Thursday, 22 April 2004
Marking one year later - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - When Richard Nixon resigned, he addressed his staff at the White House, and feeling melancholy, he mentioned his mother, "She will have no books written about her, but she was a saint." Somehow, I remembered that in those hours so soon after my grandmother's passing, one year ago.
On a couple of occasions since, I've recounted in this space stories about how my family and I dealt with the loss of our grandmother. It was a challenge. One year later, it does seem like a year, and yet it doesn't. Sometimes it feels like not so long ago, and sometimes it feels like those hours and days after her death went by so quickly.
I often think of her, and I do miss her. You can never say you don't miss someone, especially when they're so much a part of your life for so long. The past year has had its challenges. One thinks of the new realities that all of us have had to adjust to, all the new things that come with moving on. Finding closure, whatever closure is, is tough. We have all cried more than our fair share. It's sad, but it's also very healthy.
Over the past year, I've remembered her, moments from the past, while pondering life in general. And since we've come to the first anniversary of her death, I remember where I was one year ago and incidentals like that. One doesn't tend to remember that precise moment when your life changes, yet somehow, that instance isn't forgettable.
She had been in the hospital for a week or so, and when I saw her the week prior, she had been lucid. Then the day before she died, it was all a little unsettling, if not astonishing. She was restless and things didn't seem right. Waiting for God, as it were, is not easy.
The day she died, a Tuesday, I hadn't planned on visiting, as I had an exam Wednesday morning. In the evening, I got a call from my aunt. It must have been around 9.00 in the evening. She said she, my uncle and my cousin Peter would be going to the hospital. I didn't ask. It seemed urgent enough. I said I'd throw on some clothes and meet them outside my house. We drove in relative silence. It was surreal. By the time, we got to the hospital she died. The rest of my family was there. Tears were inevitable. Crying was something that we all had to get used to.
We went back to my grandmother's house and we did what she would expect us to do, pray. Minutes after her passing, on bended knee before God, it just seemed necessary. (Nixon also said that a man, no matter how powerful, could never be too proud to go his knees before God.) She would have been so pleased. She would have been so proud. There was discussion about the arrangements, which day for the service, what day the mass would be held, that kind of stuff. Then, I excused myself, called my Dad, and told him. It was hard. How do you tell a son their mother has died? We both cried. It was the first time in a while I had spoken to him. It was the last time I spoke to him.
I tried going to bed, thinking I needed some sleep before the morning exam. I was kidding myself. I couldn't sleep. I e-mailed the dean's office and the professor and told them of the extenuating circumstances. I tried going back to bed. I couldn't sleep, so I got up, sat at my desk and began putting together a sort of remembrance of my grandmother. Most of it became the framework of what I would say at her prayer service, when all of her grandchildren took the opportunity to speak.
I thought of my grandmother, quotes and such that seemed to come rushing back into memory, and I added those to my reminiscences. I wanted to be fair. I didn't want to unleash a symphony of sugary or maudlin poetry. I wanted to be frank, just like her. I knew it would be sad, so being exceedingly hilarious was not an option. Nevertheless, I did manage a bit of humour, as I'm sure she would have appreciated and expected. Perhaps I shocked her Catholic friends and family, but you have to weigh the person you're remembering with your own values. Being candid and sincere was the only order of the day I had to consider when thinking about what I needed to convey in the few minutes I had. I typed and typed, crafting sentences and honing phrases. It was light out by the time I stopped and had a draft of sorts. I finally went to bed, eased, thanks to getting it all out of my system.
The lesson I suppose is you need to get it out of your system, deal with the situation at hand. Do not shirk away, afraid and scared. Deal with it and it'll be easier in the end; and not just when dealing with someone's death, but dealing with everything in your life. Avoidance is no virtue; responsibility is no vice.
I suppose it was our responsibility to remember our grandmother properly, and I wrote at the time, and I mean it now, my entire family, everyone, did splendidly in stepping up in those days after her death. We've all had other things come up in our lives, and I guess amidst the grief and sadness, some good was able to come out of her passing, if only that for brief snatches of time in our lives, we took the time to laugh, to cry and to remember. One year later, we're still trying to move on. However, it is always necessary, in whatever you do in life, to move on often looking fondly back.
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I will append to this column, the text of those remarks I delivered at the prayer service. I heard back from a lot of people after the service, all kindly mind you, and so for posterity's sake, I'll leave it here. At those tender moments after her death, it was my summation of her life and its meaning for me.
NOTES FOR REMARKS - Friday, May 2, 2003
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Of everything that's been said here tonight, the last few days, and what will be said tomorrow - cathartic though it may be - in a way, I'm glad she's finally able to hear it all.
One is reminded of Nixon's appraisal of his own mother: "She will have no books written about her. But she was a saint."
Her curriculum vitae, though interesting and remarkable, was not one of a great stateswoman. It was one that satisfied her station in life, which in itself was unconventional. Widowed at a young age, having to raise a daughter and four boys on her own, whilst pursuing a career - she did that before it was a fad on television. Come to think of it, she did it before television.
I look before me today and see her family - perhaps her most admirable of achievements. These are individuals of varied background and training - children and grandchildren she was proud of. Children and grandchildren, who all-too infrequently, came together for her.
