On the Loss of F_____

                        On the Loss of F_____
     
     Thursday

This is not the you I know - with lines and tubes and machines
keeping you alive; although, the you we know you are may never 
live that life again. 

     Friday

Sitting in this waiting room smelling strongly of disinfectant and
offering shoddy cable and one-ply sandpaper tissues

Looking at the friends and family - the friends you said you never
knew you had - and seeing the things they've brought: the extra
clothes and comfortable blankets and salty, fatty foods our bodies
crave when faced with crisis

Feeling inadequate as I've only brought a coffee for your wife. 
We've worked together for three - is is it four? more? - years and 
she loves her coffee and the hospital coffee is little more than
brown, lukewarm water. 

Hearing things I wish I didn't know of sedatives and EEGs and 
other terms I heard my mother talk about - she was an ICU nurse,
remember? Today - or was it yesterday - they told me that you 
coded. How I wish I didn't know what that meant. 

Listening to them talk of you in the past tense as if you're 
already gone, as if it will somehow ease the pain of your passing 
while I still hold out hope that what everyone knows is wrong.

     Saturday

I wonder if they wonder why I'm here. I'm neither family nor close
friend, yet friends we are, for we break bread and share our 
stories and understand each other as few others do. You always say
I'm an old soul - an old man in a young man's body. You're not old,
not to me anyway. We are the same, you and I, in all the ways that
matter.

I come for you and for her and for them and for me because in some
small way it helps us all. It helps me, at least. Coming early and
staying late, keeping a vigil of whose ending I'd rather not know
the end. 

     Sunday

Holding on for three days until the fourth when at 11:42 she tells 
us that the you we know is now the you we knew. There's six of us:
her and son and daughter and us three friends comforting one 
another before the doctor comes with final - much too final - 
instructions and paperwork. We dab our eyes with those accursed
tissues and find solace in the fact that you've found peace.

Hanging on through the elevator ride, refusing to turn in my 
visitor card as if that will change the way things are, hugging 
one another one last time in the parking lot before going home to
rest - as if I even could.

Losing it in the parking lot - in the car - not caring who might
see me I start to cry uncontrollably. My faith tells me there's a
reason; my reason tells me it's absurd and I find a faith-infused, 
belief-imbued existential meltdown screaming into the void:
  
  What if we climb Mount Purgatory only to 
  find we still fall short of absolution?

What does this question even mean? 
  Why am I still asking this twelve hours later?

Wishing that the world would stop and give some indication that 
you've gone. The universe is so uncaring, I suppose that's another
reason why I stay - stayed - to show that someone cares - cared. 
And - as my Grandma said - if you don't go to other people's 
funerals they won't go to yours. If you were here you'd appreciate 
the joke and say that it's OK to laugh. Right now I can't, but I 
promise I will. Eventually. In time. 

     Monday

Today is beautiful; yesterday was overcast, stormy, and cloudy.
There is no justice; the skies should darken in mourning. Just 
once I want to see nature recognize that a good man is no longer
with us. I suppose that's just too much to ask. 

Going to the viewing - celebrating the life you lived. Surprised
at how many didn't know you were in the Navy or worked for the
telephone company. Really? Did they know you at all? Your face is
everywhere: on the walls, on the tables, even on some fancy flat-
screen TV. Seriously. A flat-screen TV in a funeral parlor. 
Funeral home. Whatever it's called. 

Here early and still the line is long - waiting half an hour to 
see you while you stare back at me from your pictures until I see 
the undertaker - mortician? after-life care specialist? - could 
not replicate your smile or your laugh lines and your eyes are 
closed. Never again will we see that mischievous twinkle. 

Compose myself before the line moves to her and them only to lose
it all over again. 
  
  "Thank you for coming." 
  
  "Thank you for staying."
  
  "He liked you, a history nerd. That's saying something."
  
  "We love you." 

I came to give condolences and need solace myself. I somewhat 
dislike the whole idea behind viewings. It's only just set in 
that this is the new reality and we've come to terms there will
always be a void we cannot fill and we start to learn to cope
with that void and then the wounds are renewed all over again 
as if we've picked at a scab exposing pink, raw flesh and must
start the whole process over again.

And then someone reminds me about tomorrow. Tomorrow will be
rough, but it will become less rough or a different kind of rough 
- a rough we will not overcome or vanquish or ignore but rather 
gradually learn to live with. Face tomorrow when it comes; not 
before.  

     Tuesday

Once again the sky fails to register your loss. It's a perfect day
for fishing: not to hot, not to cold, a few clouds dot the sky. 
The church is packed; its standing room only. In fact, people are
standing in the back, and not just those with small children. I've
known this was coming all day, but the music still hits me in the 
gut:

  My sin - O the bliss of this glorious thought! - 
  My sin - not in part, but the whole - is nailed to the cross
    and I bear it no more; 
  Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

and

  But just think of stepping on shore - and finding it Heaven!
  Of touching a hand - and finding it God's!
  Of breathing new air - and finding it celestial!
  Of waking up in glory - and finding it home! 

Then the preacher stands and recounts your love of God and family.
Your love of God; the God who reached down and saved you and 
changed you and made you a new man. The Gospel was preached. What
more could be asked? And then a line from Shakespeare comes
unbidden to my mind:

  Had I but served my God with half the zeal	
  I served my king, he would not in mine age	
  Have left me naked to mine enemies.

Where did that come from? It doesn't fit you at all. A better
line would be one from Victor Hugo:

  To love another person is to see the face of God. 

That fits you much better. 

Then the service is over and we're ushered out and into our cars
for the long procession to the cemetery. Alone in my car, no one 
will mind if a play some music - Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem. 
Sixty-seven minutes long, and exactly eighteen minutes remain when 
I turn the car off. 

We gather around the canopy; two servicemen in white uniforms 
stand guard over your flag-draped . . . you know. J_____ - the 
other one who stood watch for you these last few days - begins to
play Ashokan Farewell; it's just too much. Much, much too much. I 
close my eyes in hopes of holding back the surging salty tide of 
tears - all to no avail. It's just as well; I'd have never made it 
through the military honors.

  "On behalf of a grateful nation . . . "

More words are said but I do not hear them. And then it's over and
people are moving. I stand still, not wanting to move, praying one 
last time that this has all been a bête noire. Then someone moves
me or jostles me or bumps me and reality comes flooding back in. I
stand in line to offer her and them my sympathy one last time.

Driving home the requiem concludes; these words echo in my mind:

  Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit; aber ich will euch wieder sehen und 
  euer Herz soll sich freuen und eure Freude soll neimand von euch 
  nehmen. 

  And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and 
  your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. 



                        Requiescat In Pace

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