death

I Have No Words

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

And that is profoundly confusing for me. I have always had words. I was the second-grader who got in trouble for bringing a book into the girls’ bathroom so I could get to the end of my chapter. I was the third-grader whose teacher pulled her aside to say, “Honey, I know you have a lot to say, but can you practice waiting to say it later?”

I have always processed the entire world verbally. If I didn’t talk about it, I wasn’t sure it had really happened.

But I am out of words right now.

I feel stiff. I feel frozen. I feel as if every one of my deepest and most profound emotions is stuck in my throat.

I am learning that grief presents itself in strange ways.

When my Dad died, I cried and mourned and wrote about him and talked about him and somehow put everything in place.

But with the death of my Mom, I find myself at a loss for words.

It’s funny.

One of the many things that Mom and I shared was our love of the spoken and written word. We were both readers. We were both writers. We both preferred verbal puzzles to mathematical ones.

We were also both more emotional than logical. We both struggled to force our hearts to follow our brains, instead of the other way around.

And now she is gone.

And I have no words.

I have tried and tried and tried again to come to this safe space where I can write just what I feel. But I can’t quite get my arms around the hugeness of the hole in my world.

I have no words.

Mom was graceful, even when she was unaware of that grace. She was stylish, as I can attest now that my sister and I have sorted through the 12 bags of her clothes.

Mom was opinionated. She was strong. She was fragile and breakable, and we all spent so much energy trying to protect her from the life around her. She was never able to fully grasp how much we loved her and looked to her to guide our way through this life.

I have no words to express the strange feeling that I have without her in my life.

One moment I feel like a balloon that has escaped its knot, rising and rising into the stratosphere with absolutely nothing to guide me.

The next moment I feel like the wise woman of my own village; the oldest and wisest, able to fold my mother’s lessons into my own.

I am here because I am afraid that if I stop writing, stop speaking, I will simply disappear. Without the reflection of my Mom in my mirror, am I really there?

I have lost my words.

I believe that they will come back. As I embrace my beautiful granddaughter and watch her falling into a good book, I see my Mom.

Life is a journey. Life goes on, no matter what we think about that fact.

My Mom is gone. For now, my voice has gone with her.

I will look to my children and to theirs, and I know that I will find it once again.

For now, I am here only to show that I am here.

A Lesson From Moana’s Grandma

/ momshieb / 14 Comments

My mother died last week, the night before Thanksgiving. She lived a long and very full life, and she left that life reluctantly.

Mom was a practicing Catholic, so my family grew up with the typical Catholic imagery of life and death. Heaven or Hell and all that. In her very last days, Mom was unsure of what was coming. She expressed her doubts that she’d really be reunited with our Dad, who was the love of her life for over six decades. She worried that her death would be a true ending, and she held on tenaciously to every fading breath.

It made me incredibly sad to hear her.

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Yesterday I spent the day with my grandsons. I hadn’t seen them for 10 days, the time of our vigil by Mom’s bedside. Both had been sick, as had their Mom and sister. They were in COVID quarantine, and as I grieved for my Mother, I missed all of them terribly.

So I was filled with relief and joy to have them here yesterday, although I worried that my sadness and my distracted mind might bother them.

I should have known better.

My little Johnny, all of four and a half years of wisdom, was working on a puzzle of the “Polar Express.” I was sitting with his baby brother on my knee, just watching the puzzle master at work. Suddenly, Johnny asked me,

“Is Great Grandma a spirit now?”

“Yes,” I answered. “She is.”

“But, what is her spirit?”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“What is it? What is her spirit?”

“I don’t know,” I answered as truthfully as I could. “You can’t see it. It’s the part of Great Grandma that loves us. It’s still around us.”

This seemed a bit too metaphysical for such a young child, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed. My daughter and her family don’t go to church, nor do we. I know that the kids have talked about life and death. I know that they have looked at and thought about the deaths of birds and salamanders and other animals. They’ve been through the death of their family dog.

But I didn’t know how much of the “invisible spirit” idea a four-year-old could grasp. I didn’t want him thinking of ghosts.

Johnny never stopped placing his puzzle pieces. He never even looked up at me.

He just said one thing before I broke down in tears and he came to give me a hug.

“Nonni,” he said. “I think her spirit is you now. I think it’s you.”

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It was later in the day, as we were eating a snack, that I asked Johnny what he thought about spirits. He thought for a minute, then looked up at me seriously.

“Remember Moana’s Grandma? She turned into a spirit of a ray.”

That was all this sweet, wise little soul needed to know. He wasn’t thinking of Heaven or Hell or worthiness or sins. He was thinking that he’d learned everything he needed to know about spirits from one Disney movie.

Call me crazy, but I am so happy to think that my strong, powerful, smart Momma is out there somewhere in sparkling spirit form. Maybe she is a spirit cat, like her precious kitty Tess. Maybe she is an octopus, so fitting for our “pulpi” eating Sicilian family.

