Doing it for Demeter - Part Two

There is a certain amount of power struggle in all family occasions, but particularly in the events and ceremonies surrounding a death.  Grief is a very personal thing, and people tend to assert ownership:  who has suffered the greatest lost, where one is in the hierarchy of mourning, all exacerbated by emotional intensity.

In my years as a hospice volunteer, I often had a front-row seat to this.  I remember puttering in the small open-plan kitchen at Victoria Hospice one late winter's afternoon, when two warring factions of a soon-to-be-bereaved family exploded into confrontation in the lobby.  I froze, and don't remember if I had the presence of mind to run to alert the staff, but they would have heard the shouting anyway.

I was determined to avoid similar scenes in the weeks leading up to my mother's memorial service, knowing how much it would have upset Demeter -- and knowing how easy it might be to trip the wire.

It didn't take my non-existent powers of prophecy to predict that Double Leo Sister would want to run the show.  I am, after all, a survivor of both her weddings, both ambitious pageants with items, displays, performances, and minute details being continually added, up until the last possible minute.

This means I was not particularly surprised when DLS didn't log in to the ZOOM meeting for planning the service with the minister.  She said she slept through it:  "I've been through a lot."

The minister forwarded transcripts of the meeting to her with handy-dandy ways to add comments and annotations; DLS said she'd been "denied access to the files".

To be fair, she's always had a deep distrust of (and impatience with) computers, ironic, given how important they are in the lives of the men in her life, two Zoomer sons and a husband in IT.  Even before the internet took over, she had a self-proclaimed phobia of paper.  This was her justification for never responding to letters, and must have made record-keeping for her work a nightmare.

As someone who's known her since her birth, I'd say she simply doesn't want to be pinned down, but I'm hardly an objective witness.

Her computer-literate husband and younger son eventually ironed out the "denied access", after I'd copied and pasted notes to send through email.  I tried to explain that the church group for Demeter's neighbourhood would, by tradition, being organising the food.  She told me she would provide the food -- just as she had done for her best friend's memorial service, which she had put together during the pandemic.  

By this time, seventy people were expected, so I quietly made arrangements with the volunteers anyway, most of whom I knew from my own days with the church, which DLS had left as a teenager.

My mantra became I'm doing this for Demeter.  I said it under my breath and repetitively.

DLS was now heavily involved in designing display tables for the reception, which she hoped to use as a conversation "activity", to "get people involved".  

I decided not to say that, at late afternoon on Valentine's Day, those people kind enough to show up would probably want to go home, and set about my most pressing duty -- writing the eulogy.

And someone paved me over

Stephen Colbert went out with a bang.

It seems ever since the announcement last summer that CBS had decided to pull another Smothers Brothers-type smother (saying it was for financial reasons, of course), the Late Show has been steadily inching off the rails, getting crazier, and more defiant as the remaining weeks wained.

As a result, I was almost hesitant to watch last night's finale. 

However, Colbert's previous gig The Daily Show posted a video of Colbert's "funniest moments" - which indicated that Colbert has a history of being a bit off the rails in terms of his humour: ribald, outrageous, and darkly satiric. (Also scatological and quite a bit off-colour.) 

I must have missed most of this because I had young children at the time.

The last Late Show was pretty damn surreal, featuring a stream of celebrity interruptions, a last-minute "cancellation" by the Pope, and a surprise interview with Paul McCartney.  This last item was pleasant enough, but I felt a dropping in the pit of my belly, as I saw Sir Paul reach out to the host's desk for balance as he made his way to his seat.  (McCartney turns 84 next month.)

After a couple of ominous green flashes, accompanied by rumbles and static, everything and everyone got sucked up into a wormhole.  Colbert got spat out into a dark room with a tumbled chair and a ghost light. 

He began singing, accompanied by Elvis Costello, former Late Show music director Jon Baptiste, and current Late Show band leader Louis Cato.  It was a song that sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.  It turns out to be "Jump Up", a rather obscure ditty by Costello, that's nearly fifty years old. 

I much prefer the Late Show version; they should record it.

