Thanks for the opportunity to vent. I really needed it.
The event has happened. It was nowhere near as terrible as I had anticipated, which of course I expected rationally but just could not trust emotionally. Its aftermath is a bit worse than I expected. I'm absolutely exhausted in pretty much every way possible. Drained. My immediate awareness feels like my head has been held for two days in a vise under a battery of strobe lights at a combination five-ring circus, jungle-combat theatre of operations, & giant heavy metal arena concert.
We drove approximately two hundred miles. For the usual inexplicable reasons, traffic was packed. A normally two and a half hour trip took four-plus. There were five distinct events. They did everything but have a bagpiper aboard a burning Viking ship.
Wednesday evening, a four-hour open-coffin wake. My SIL & I managed genuine graciousness. Her ‘husband’ didn’t show up. There are two daughters & an honorary-daughter cousin, with three marriages between them. Of the three husbands, I’m the only one ordered to never again darken my FIL’s door, & only one who attended the services.
My FIL was one of eleven children, so much of the evening was taken up with “Yes, I’m sure we’ve met somewhere along the line, good to see you, thanks for coming.” I spent most of the evening visiting with nieces & nephews. Made it through the entire event.
Thursday morning gathers immediate family at the funeral home for an hour of religious observances & major weeping. My poor dear wife was so tense & upset that three times I moved to hold her hand & needed to gently hold her frantically fidgeting fingers still with one hand in order to be able to grasp her hand with my other. She doesn’t remember.
Lined up all the cars, sign on roof, lights & flashers on. Rather than ride in the limo we went behind it in our own car — needed the time of peace & stillness to catch our breaths. Short ride to the church. A full funeral observance from this faith, readings, remarks, prayers, music, about an hour or more.
There was a short ride to a nice wooded cemetery with a view over a lake. About an hour, seated front row, more religious observances, then military honors for this Okinawa-based Korean War military policeman: flag on the coffin, two flag bearers, a trumpeter. They seemed to have different uniforms, but were said to all be from the Army. The bearers did the slow, precise triangular folding we’ve all seen. Very formally, with a short statement, the youngest & palest presented the flag to my wife. I guess the triangular wood & glass case is sold separately. The trumpeter played “Taps.”
The guest of honor staying behind, we took another short drive to a restaurant for, I guess you’d call it The Reception. It’s now safe to joke that there should have been another event, The Nap, between The Cemetery & The Reception. Two full hours of roaring way louder & more percussive than the loudest thunder. Four times it rose & rose, building to peaks for which I wished I’d had a decibel meter. Food was not bad. I got to meet my newest grand-niece for only the second time. She’s almost three, we had a good little getting-to-know-you series of transactions involving several sets of silverware. Then a long, exhausted ride home for my wife & I.
I want to be compassionate. People suffer at the deaths of loved ones. I understand the role of busy-ness & formalities as distractions from grief & standard roles to play when you’re really just feeling numb in the days after a death. Coming together as relatives & friends to bond & remember.
So what am I complaining about? Probably I resent feeling overwhelmed by the proceedings & how exhausting they were, leaving us numb & dazed, still to process the death. There’s a feeling of being a spear-carrier in a public grief-demonstration production for the benefit of the least common emotional denominator in the group. It’s a different culture in many ways from what I grew up with.
Oh well. It’s up to me to handle this sort of thing in such a way as to protect myself. Thanks for your patience.
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