Or maybe, just maybe, her spirit really is me.

I don’t know yet.

But I know that Johnny has taken a valuable lesson from one sweet movie. He doesn’t fear death, because even at his tender age, he understands that spirits go on and that death is not goodbye.

This, if you ask me, is the most perfect belief a human could have.

Go Gentle Into That Sweet Night

/ momshieb / 6 Comments

Photo by Altınay Dinç on Unsplash

You are a fierce warrior. You have stood up straight and strong for all of your nine decades of life.

You are powerful. You were the first warrior woman I ever knew. You stood up for yourself when the Catholic Church told you to stay quiet and obedient. You stood with your hands on your hips when the schools told you to send your girls out into the snow wearing skirts.

You have never backed down, even when the idea of standing up made your hands shake.

But.

You are a tired warrior now. I think that you have fought all of your battles, and I think that you have nothing left to prove.

You have raised a troop of healthy, happy children. You have watched your grandchildren grow and thrive and multiply.

I think that your journey is complete.

In my loving daughter’s heart, I think that you have earned your turn to rest.

I stand outside tonight, under the Hunter’s Moon. I breathe in the crisp scent of the dying year. The gentle exhalation of the oak leaves, the wet smooth smell of the soil, the bitter scent of fallen seeds. I pull them into myself. I hold my breath.

I think of you.

I think of how fiercely you are holding on to this life.

I wish that I could tell you that your work here is done. You have earned your gentle rest. You have been a loving wife, a supportive mother, a loyal friend. You have done enough. You have been both good and worthy.


“Please go gentle into that good night,

Old age should sigh and smile at close of day;

Embrace, embrace the dying of the light.

And you, my mother, there on the proud height,

Bless, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Please go gentle into that good night.

Embrace, embrace the glowing of the light.”

You can, if you choose, let go.

For the First Time, I Do Not Want to Be Just Like My Mom

/ momshieb / 14 Comments

My mother was beautiful. She was elegant and stylish. She always looked immaculately put together and ready for anything.

She was a wonderful cook, and was able to keep 6 kids and our Dad happy, well fed, and healthy on a very tight budget.

Mom was an artist, and could paint and draw in ways that left me amazed.

As the oldest daughter in a family of six children, I grew up very much in awe of my Mother. She was fiercely opinionated, always outspoken and she never backed down from a conflict. I remember her as the champion of young girls in town when one historically snowy winter had her contacting the principal of the local Junior High School to demand that her daughters be allowed to wear pants to school. “I will send my daughters in skirts when all the boys have to walk to school with bare legs, too.”

She was my hero.

By the time I was old enough to understand the concept of time, I wanted to grow up to be exactly like my Mother. I wanted to be smart. I wanted to be artistic. I yearned to know how to cook and I was determined to become a mother myself.

So much of my life has seen me happily copying my Mom. So much of it has seen me wanting to echo her strength and her resilience.

But something has changed in the past few years, and it has shown me that my mother can still teach me lessons even as I reach the age of Medicare.

Mom is 91 years old now. She has overcome cancer, pneumonia and even Covid 19. She still lives in the house where she raised all of us, where she cared for our Dad through several illnesses, and where she watched as he died.

Most of her children are still around her, still sharing meals in that same kitchen, still watching TV in that same room.

Along with my brothers and sisters, I try to take my turn visiting Mom, and doing what little I can to help take care of her. She has a lovely woman living there as her Home Health Aide. She watches TV, and naps in her favorite chair, with her sweet little kitty on her lap.

I come to visit, bringing home made soup or a pasta dish. We chat and smile and watch a bit of TV.

Then I get back into my car and head home. And I think, for the first time in all of my long life, “Please, universe, please don’t let me be just like my Mom. I don’t want to live as long as she has.” Please don’t let me follow in her footsteps as she gets to the end of her path.

I love this life. I have had a wonderful, joyful, hilarious time on this funny planet. I am in no real hurry to leave.

But please, dear Universe and gods and goddesses and fates, please don’t let me live so long that I am unable to cook my own dinner. Please don’t let me live to be a woman who can no longer sing, or swim in the ocean, or pick my own herbs, or write a blog post, or read a good story. Please don’t hang onto me so long that my children worry over who will weed my garden and who will wash my hair.

Life is a sacred gift. Each of us has our turn on center stage. Life is a fabulous blessing.

I am eternally grateful for the life I have been given.

Please let me squeeze lots more laughter out of it. But please, please, send me on to the next big adventure before I am unable to remember the pleasures that came with this one.

I Stand on the Bridge

/ momshieb / 15 Comments

I find myself standing on the bridge between the past and the future, and it is a tender and poignant place to be.

I stand between youth and old age.