For a grand finale, Paul McCartney lead everyone in "Hello/Goodbye" - including the Late Show staff and Colbert's family.   Really appropriate. 

Then they went for a bit of a St Elsewhere ending.  Also quite appropriate.

I'm posting a Late Show YouTube video of those two closing songs, but you'd probably better watch --before CBS smothers it.

Everybody's talking like they can't sit down/ And looking like they can't stand up/It must be the latest style/ And they've seen a lot of things that you never see/ Back on the mile up to the hanging tree

Some people can't keep their fingers clean/ Just clicking their heels to the beat of the scene/ Trying to keep current until the first edition of last night's obituaries

Jump up, hold on tight/ Can't trust a promise or a guarantee/ 'Cause the man 'round the curve says that he's never heard of you or me

No tombstone would ever surprise me /When I'm locked in a room about half the size of a matchbox/ Got holes in my socks/ They match the holes that I got in my feet/ I put my feet in the holes in the street/ And someone paved me over

I was a statue standing on the corner/ Tell me, how else can a boy get to see those pretty pleats?

Candidate talking on the radio from the "Cheaters Jamboree"/ It must be their latest fool/ 'Cause it's a two-horse race, and he changes bets/ Like it was just another brand of cigarettes

Some people judge, then they just guess the rest/ They can't understand, it don't mean that you're blessed/ They oughta catch the express, next stop nowhere/ That way you can't forget

Doing it for Demeter - Part One

Memorial services have more in common with weddings than you might think.  

There's food and flowers, speeches, the complexity of dealing with family politics, and the minefield of other people's feelings - with the added complication of planning all this while in a state of grief.  (In our case, because of the size of the sanctuary, there were also RSVPs, which took some delicate explaining.)

Four months after my mother's departure, I'd like to write about Demeter's memorial service - probably in a few parts - mainly because it's far less painful than writing about her death, especially the week leading up to it.  This is a shame, because I know from experience that the details of anything in life, even events you think you'll never forget, get lost to time (and everyone will remember it differently, anyway) - which makes me want to make notes in self-defense.  

But I can't face it. Images ambush me upon waking in the middle of the night, or moving through my day. Maybe I can write about my mother's death in a year or two.

But Demeter's memorial service went well, considering. 

We got pretty good reviews.  And I didn't kill anyone.

I knew Demeter wanted a memorial.  She'd left detailed notes.  Not out of self-aggrandisement, which wasn't Demeter's style at all, but out of the belief that funerals and memorial services are a great help in grieving and healing.  She left a great deal of leeway in what we could do, because she understood that death rituals are for the living, but left suggestions to ease our decisions.

Because she'd been a long-time contributing member of her church, we had the benefit of having the church and minister, with little in the way of fees.  

The date was settled quickly, because our American cousin was anxious to attend in person, and of the dates made available by the church, Valentine's Day worked, for all concerned.

That meant I had to compose an obituary.  Obituaries are eye-wateringly expensive.  I figure the reason that grieving families go for the term essays is that if you're skipping a service - usually at the deceased person's request, I hasten to add - you can better afford to fork out hundreds of dollars.  (Come to think of it, "no service by request of the deceased" is kinda like an elopement, isn't it?  That is, if we're sticking with the memorial service/wedding comparison.  We don't have to.)

We were having a service, so I went for economics and brevity, thinking about what I look for in an obit (particularly as a family researcher), i.e. confirmation that, yes, this is indeed the person you thought it might be.

I composed a briefish three paragraphs (still damned expensive) saying where Demeter had been born, where she had grown up, where she had worked, and the names of her immediate family.  This information also supplied the three surnames she'd used over the course of nearly ten decades: her maiden name, her married name, and the name she chose for herself for the final third of her life. The all-important date and place of the service.  Demeter was convinced, in her final years, that no one would come, probably because so many of her friends had predeceased her.  (She was wrong.)

I should have splurged, and added "No flowers, please".  I didn't think we'd get any.  (I was wrong.)

The challenging bits came next.

I'll have a think, marshal what compassion and diplomacy I possess - don't laugh - and get back to you, okay?

