Transience Amplifies Beauty
Mar. 30th, 2005 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlLast night my mother's best friend of the last 30 years died. She was in the process of sucumbing to bone marrow cancer, but that's not what got her. Apparently one of her lungs collapsed after a fairly routine procedure of some description, and the doctors simply didn't get to it in time.
We all knew she wasn't long for this world, but it still came as a shock. This woman has been around all my life. She lived around the corner from my Mom, her daughter is the same age as Michael and the two of them went through elementary and high school together. She was always in our house, always in on our family gatherings, always there when one of us needed her. Did I love her like a mother? No, can't say I did. In fact, I always found her rather annoying. She was one of those stereotypical jewish divorcees who seemed incapable of following the plot of any movie she saw and always ended up shouting to my mother "What just happened?" in the middle of the theater. The kind who constantly berrated her daughter for not doing enough to take care of her. She was a woman with a grand sense of entitlment.
Still, it's sad to hear she's gone. All flaws aside, this woman has been a constant in my life since birth. Not a birthday has passed that I haven't gotten a gift from her, not a graduation that I didn't receive accolades. She was just someone who was always around and whose presence was usually taken for granted. Her passing reminds me of how impermanent this all is. I hate the idea of impermanence. It's the reason i can't get behind Buddhism. While impermanence may be a fact of life, it's one I've never been able to accept, and furthermore never WANT to accept. Joan (the lady in question) didn't want to either. When she was diagnosed with cancer her daughter Ginette asked that she get counseling to deal with her own impending mortality. But Joan refused. She wasn't ready to deal with it, a fact that made it very hard for Ginette to care for her. Joan refused to think of what might need to be done should she pass, and true to form I'm told she went kicking and screaming into the ether.
So now I have a funeral to attend on Friday. It'll be the second one I've ever been to.
I don't like the thought that I'm getting to the age where I'm gonna have to start saying permanent goodbyes to people I love. As I've said before, I never want my parents to die. My dad is 71. He's in good health and comes from a long line of men who've lived well into their 90's but...that doesn't stop me from being afraid that I'll lose him soon. I'll tell you a secret, last month without any advanced notice, dad sent Michael a copy of his will. There was no accompanying letter in the envolope, just the document. It states that all his wordly possesions shall pass to his current wife at the time of his death. Should she pass before him, everything goes to Michael and myself. Everything. The houses, the property, the theater company, the cars, the art collection, the sports memorobilia, all of it. There is no mention of Greg, Neil, or Maria. Needless to say, the arrival of this document made Mike a little nervous so he called pop and asked him what the deal was. Dad told him there was nothig to worry about, just that he'd made some changes and thought we should know what they were.
Mike told me he wasn't expecting to see any of the inheritence for another 5-10 years, and all I could think was "so soon?" The thought of my father passing within the next five years is unacceptable to me. I love my dad. Sure we don't have anything to talk about, I never see him, and he's incredibly self-involved, but he's still my dad and I have a gazillion amazing memories of him. I don't want him to leave me. He's one of my rocks. So's my mom. What will I ever do without them? Who will I always come back to? Who will always be there for me no matter what? How will I take care of myself? I'm a flighty little dove, I need to be anchored to something. I wish there were someone I could petition to make them stay.
Mom called me last night around 2:30 AM. She'd just returned form the hospital and she was crying. Last thing anyone wants to do is listen to their parents cry. Had to listen to my father cry when his third wife died. I'd never heard or seen him cry before. It was achingly human. My parents aren't super heroes, but I sure wish they were.
We all knew she wasn't long for this world, but it still came as a shock. This woman has been around all my life. She lived around the corner from my Mom, her daughter is the same age as Michael and the two of them went through elementary and high school together. She was always in our house, always in on our family gatherings, always there when one of us needed her. Did I love her like a mother? No, can't say I did. In fact, I always found her rather annoying. She was one of those stereotypical jewish divorcees who seemed incapable of following the plot of any movie she saw and always ended up shouting to my mother "What just happened?" in the middle of the theater. The kind who constantly berrated her daughter for not doing enough to take care of her. She was a woman with a grand sense of entitlment.
Still, it's sad to hear she's gone. All flaws aside, this woman has been a constant in my life since birth. Not a birthday has passed that I haven't gotten a gift from her, not a graduation that I didn't receive accolades. She was just someone who was always around and whose presence was usually taken for granted. Her passing reminds me of how impermanent this all is. I hate the idea of impermanence. It's the reason i can't get behind Buddhism. While impermanence may be a fact of life, it's one I've never been able to accept, and furthermore never WANT to accept. Joan (the lady in question) didn't want to either. When she was diagnosed with cancer her daughter Ginette asked that she get counseling to deal with her own impending mortality. But Joan refused. She wasn't ready to deal with it, a fact that made it very hard for Ginette to care for her. Joan refused to think of what might need to be done should she pass, and true to form I'm told she went kicking and screaming into the ether.
So now I have a funeral to attend on Friday. It'll be the second one I've ever been to.
I don't like the thought that I'm getting to the age where I'm gonna have to start saying permanent goodbyes to people I love. As I've said before, I never want my parents to die. My dad is 71. He's in good health and comes from a long line of men who've lived well into their 90's but...that doesn't stop me from being afraid that I'll lose him soon. I'll tell you a secret, last month without any advanced notice, dad sent Michael a copy of his will. There was no accompanying letter in the envolope, just the document. It states that all his wordly possesions shall pass to his current wife at the time of his death. Should she pass before him, everything goes to Michael and myself. Everything. The houses, the property, the theater company, the cars, the art collection, the sports memorobilia, all of it. There is no mention of Greg, Neil, or Maria. Needless to say, the arrival of this document made Mike a little nervous so he called pop and asked him what the deal was. Dad told him there was nothig to worry about, just that he'd made some changes and thought we should know what they were.
Mike told me he wasn't expecting to see any of the inheritence for another 5-10 years, and all I could think was "so soon?" The thought of my father passing within the next five years is unacceptable to me. I love my dad. Sure we don't have anything to talk about, I never see him, and he's incredibly self-involved, but he's still my dad and I have a gazillion amazing memories of him. I don't want him to leave me. He's one of my rocks. So's my mom. What will I ever do without them? Who will I always come back to? Who will always be there for me no matter what? How will I take care of myself? I'm a flighty little dove, I need to be anchored to something. I wish there were someone I could petition to make them stay.
Mom called me last night around 2:30 AM. She'd just returned form the hospital and she was crying. Last thing anyone wants to do is listen to their parents cry. Had to listen to my father cry when his third wife died. I'd never heard or seen him cry before. It was achingly human. My parents aren't super heroes, but I sure wish they were.
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Date: 2005-03-31 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 02:55 am (UTC)