At the age of 63, it is of course natural for me to find myself in the middle of life’s journey.

But for me, the juxtaposition of what has been and what is coming is feeling profound right now.

My mother is 89 years old. She is 26 years older than I am.

Mom still lives at home, in the house where she and our Dad raised six kids. She is still there, still in her kitchen, where I learned to make sauce and meatballs. Still sleeping in the bedroom where she and Dad slept from 1962 until 2008 when Dad died.

I go to see her once a week. My siblings go at least once a week, too. Some more often. We are Mom’s supports, her cooks, her money managers, her cheerleaders as she heads on down the path toward her next step.

As my very wise sister put it, “Mom is quietly folding her tent.” She is gently withdrawing from her life, seeing fewer and fewer friends as her memory and her body fade.

But she is happy. Perhaps happier and calmer than at any other time in my life. Mom, once a power woman in control of all around her, has learned to accept help with grace. She has been willing to wear her LifeAlert, to have a home health aide and to welcome one of us every day (although she doesn’t often remember whose turn it is on any given day to have dinner with her.)

Mom is showing me how to exit gracefully, just as Dad did when it was his turn.

I am watching her. I am learning. I am coming to terms with some thoughts of my own about my life going forward toward that “rainbow bridge.” I am so lucky to have a model of how to go with humor and humility.

And.

As I stand on this tender bridge, I look back toward my youngest child. My son Tim turned 27 yesterday. So you can see that I am almost the ‘median’ point between my mother and my son.

I look at him, my sweet, kind boy. I see that life is spread out before him like a banquet. He plans to marry his sweetheart next summer. They are thinking about children, about careers, about their hopes and dreams for a future family.

I see him, and I see his Dad at the same age. I see myself. I see our worries and our joys and I remember what it was like to be young, in love, ready to move into the future with courage and hope.

My Mother often talks to me about those years before she married my Dad. She talks about how happy they were to sit under the trees on Boston Common, planning how many children they’d have. She talks about what it was like to hold his hand as they walked through the city sharing their dreams of a beautiful future.

And I stand on the bridge. I hear her thoughts, and I hear Tim’s. I know that it was my Mom and Dad’s ability to dream and love that lead to my family, and lead to my marriage and then lead to my beautiful boy and his wonderful partner.

I know that Tim and Sweens will marry, have children, face challenges, encounter unexpected joys and find ways to keep recreating their hope. Just as Paul and I have done. Just as my Mom and Dad did for all those years.

And I know that one day it will be me who is facing that final chapter.

I just hope, and pray, that when that time comes my children will look to me as a model of how to move on. I hope that they will think about Grandma, and remark on how like her I am.

And I hope, and I pray, that when that day rolls by, there will be children of theirs who are busy falling in love and planning their next steps and thinking about babies of their own.

I Dreamed of My Father

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

Some dreams are only dreams. They come to us through the mixing of our yearnings and our fears. They drift through our sleep, filled with images and sounds forged from both memory and wish.

They feel as insubstantial as clouds. They exist, but they are made of nothing we can touch.

But some dreams are more. Some of them, when we are very lucky, are truly visits from those we have lost.

Last night my father came to see me. He came to me as I slept because he’s been gone from this earth for more than ten years now.

I dreamed of my Dad.

I dreamed that I was walking in a foggy place. I couldn’t see what was around me, but I felt myself moving. And then I saw him, my Dad. Right there, right in front of me.

I felt myself begin to cry. I felt the pain in my chest, and in my throat. There were tears on my face that I felt as they moved down my cheeks. I sobbed and felt the loss of breath.

In my sleep, I reached for Dad, expecting to be aware of him only as a dream. I expected the one dimensional feel of him; an image that I could see but one that would have no substance.

Instead, as I hugged him, I felt the warmth of his breath in my hair and the feel of his arms around me. A shock of recognition and awareness jolted through me, and I said, “Oh, Dad, it’s really you!”

He laughed. His real, Dad laugh, and put his hand on my cheek. “Oh,” he said, in his own voice. “I’m here! Don’t cry!”

I held his hand in mine and looked at his fingers, his knuckles, the way the skin was pulled smooth across the back of his hand. I felt the rough texture of his palm and the pads of his fingers.

These were details that I’d forgotten about him. Awake, I would never have known them again.

But he was there. Smiling at me, laughing at the foolishness of my grief. As often happens in these vivid, “visitation” dreams, I knew what he was thinking without hearing all of his words.

“It’s OK! You’re fine.” I felt that he was amused and touched by my sadness, but I knew that it didn’t worry him.

And then the visit was over.

I don’t remember him leaving, but I remember waking up, feeling comforted, but feeling cheated, too. He had been there, for really real, but he was gone again.

I dreamed of my Father. I smelled his skin, felt the softness of his hair. I was held in his arms, against his familiar chest.

It was him. He was here.

