Monday, November 6, 2017

Whole New Meaning To All Saints Day

Dear Lit Loves,

Yesterday was the official celebration of All Saints Day at my home church, Bunker Hill United Methodist.  I never really paid much attention to this honor program at the church where all the church members who have died in the last year are remembered with a candle lighting ceremony.  The ceremony became personal for me when my dad died after battling Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma successfully for twelve years.  In the end, it was not the lymphoma that killed him. Dad actually died of pneumonia, a collapsed lung and his heart ceased to function properly.  I will never forget the day a week before he actually died when an ICU physician came to my dad's hospital room to inform me there was noting more that could be done for my father.  It was the physician and ICU team's estimate that my dad had maybe a week to live.  Talk about a hard slap across the face and a sucker punch to the gut.  I stopped breathing at that moment and the room started spinning.  I found the nearest chair in dad's hospital room and sat down trying to absorb the unthinkable.  On top of it all, that particular day was my birthday and I usually spent it with my dad as was the case that day.  I remember looking up and saying to God, "What the hell kind of gift is this?"  Why would God decide it was time to take my Dad, my rock and the person I went to in serious times like this?  I still do not have an answer to that question.  Additionally, I had been instructed to pass the information about my father along to my mother and brother as the ICU doctors wanted to meet with them as well.  I did not want to have a full meltdown in front of my dad while he lay in an ICU hospital room fighting for his remaining last breaths.  I walked to a floor of the hospital that had been vacated for remodeling, found a small conference room, shut the door and wondered if I was going to die right there myself just from the pain and panic and emotional upheaval I was experiencing after being given the news about my father.  Dear God, Mother Mary, Whoever.  I had a week or less remaining to be with my dad.  Dad died five days later at a Hospice near my parents' home.  My mom, brother, me and my husband had been sitting with him in his Hospice room.  I had been holding his hand and I realized I could no longer feel his pulse when I pressed on his wrist.  I checked for a pulse on the side of his neck:  nothing.  Mom checked for breathing:  nothing.  A doctor and nurse arrived and officially declared dad gone. 

So my first experience of being physically and emotionally involved in the church's All Saints Day ceremony was that year about four months after my dad's death.  I heard the pastor say my dad's name and a picture of him appeared on a screen at the front of the church.  My mom rose from the pew first and somehow I followed behind her.  When mom and I made it to the front of the church, we were both given already lit candles by the ushers.  Together we lit a candle in dad's honor.  That's about all I remember as I completely lost it emotionally, went back to sit in the church pew and witnessed other families do what we had just done to honor Dad.  Losing dad was and still is gut-wrenching.  No one ever knows what it's like till it happens to someone in their family. 

Even today I still go by my father's grave the week of All Saints Day.  Last week I went by Dad's grave with mom.  We cleaned the plate marker and placed new flowers at his grave.  I never can get over the many more people who have been buried close to my dad since my last visit to his grave.  Those families get it.  The parents of the one year old who is buried five feet down from my dad.  The family of the thirty year old woman who is buried seven spaces to the left of my dad's grave.  And this year, just the day before a funeral had been held adjacent to my dad's grave.  It was the burial of someone else's daughter.  The floral bouquets were still freshly covering the burial site.  I remember thinking, I know the agony that family is going through right now.  I still cope with the same extreme grief, overwhelming sadness, and loneliness that remains since my Dad left this world.  I'm glad I have a place to come and honor him, talk to him.  I don't know what people whose deceased are buried in mausoleums do when they visit their deceased.  Stand in front of a wall of shelving units, maybe?  That would be too impersonal for me. I sit on a nearby bench and talk with my Dad while visiting the cemetery where he is buried.

This year I was not present at the All Saints Day ceremony at my home church.  My mom still lights a candle in my father's name each year.  I spent the morning planting pansies, cabbage plants, and two rosemary trees in my front yard.  One of my neighbors came walking by and asked why I spend so much time working on my yard.  I told him it was something I had in common with my Dad:  a love of beautifying and taking care of my little portion of the earth.  It's my way of honoring my Dad now on All Saints Day.  It brings me more peace and ebbs the anguish a tiny bit more each year.  It's my way of still being with my dad.  One day you will understand.  You will discover your own means of finding some little bit of comfort, tranquility in regards to losing a loved one.  It's a whole different reality when All Saints Day hits a little bit more close to home and heart.

Peace,
Grace
(Amy)

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