Suggestive sidewalk

I was shaking off the grogginess of the afternoon by strolling over to Demeter's building to pick up the mail.

When I noticed the instructions on the sidewalk.

I'm very suggestible.

So I jumped, tiptoed, swerved, popped, and balanced. 

 Within reason. 

 For no reason.

A child flew past me riding in a star

This turned up on my "Liked Songs" on Spotify this morning, while I working on something else. 

 I must have "liked" it ages ago. 

 I don't recognise it. 

 But I like it.

There once was a note pure and easy/ Playing so free like a breath rippling by/ The note is eternal I hear it, it sees me/ Forever we blend as forever we die  

I listened and I heard music in a word/ And words when you played your guitar/ The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering/ And a child flew past me riding in a star

As people assemble/ Civilization is trying to find a new way to die/ But killing is really merely scene-changing/ All men are bored with other men's lives

We all know success when we all find our own dream/ And our love is enough to knock down any wall/ And the future's been seen as men try to realize/ The simple secret of the note in us all

"I shall be silent, but under protest."

I got a rather odd gift for Mother's Day from the Resident Fan Boy, although not quite as odd as the Holocaust Encyclopedia he got me for my birthday, some years back.

Years ago, when we were relatively newly-weds, I took him to see The Seventh Seal, one of my very favourite movies.  He fell asleep.  I was appalled.

This gift is a Criterion DVD.  There's a commentary, which I have yet to access (and an essay by Woody Allen, which I plan to ignore), but I decided to watch it a couple of nights ago, marvelling in the crispness of the re-mastered black and white print.

Like all good art, I see something different every time I revisit it.  I think the last time I watched it was in 2020. Being set at the time of the Black Death, it made harrowing pandemic viewing.  Now, of course, the ever-looming presence of the black robed and hooded Death (Bengt Ekerot), who stalks the Knight (a very youthful Max von Sydow) and his companions between chess moves, is particularly piercing, following my own recent loss.

However, I saw other details that escaped me, even after repeated viewings.  This time, I noted that Jös (Gunnar Björnstrand), the knight's sardonic squire, carefully and protectively shifts his body over his dagger, as he sleeps, awkwardly outstretched on a stony beach in the opening moments of the film.  I notice his cat-like defiant hissings behind the Knight's back, after being given an order.

I think of the actors, all dead now. 

And the Resident Fan Boy?  He nodded off. Again.

Owl through the morning

It was younger daughter who spotted the owl, clinging to the edge of a gable roof of one of the older, more gingerbready houses on Vancouver Street.

It took the Resident Fan Boy a bit of searching to realise that she wasn't referring to a carved owl, but a very real one, grasping a baby squirrel, which, I hope, was dead.  (I wasn't there.)

The owl was being loudly harassed by a quartet of crows, intent on seizing its prized bit of protein, one or two getting close enough to get in a vicious peck.

"Oh, is that still going on?" inquired a passing couple.  "This has been going on since four this morning!"

As younger daughter and the RFB gazed, the owl finally had enough and vanished in a flurry of feathers.

It was way past its bedtime.

Coming down is the hardest thing

It was déjà-vu all over again.  The pavement hurtling up to meet me.

See, I'd received word that my prescription for my latest kidney infection was ready at our favourite pharmacy, where they know us by name and even let us slip ahead in the queue for vaccinations.  (Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone.)

The trouble is, they close on weekends, and this is the Victoria Day long weekend, and I had excellent reasons for needing the prescription, which I won't go into, thank you very much.

So, I fed the cat, put away the laundry, changed, and fled out into the afternoon, clutching my umbrella, walking at a brisk pace, aided by my downloaded self-assembled Spotify playlist, which speeds me along.

Maybe that's why I suddenly found myself airborne, as my toe caught one of the uneven edges of sidewalk square, almost exactly as it did on a November evening a little over three years ago.  Fighting back the disbelief, I flipped on to my back, and saw two women running towards me from opposite directions. With John Mellencamp's "Authority Song" in my earbuds, I rolled on to the grassy verge, which provided a cushion, so I could push up on to my knees, back on to my heels, straightening my legs, and walk back with my hands to an upright position.  I beamed triumphantly at my would-be helpers, who had reached out to steady me if needed.  But I didn't.

