What got me started thinking about this was a call I received on my cell phone at 5:15 a.m., California time, from South Carolina, telling me that my neighbor of the past twenty years, Mr. Toad, had died during the night. The call came from his housekeeper who has done some work for us recently. We talked about his years of COPD, his life since his wife died a few years ago, how he'd gotten impossibly bigger around the middle since then. And I asked her about plans for the funeral. I thought I could at least send flowers for the service and a card to the family, but my caller said Mr. Toad had chosen cremation and no service was planned.
Did you feel the empty at the end of that paragraph? That's what I mean.
This strange, new absence of meaningful ritual is no good for us. Humans need rite and ceremony, but we're in flux between the twentieth century way (when there was plenty of wood for caskets and plenty of land to place them in) and the new "right way" for this century. A right way will develop and it will be embraced because it feels right and honors the values of this new era, for that's the way culture operates: old status--change--new status, and on, and on in an undulating wave pattern that has marked all known time. But these cultural transition periods, maybe especially this one, are as awkward and ugly as...as the word flux.
Our weddings, births rites, and funerals are all up for grabs in the name of individualism in the past two decades. Even as we insist on our right to redesign these rituals, people have trouble at an unconscious level with the most important element of any ceremony: the feeling that we've somehow honored certain milestones the "right way." When they receive an invitation, wedding guests don't know whether to sign on to the website and pony up for the destination wedding, to just monetize the honeymoon, or to call the mother of the bride and request silver pattern registration information. The neighbors of the deceased don't know whether to dry clean the dark suit and change their plans for Thursday afternoon or...do nothing and try to act...how?
When each of my parents died, I knew to start phoning all their friends, contact one of the two funeral homes they were familiar with, put an announcement in their local paper, order the flowers, etc. As an only child, I was responsible for all the decisions, but I had inherited the template and only had to fill in the colors. They were beautiful funerals with both chapel and graveside services, music, a soloist, flowers-- every tradition they had grown up with themselves. They were exhausting efforts, but they gave me a place to put the buzzing current of energy inside me that alternated back and forth between denial and realization. They were done the right way and I have had the comfort of knowing that.
I was told that Mr. Toad's daughter, several states away in the North, was trapped in her house under three feet of snow that had fallen in the latest wave of storms. All her planning was honed down to getting her city's snow plow to come dig her out so she could get to her Dad. That just hurts my heart to hear about.
I wrote eulogies for each of my parents and had them read by the attending minister to my the friends and family who came to the funerals. Of all the plans and decisions I made for my mother and father after they died, those eulogies were the most satisfying thing for me. Anyone who wanted to speak in honor of my parents was invited to do so, too, and I know that the speakers were helped by it. Mr. Toad's daughter will have to find what helps her; I deeply hope she finds the right way.
Had there been a funeral, here's what I might have stood to say:
Mr. Toad was a fine neighbor. His loud bass croak was instantly recognizable when he called or hailed us across the yard. He loaned his tools and gave back the ones he borrowed. He kept an eye on our house and and we trusted him with a key. He tolerated our son's garage band and even pretended to like the music, although even our son believes it was impossible to like. He waved whenever he saw us and usually stopped to talk for a few minutes about hunting, or how the kids were doing, or the state of the lake we shared. He asked for some ivy transplants for his yard and my husband was glad to put them in for him because he never asked us for much.
Mr Toad would call us, very pleased with himself, when he found someone cheap to dig up a stump or put on a new roof; he loved to find bargain rate workers who actually showed up. And he always followed the worker every step of the job, "supervising" with froggy-voiced instructions and criticisms, so he always had to find someone new to do the same type of job the next time.
A few months ago, he phoned us while we were away to say that a muskrat had come to join us in residence at the lake and was tunneling under his yard. He had discovered the tunnels when he stepped through the sod, up to his knee in the hole, and had a real struggle to get out. I felt bad that we weren't at home at the time, because I know he would have croaked for us and we could have helped him...which calls up visions both comical and frightening. Before we left to come west, I asked my husband if he had spoken to Mr. Toad in the last few days and he said he thought he remembered seeing the truck pull out of the driveway the day before. We always wanted to let Mr. Toad know when we would be traveling, but we got rushed this time and didn't call. I wish there was someplace to send flowers. When we head east again, it's going to feel very strange to realize he's not in his rightful place in his home just beside ours.
Farewell, Mr. Toad.
The Matter In Question: Have you attended a service or planned a service that was non-traditional and, also, that "felt right"? Have you given thought to your own service? Should you plan or leave the plan up to others? Has someone you've loved and lost left you at a loss for planning a service? Do you hope your parents state their wishes or would you prefer that they leave it all up to you? Where is the whole matter of funeral headed?
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