Her family is mourning the loss of a mother and grandmother, a friend, a confidante, and the sole reason we call ourselves a family. It is an impossible, inconceivable void that is waiting to be filled; yet it is unfathomable to consider what would take the place of her knowing and unmistakable presence.
For someone so short, she certainly did cast a large shadow.
For most of us, she is what we have known our whole lives. She was always there. Even now, we expect her to be there. She was always a part of things. She was always invited. Hell hath no fury than when she found out she was snubbed or ignored.
Now she is gone. Now comes the incredibly challenging and empty search for comfort. Perhaps, even if it were to be fleeting, her family could look to each other, and realise the deep and abiding love we all share for her. Perhaps that shall sustain us. It would have pleased her a great deal.
She was a woman who was complex, yet also she could be very simple. With her, depending on when it was, one could be strictly conventional, or else merely conversational. Even in her most difficult of times in the hospital, whom she was to the nurses and doctors, was a completely different person to her own family.
She was, to avoid any illusion of political correctness, a showman. What was fascinating was her disdain for anything that was not conventional, conservative thinking. It was old-fashioned, sure, but it was quintessential her.
She was a showman. She regaled friends and family with stories that weren't always all too true. At 91 years of age, the truth could be bended, and the facts could be skewed. She would delight in the humorous occurrences that were of her own, or somebody else. She liked jokes, and could be known to unload the occasionally off-colour one.
She was candid. She told people what she thought, sometimes to their face, or sometimes behind their back. With this slight flaw, she drove as many people away, as she brought in. She'd be delighted to know that most of them are in this room tonight.
She had an opinion about anything and everything:
Whether someone wore their hair right that day, or if those shoes matched that outfit. Her sartorial style was something she prided herself on.
The war in Iraq to George W. Bush's intellectual capabilities.
Everything from Oprah Winfrey to Regis Philbin to Jay Leno's chin to Sidney Poitier's poise.
Infidels, nonbelieivers and whores, to what was on Maury Povich's program.
American foreign policy's standing amongst the world community, to the decaying rot known as 'reality television.'
She was tuned in, and always eager to learn. Her Funk and Wagnalls dictionary, were one to bring it in, would be well thumbed and chock full of bookmarks, each of which containing a new word she had just encountered and its appropriate definition. Her television guide, taken from the middle of The Province most mornings, would be scrawled with notes and check marks next to the programs she intended to watch. And because she got to the newspaper first every morning, subsequent readers would be treated to certain words she hadn't known the meaning of heretofore, underlined, with the definitions scribbled in the margins.
As the month of April turned into May, it was rather disheartening to look at those sultans of swat, those knights of the diamond, those 'Boys of Summer', play America's past time of Baseball, knowing that they would be without that fond and loyal viewing they could expect from her, season after season. As much as I will remember her for her faith in God, we will recall affectionately her love of baseball. Whether a finely executed double play, or her hated Yankees were going down to the rarest of defeats, she soaked up the game, and she was known to scrutinise the box scores with careful study yet relative ease.
She was unique. She was something else. She had spunk - something a doctor boldly told her gathered family, so soon after her passing. She was an entertainer. Whether an overly saccharine song from the old country, or that blue joke, or making sure your drink's topped up, or if you've had something to eat, she looked after those who were in her midst.
An image that will probably stay with me the rest of my life, was the unadorned yet unabashed love I saw between a son and a mother. Nearly two weeks ago, I was at her bedside, with her eldest son, Isaac. She was in pain, restless and overly anxious. She wanted to "go home." She wanted "to rest." All that modern medicine, technology and science could do was just about nothing, except her son stroking her tired and fading hair, holding her hand, providing some modicum, any level, of comfort.
Watching her restlessness and anxiousness, the verse from Jeremiah, chapter 6, verse 14 kept rattling around my head: "Peace, peace; when there is no peace." We were waiting for God, I suppose.
One of the things that she will be most remembered for, if not admired for, was her deep and abiding faith. Her loyalty to God, her love of Christ and her devotion to the Virgin Mary. It isn't something that is rife amongst her successors, but it is something that we have marvelled at. (I certainly have.) Her faith in her religion and her trust of prayer, no doubt sustained her through the many trying times of her life. No doubt, her prayers sustained her through the many difficult and painful moments of the last few years.
Prayer has provided her family with comfort at this time. Another image that will stay with me, from these last few days, was that image of her family, gathered around her improvised altar of religious icons, reciting the rosary, minutes after her passing. It was so appropriate. It was so right. She would have been so pleased. She would have been so proud.
Whether family, friend, acquaintance, or even if you've never met her - tomorrow, we commit her soul to the creator she sought to serve. At the same time, we commit our memories of her to all of our hearts. That, I am sure, she will know, and hear.
I feel safe enough to say in this room, that the good Lord broke the mould when he made her. We shall never see the likes of someone so witty and wicked, charming and charmed, loving and loved.
Her friends and family have overcome the shock of it all. However, I believe the greatest test lies ahead. In the coming days, once the services are finished, the arrangements completed, the visitors left, once the occasions are marked - once we return to the boredom and tedium of our less-colourful lives, that is when we will realise how much more difficult and impossible it will be to go on without her. Wherever home was for her, she is there now. And she is at rest.
Grief is the price we pay for love.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .