On my way

Someone needs to have a chat with the Unitarians.  It is quite splendid that they have opened things up, provided this nondenominational space for events like the current one, the Evening of Remembrance.  But the branch doesn't work.  Instead of a cross or Star of David or a hammer and sickle, they have a bit of a tree.  Madrone or laurel or something admirably local, and while I am all in favor of acknowledging, preserving and, yes, worshiping nature, hanging a tree branch on the wall does not work.  Here, the nude branch looks oddly literal.  One cannot tell if the thing is there to demonstrate the bifurcation patterns of drought years or inspire higher thought.  It is not a symbol, that is its problem.  

In reality, it is no one's problem.  Our problem is on the screen.  And here she comes again.  The slideshow assembled by the hospice people presents the Loved Ones in regular succession.  Click and click and click.  Marlou, I have learned by watching the thing multiple times and noting its sequence, comes right after the 1950s couple in the sweaters.  They are preceded by the Thanksgiving portrait of husband, wife and five kids.  There's a war bride photo before that one.  A 1960s football player ready to pass.  A little kid in his Sunday finery.  And a young blonde woman from, perhaps, last year.  Marlou looks prettiest.  Her expression is all joy, tugs at the heart, and as its spiritual corners turn down, reveals a sense of fated resignation.  I'm sure it was taken post-diagnosis.  And then it's gone, the slideshow beginning again.

I rolled in late.  I arrive late for many things these days.  It was hardly something to look forward to, an evening's rehash of loss.  Yes, I needed the catharsis.  No, I did not particularly want to attend.  Which may explain why I made short work of the hello, thank you for coming, please sign in let's make a name badge, and here's your carnation.  The latter had a long stem, and I draped it across my lap like a firearm.  The sign in proved awkward, the woman handing me the guestbook at one angle, turning it to another worse angle, realizing the thing was too floppy to support the neuromuscularly imprecise.  She put the guestbook down, frantically looked for something firmer, and I did nothing to lighten the load of a liberal hospice worker in a Unitarian church bringing everyone together for Remembrance.  I wasn't exactly fuming, but I wasn't exactly smiling.  I wasn't exactly there, more to the point.  A space at the end of the back row had room for my wheelchair.

Personal observations.  Mary Oliver poems.  A snatch from Ecclesiastes.  Some music, what the British would call hummy-strummy, from a woman with a guitar and one with a voice.  And later, Thais' famous hit performed with piano and violin.  And then, after more observations about the ashes-to-ashes nature of it all, an all-soprano rendition of a moving ballad, putatively Irish, about the road rising up to meet you.  I have sung the latter and have a bias here, that men's voices give the song some depth.  In fact, the entire evening had this much in common with the reading group aboard the Queen Mary 2.  All women.  Meaning, the men were missing in action.  

Is grief women's work?  What is going on here?  There's a reason why I return from the annual Minnesota Men's Conference sadder and wiser.  This was enough to make me roar into quadriplegic action, batteries blazing, to get in the grief queue.  Everyone headed for the altar, if that is what the Unitarians call it.  We all spoke the names of the Loved One into a handheld wireless microphone, stuck our carnations in a wireframe base and headed back.  Viewed from the altar, Marlou's picture acquired force, the bittersweet smile in particular.  It was the look of someone who has begun abandoning things.  My brother, sister and sister-in-law and brother-in-law spent hours in Marlou's kitchen during Memorial Day weekend.  Marlou, who was always on top of food storage and production, had cupboards full of moldering bags and boxes.  It wasn't like her.  The past two and a half years of death stalking weren't like her either.

And then it was all over and time for brownies and chitchat in the foyer.  I had a couple of bites and aimed for the exit, pausing reconsider this behavior.  No need to be abrupt and perfunctory.  No need to mentally edit the microphone announcements of the Loved Ones either.  To John, the world's most wonderful dad.  Jane, you are in our hearts and minds forever.  The best, from a woman considerably younger than me -- my sweet husband Frank.

So I talk to a middle-aged black nurse's aide.  Everyone knows her, quite a few people pat her on the back.  We make small talk.  It's a big organization, the hospice.  Increasing demand for services.  Growing markets.  She tells me I am looking okay.  I consider this.  I thank her.  I go home.  And only 24 hours later, everything packed, all transit documents ready for inspection, I decide to sleep.  There's nothing else to do.  I've gone over everything again and again.  I shut down the computer, and before turning out the light, something catches my eye.  Tags and IDs required to board the ship for Southhampton.  A ticket to a Broadway show.  Oy.  I am, for better or worse, on my way.