"Man, these old sidewalks are a menace!" I said cheerily, before soldiering on.  (I hope I thanked them.)

At stoplights, I did an inventory:  road rash on the heels of my hands, and a definite sensation of a scraped knee under my (thankfully) old trousers.

I told my sad story to the pharmacist, who urged me to ice my hands and knee when I got home, which I did, of course.  I did the last time too, but was clearly not nearly as badly injured as I was three years ago.  There were two pink patches on the damp washcloth I'd wrapped around a baggie of frozen mashed pumpkin, and placed under my left elbow as an afterthought, when I realized it was a bit sore.  It had been scraped despite the fact I was wearing a fleece top under a fleece jacket, so it must have taken the brunt of my fall.  

I marvelled at lack of severity in my injuries, though.  Was I cushioned by the anti-left bag slung across my left side?  Did I bounce?  I certainly didn't hit my head or face this time.  By bedtime, two light burgundy bruises had appeared at the base of my big toes.

Oh, and the antibiotic started working almost immediately, thank goodness, or this really would have been a long weekend.

Here's the late great Tom Petty, singing "Learning to Fly", assisted by the Heartbreakers, Stevie Nicks, and the crowd at the 2006 edition of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee.

Well, I started out down a dirty road/Started out all alone/And the sun went down as I crossed the hill/And the town lit up/The world got still.

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings/Coming down is the hardest thing.

Well, the good old days may not return/And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn.

Well, some say life may beat you down/Break your heart; steal your crown.

So I started out for God knows where/Guess I'll know when I get there.

Cat carton

While walking to the coffee shop (I do that a lot, so sorry for keeping mentioning this), I spotted a nice medium empty cardboard box on a corner.

I spent a chunk of last month searching for, re-assembling, and generally coveting medium cardboard boxes because I was donating Demeter's books to the annual Times-Colonist book drive, and my mother was a voracious reader.

I ended up with 19 boxes of books:  my Friend of the Right Hand transported 16 of them, and one of Demeter's merciful neighbours kindly fitted the other three into her car, alongside another neighbour's 3-box donation.

At the coffee shop, I mulled over whether I should take the abandoned box, seeing as the book drive is long over, and reasoned my recent experience indicates that containers are hard to come by -- and there are at least a boxful of books left in Demeter's apartment.  I figured that if the box was still there, I was meant to take it home.

It was.  I did.  I shook out the grass and leaves and insects first.

At home, I put it out where I would see it and remember it.

Now I don't have the heart to move it.

Not so great expectations

 So this is the kind of day I had.

I rose, with every intention of heading down to the coffee shop, but halfway through my preparations, I felt a familiar pain in the lower right half of my back.  I had a kidney infection last summer that sidelined me for three weeks, and this was pretty well how it got started.

The Resident Fan Boy phoned our nurse-practitioner clinic when it opened at 8:30, and was told that we couldn't book in an appointment for three weeks, and all emergency appointments for the day were already taken.  

We had been rather expecting this, so the RFB called the Urgent Care Clinic and was put on hold, the automated voice telling him that we were 19th in the queue.  

We had been rather expecting this. He handed the phone to me, so I could listen to the muzak, while he went up to the laundry room.  

About five or ten minutes later, *my* phone rang. It was the nurse-practitioner clinic, double-checking my problem, and telling me that I could have an appointment at 11:30.  I rather suspect someone had checked my chart.

Saw the locum, accompanied by a fresh-faced student nurse, and she sent me across the street to LifeLab with a requisition for bloodwork.  The technician told me, that since I didn't have an appointment, it would be a 50-minute wait.  They saw me in 80 minutes.  I'd been rather expecting this and had brought a book.  Got through three chapters.

Walked home and nearly got run down in a lit crosswalk by an older gentleman driving an SUV.  He, of course, had been watching left for traffic, while making a right turn, somehow failing to notice me, or the four other pedestrians crossing from the other side.  Fortunately, I had been watching for him, because I rather expected this.