Dec. 15: Death and losing people

 I lost my best friend on April 29, 2006. It still hurts all these years later. That wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to be best buds for life. He was supposed to be super excited when my son was born, was supposed to be absurdly touched that he's named in his memory. Didn't happen. Life isn't fair.

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I have a vague memory of Mr. Hooper, who was the storekeeper on Sesame Street. The actor who played Mr. Hooper died in real life and the Sesame Street writers decided to incorporate his death into the show. They weren't going to lie to the kids about Mr. Hooper getting a better job on Poppy Street or Electric Avenue, nor were they just going to drop the character entirely. Instead, they did a segment where Big Bird was really torn up about Mr. Hooper's death and all the Sesame Street regulars - the live actors, I mean - did their best to console him.

Nothing works. The Talmud says that there is nothing you can say to a person who is grieving, that the only appropriate response is silence. Well score one for the Talmud.

 

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I was 40 when my kid was born. The odds of me passing away before he does are overwhelming. How my kid will fare without me scares me a lot. His sister, God bless her, has promised to look after him when neither his mother nor I are capable of doing so anymore. Still, it's troubling. My kid is autistic, has difficulty grasping concepts like death. I have a mental image of him calling my name over and over again after I left this world.

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In elementary school, the library had this book of fantastic stories about amazing things that could happen to you if you were a good Catholic. There was a story about a little boy who lost his best friend. So the little boy started anointing his room with holy water and saying rosaries every night and eventually, the dead best friend came back and took our hero on a tour of heaven. There was one picture where the friend was pointed excited at the throne room, where you could talk to God all you wanted to. I didn't like that story. It gave me the creeps. I still believe in heaven. I believe it has a swimming pool. 

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The first grandparent I lost was my paternal grandfather. When he was sick, my uncle called my dad long distance from Toronto. "Our father is dying," my Uncle said. "We need to talk about some things."

My uncle didn't sound too choked up about his father's imminent demise and my own father never seemed particularly choked up about it. But my grandfather was not a nice man but my dad let me grow up believing that he was.

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I am 50. Death has taken all four of my grandparents, my two best friends, two former employers, and a whole bunch of former colleagues and classmates. 

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I am writing this in bed. My son is lying next to me. He has my phone and he is watching his favourite videos. He watches them over and over again. There's one of him dancing on a couch at my sister's house while my mother keeps watch. There's one of me cleaning my apartment. There's one of me feeding him a chocolate chip muffin. 

So what can I do with this? I guess I can just be happy that this moment exists.

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My son's sister is training to be a funeral director. She has already done some work in funeral homes. She says that funerals are for the living, not for the dead. 

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They say we die twice. Once when we die, and again when our name is spoken for the last time.

So if you lost someone you care about, say their name right now.

See? Still alive.