Samhain 2017 - Generations

At Samhain, we play with death, exploring the barrier that separates it from life, trying to lessen its scariness in a way. Or reinforce its mystery. Like many events in this life, death either brings out the best or the worst in us. Or in the shades of grey world I live in, perhaps a bit of both.

I remember exactly when I wrote Generations, about a month after my grandfather died. Of all my grandparents, his death was the hardest to deal with for numerous reasons. I was back at home after what at best would be called a stressful experience. Not just his death but the way my immediate family handled it.

As children, as young adults, most of us learn how to handle death by watching our parents deal with it as their parents or, increasingly, grandparents die. Or how they don’t. Most of these lessons we absorb without knowing, without thinking. But they influence our behavior nonetheless, just as ours influences the generation that follows after. These are very difficult cycles to break.

Fortunately, many of us have more than a single pair of role-models to draw upon. It’s not to say we will pick and choose how we will react. I think too much of that is either learned too early or hardwired in. More that we will absorb and synthesize many different reactions from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, family friends, complete strangers. Who shows up, who doesn’t, who has to be coerced. Who takes charge, who falls apart, who leans on who for support. Who looks out for who with small kindnesses and who takes the opportunity to air old grievances.

I remember my first experience with death, the first time I watched the last of a generation die. I think I was in first grade. My great grandmother, who I want to say was over ninety and in a nursing home at the time, died. As with her life, I don’t remember many details of her death. Before she died, I remember visiting her on one of our trips to Boston in a very alien and scary (to me) nursing home. I remember she didn’t recognize many of us. I want to say my sister and I waited outside her room because we were pretty much unknown entities to her by then. I seem to remember my mother got the call that she had died at night. I remember crying because she was crying. I remember I didn’t sleep well that night. I remember still being sad in the morning, though I wasn’t sure exactly why.

The thing I remember most was the reaction of a teacher. When I showed up at school the next day, I think I cried again. My teacher came over and asked me why. I told her my great grandmother had died. In an admonishing tone that said I needed to stop, she said, “You are lucky to have had a great grandmother. Most of these kids don’t have grandparents.”

I was twenty-eight when the first of my grandparents died. My paternal grandfather. By the time I was forty-one the last of that generation of immediate family was gone, my paternal grandmother. With each of the four of them, I was fortunate in knowing the last time I saw them would likely be the very last, so I purposefully set those scenes into memory. In each case, I remember very specifically absorbing every detail I could. I’m not sure why or where I got it. But they are the memories I cling to.

With my father’s father it’s a memory of him brushing his hair to ensure it looked right before he moved out to the living room and settled in his favorite chair for my final visit, like everything was normal. With both my mother’s parents, it’s seeing them standing by their apartment door as Karen and I turned back before boarding the elevator down the hall, the first time with both of them, the second him alone. With my father’s mother, it’s a final lunch out by the water before she moved to a facility fifteen hundred miles north.

Then there was my father, the first of the next generation of immediate family to fall away. My father is the only person I’ve witnessed die. Counting the seconds between his final breaths is emblazoned in my memory.

I had considered writing about each of their deaths and how my family reacted to them. In fact I had it written up. But after allowing that draft to settle, I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to say. What we said and did would likely be as meaningless to anyone else as any of those memories.

Suffice it to say there were phone calls, there were tears, there was drama. There were connections formed and connections lost. There were four memorial services, two with huge reunions of friends and family, two for immediate family only. There were three stealth burials, two in suits and ties with spades and shovels and other implements of destruction complete with skirts and dresses serving as lookouts, one conducted under cover of darkness by just me and my wife. There were bitter feelings over property, there was easy sharing and compromise, there were long battles fought to ensure final wishes were met. There was protocol, there was censorship, there were recriminations. There was a suicide, a secret deal, a murderous accusation, and a synchronicitous inheritance.

So pretty much like any holiday dinner with family.

But in too many cases, recounting those events opened too many old wounds. Neither you nor I are interested in my tears of blood.

I’m not sure what I take away from those experiences. All of them were difficult, some more so than others, perhaps because of the event itself, perhaps because of the people and the circumstances involved. There are moments I cherish in each and moments I despise. I suppose there’s no escaping that in this life. But I think I am getting worse at this as time goes on.

I read a research brief this week that said even after your heart stops, your brain still forms thoughts. Which means it’s very possible in that sudden stillness you know you’re dead at least for a few seconds. Which probably bothers me a lot less than it does some of you.

So as I watch the generations change over season by seasons, at least one day I know I will find my peace. 

© 2017 Edward P. Morgan III