On a bright Sunday afternoon the old man closed his eyes for the last time. His five children huddled around the hospital bed, hand-in-hand, crying for the man who'd not only fed and clothed them, but who'd been the most influential person in each of their lives. The eldest of the children, a tall stately woman of 50 years of age, broke the sounds of sobbing when she mentioned, "He's with mom and grandma now!"
The youngest, a man of 33 wiped away a tear and replied, "Yes, I bet dad is getting heck from grandpa right now for cutting down that maple tree he planted in the backyard!"
The other children smiled and agreed, laughing at his comment. Another sister put her arm around her baby brother and hugged him closely, she cried gently on his shoulder and whimpered, "Poor Mom, she has to start peeling onions again!" The other siblings laughed once more, knowing that it had been a long standing argument between their parents...their mother hated them, and their father could not get enough.
The children stood around the body of this great man and swapped stories of how he'd "straighten out" God. "You know Dad," one sibling reminded, "He had an opinion on everything, and he won't just sit back and let God run Heaven!"
It's a familiar scene from all over the world. People praise the dead and imagine them in Heaven: happy, smiling, and usually cantankerous. It lessens the burden of losing someone they love and gives hope and order to a perpetual life.
The pain of losing someone is great, and I'm glad, when my time came to eulogize, I lingered around the bed with my family members and swapped similar stories.
After all, what would we do without fantasies?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ventilator
A twelvemonth's passing
and still I search,
trying to find answers
for the obvious.
For the loss, the cessation
that we all must realize...
and to an answer to...
the ineffable end.
And I am reminded of
a week earlier,
and those ineffectual words,
"We'll see you when it's over."
And it was true--
we saw him later...
In the ICU
hooked to a machine.
And since today is a year...
I should celebrate his spirit,
Instead I sit here remembering
the sound of artificial life.
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