With Those Who Mourn

I didn’t sleep well Friday night. Three weeks ago, my second husband died, just 50 years old, quite unexpectedly. His funeral was planned for Saturday at St. Dunstan’s, 11 a.m. sharp. So all that night I tossed in bed as warm tears seeped from my already puffy eyes. Even when I didn’t think I was crying, I was.

Since the death, my mother and stepfather Ron have been staying with me and Wolfie, taking care of the mundane daily tasks that keep a person going—warm home-cooked meals--eaten as a family on the back porch. No mandatory trips to Wendy’s or cans of ravioli just yet. These recent days have been filled with the smell of clean laundry turning in the dryer in the afternoons, the fragrance of hot buttered biscuits every morning, delivered to my desk slathered with grape jelly.

I’ve plopped down on Mom’s bed so many times for impromptu naps that she’s taken to tucking me in at night—never mind that I’m 45 years old. She makes me laugh and calls me “GW,” short for “grieving widow.”

As much as I’ve needed the diversion, as much as I’ve savored any distraction, Friday night it became apparent that the following morning I would have to say a final good-bye, that I would have to turn my husband Ron over to God, this science person, this self-proclaimed atheist. I would have to trust that even though he thought religion was all one big hyped up device to control the great unwashed masses, he was wrong. And I believe despite what came out of his mouth that God was always with him and now he will truly be with God.

The morning of the funeral my big brother Bird picked me up—and the ashes—to go to church. The first sight that greeted me was Jeanne Taylor peeking out of the sanctuary, her beautiful white hair and big green eyes framed by the red doors. Then Claudia. I melted into their familiar arms, my family at St. Dunstan’s, they were rallying around me to face my husband’s family, who I have unfortunately not known beyond weddings and funerals, and even those few and far between.

Jeanne and Claudia quietly, imperceptibly took the cookie jar of Ron’s ashes from my brother’s arms and spirited them away to the sacristy behind the altar to prepare for the funeral. It reminded me of what Patricia always says about the altar and flower guilds — they are the women who are always there, they were the women who wept at the feet of Jesus at his crucifixion, who went to his tomb.

This morning I did not go to church. I told Patricia I was going to take the time to process not just my grief, but also the overwhelming feeling of being supported and loved and protected by my friends at St. Dunstan’s.

So today, I’ve spent a good deal of time sitting on the back porch, drinking coffee and diet cokes, staring at the trees. I went through a stack of mail and swept and mopped the living room. More time on the back porch scanning the canopy of giant oaks and dogwoods for bird and squirrels. All day Wolfie has been covered in grease working on an old jeep in the driveway. My brother gave it to him and minus a new windshield and an air-conditioner, it’s about ready for the road.

Not 20 minutes ago, I went upstairs to visit my mother. She asked how I was doing. It must be hard for her to see me as I have been for the past couple of days. “Actually, I’ve got a lot to be grateful for,” I told her, as much to remind myself as to let her know I’m going to be okay.

“I don’t know how you can be grateful for anything when your heart is breaking,” she said.

I thought about it. “Well, I do have a lot to be thankful about, which reminds me I need to write ‘thank you’ notes.” I rifled through the drawers of the old writing desk in her room, somewhere in there was a box of note cards. They were tucked away in the back, behind odds and ends that have no home, like undeveloped film that can’t be thrown away but never quite makes it to the pharmacy any of the five times I go there every week.

I took out the note cards and counted. Five envelopes and three cards. “Nowhere near enough,” I said. It was a small disappointment. But one that would require going out to buy more. “On the other hand, that might be good sign that I don’t have enough note cards because there have been so many people doing nice things for me.”

Three note cards would only begin the job. I might start with Patricia and Joe and Joseph Henry. Patricia for all of the counseling and planning and love, for reminding me and those who gathered for the funeral of a key point: we are all made in the image of God, we all return to God. Joe for reading scripture and going to church on Friday evening to dig the hole for Ron’s ashes. JH for being the best-natured acolyte anyone could ask of a nine-year-old on a sunny Saturday morning.

I could use another card as a preliminary thank you for the members of the altar guild. For the lovely flowers, for placing the ashes in the wooden box, which sat on a table in front of the altar draped with a starched white linen cloth. The third card could be used also as a preliminary thank you for the women of the church who prepared the beautiful reception with coffee, a large bowl of delicious punch chilled with a floating ice ring. Chicken, tuna, and egg salad sandwiches. Fresh-baked brownies, cookies and mounds of fresh cut ripe fruit draped with bunches of purple grapes. This committee is part of the church, part of who we are and what we do when we have a funeral. But Betty, Lucy, Priscilla, Penny, and Claudia outdid themselves.

After that though, I’d be out of cards. How would I thank Nancy for reading scripture, for her presence beside me after we had all gone outside to the memorial garden, JH with the cross, followed by Tim with the ashes and Patricia who fell back to put her arm around me. As we stood around the fresh turned earth where the remnants of my husband were to be placed, my face was so covered in tears that the trees around me, the white robes, the red prayer book in Patricia’s hands, and the other mourners were something of a blur.

And I’m not sure exactly what I would write to tell Tim how grateful I was that at that moment he said “if you feel like you’re going to faint, hold on to me.” Or how to thank Christie or Steve or Dick or Tom who were simply there, who took time to speak to my family and the other guests, many of whom were at St. Dunstan’s for the first time.

I’ll end with this, the notes in the bulletin say the liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy that finds its meaning in the resurrection. There is a joy about it, the knowing that nothing “can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The note ends saying, “So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.”

And I am blessed to have so many around me who take those words to heart.