person going." I do know that if we run out of those things our personal clocks just wind down. 88 years is a long time and he did a lot of living. How to put 88 years into 15 lines? How do we define a life? The things that really make a person who they are will NOT be in that obit... that is the ONE thing I know for sure.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for your loss, Linda. Maybe in the next few weeks you can post some more Good Old Days stories. It might be restorative to your soul. People live on in everyone who remember them. Rest in peace, Bob.
Thank you, Robin. Once all this stuff started happening I just really couldn't write about it anymore. Now I'm putting together a collection of all those stories about my mom and stepfather, as a kind of tribute to them both.
ReplyDeleteMay everyone find peace at this time of loss Linda. Thank you for this wonderful piece of writing. It really touched me deeply and I find myself encouraged and thinking that maybe it is time for me to try again to write about my dad and his life.
ReplyDeleteYolande, thanks so much. I had a writing teacher who told us that sometimes less is more and sometimes when emotions run hot, just focus on the small things, that a list of details can also tell a lot. This advice has helped me as I've been trying to get all these images and thoughts out about my stepfather.
DeleteWell said and a nice tribute is always a great thing. I will miss the only grandfather I knew. I do think that the daily pattern was essential to his well being. He had high hopes with this move-plans to get to know his grandkids that way he knew us. It's sad that the true chance was not given to him. I realize now that choose to say I have lived a long happy life and maybe it's time to end it here. Lights out and lots of love. That gives me peace. Love you Auntie Linda...Heather
ReplyDeleteHeather, absolutely the hardest things for all of us was that we sent a seemingly healthy Bob off to New York in January and then this so soon after. But, as someone said, he obviously was sicker than he appeared to be. It was a long life. We can't do anything about him passing but remembering him well will give credit to his life.
DeleteI am very sorry for your loss, Linda. But it's true, a single life that was lived most full, 88 years is so amazing, the things he must have seen in his lifetime, cannot be put into 15 lines of words, I couldn't imagine doing that one day for my own mother. This was so beautiful to read and touched my soul. I wish you much peace of heart in this painful time.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Erin. I agree 88 is such a great age to get to! There was just something about sending him off and having the expectation that things would continue as they had, not abruptly halt. My own father died at 48 suddenly and that was an awful thing, losing a parent so young. Here's what I've now learned about losing a parent old: the mortality of it is not so shocking but they've been around so long that it's hard to imagine them just not there.
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