I want to go back to sleep. I want him to come and see me once again.

Dad and I, once upon a time.

Tamir Rice

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

Tamir. Just a little boy.

Tamir. Just a little boy.

Look at that face.  What a beautiful boy.  He could have been of my students, making me laugh in the middle of a math lesson.

He could have been one of the kids on my son’s sports teams. He could have been at my daughter’s birthday party. He could have been my neighbor’s child.  He could have been my own.

What a beautiful child.

And he is gone, taken from us by a gun.

I mourn the loss of yet another innocent young life, killed for no good reason.  I was sick when I heard about what had happened to him, literally sick to my stomach.   This child was playing with a toy gun when he was shot to death by police officers who were told to respond to a report of a “guy with a gun” in a local park.

I was sick, disgusted, horrified, angry when I saw the images of the patrol car pulling up to confront the kid with the toy.

I wanted to be furious at the cops who failed to warn him. I wanted to be enraged at the speed of the lethal response.

But I can’t.

I can’t blame those officers. I keep imagining what it must feel like to have to confront men with guns every day.  I keep thinking about the gun crime rate in Cleveland, where Tamir held his airsoft gun. (Gun Epidemic in Cleveland)

I can’t stop wondering about the complete and total insanity of our current gun soaked culture and how many children have died from gunshots in the past ten years.

Cleveland, like so many American cities, is rife with gun deaths. You can read about the deaths of infants, caught in the crossfire in this article: 5 month old killed by gun. You can check the crime stats for the state of Ohio here: Gun Death Stats.   People in Ohio are dying from suicides, homicides and accidental gun deaths at an incredibly outrageous rate. Tens of thousands of people are involved, every single year, in some form of gun violence.

But gee, you say. Tamir was not holding a real gun! It was just a toy!

OK.  So let’s think about these so called “Imitation guns”.  Seriously?  American companies think its OK to manufacture and market guns that look exactly like real guns???  Here is what the “Airsoft” folks had to say after the death of young Tamir on the night that he was playing in a park with one of their products:

Airsoft guns are not designed to kill or seriously injure. The novelty guns shoot small plastic pellets and come in all shapes and sizes, including pistols and rifles, said Chip Hunnicutt, Marketing Manager for Crosman, a New York-based company and one of many manufacturers that produce the guns.

“They’re recreational products. I wouldn’t call it a toy,” Hunnicutt said.

Ohio has no restrictions on the sales of airsoft guns, a State Attorney General spokesman said. That means minors can purchase the weapons.

So when those officers were called to that park on a cold night, and were confronted by a young man/boy with what sure as hell looked like a REAL gun, and they shot him dead right then and there, it was a horrific and unacceptable tragedy on every single level.

But I can’t make myself blame the cops.  I can’t.

I do blame those who claim that “guns save lives”.  I do blame those who refuse to admit that handguns have no purpose other than the killing of humans.   I absolutely blame those who make money off the sale of “imitation guns” that look just exactly like the real thing.

I blame everyone who refuses to accept the fact that we are in no way a “civilized country” when we calmly accept the slaughter of babies, tens of thousands of them every year, so that adults can play with guns.

I blame the NRA. I blame Congress. I blame the media. I blame the President and the Vice President and the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader and the extremist who pretend that outlawing handguns and assault weapons means “taking away our guns.”

I blame every single adult in the entire United States of America who is willing to call the death of a 12 year old boy with a toy an appropriate price to pay for their “gun rights”.

What about Tamir’s right to grow up? What about his right to play in a park in his home city?  What about his rights, huh? What about the rights of our nation’s children to go to school, or the movies, or the mall, or a local restaurant, or a park without fear of being shot to death?

What about our rights as parents to raise our children in a truly civilized country?

We all failed you, Tamir.  And I am so sorry.

Mind over Momma

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

Sadie, aging far more gracefully that some of us.

I can’t tell if I’m dying or not. What do you think?

So I should know by now that my old dog Sadie is practically a mind reader. She is more sensitive to human emotion than most mental health professionals could ever hope to be.

I should know that by now, right?

I mean, ever since she came to us, some 7 years ago, Sadie has been reacting to my slightest emotional expression.  If I cry over a sad movie, she lowers her head and stars to shiver, gazing up at me with her big sorrowful eyes.  If one of us raises our voice to yell at a bad move by one of the Red Sox, she slinks downstairs to hide behind the furnace.

When we laugh, she wags her tail and pants like a puppy.

When I’m scared or worried, she comes to sit beside me, leaning her solid body against me to give what can only be described as a doggy hug.

So when Sadie fell ill with a mystery disease, and began to experience everything from diarrhea to excess thirst to a caved in skull, we thought it was the beginning of the end.

We started to talk softly around her.  There was a lot of, “Oh, poor old girl!  Poor baby. Oh, my poor baby girl.”  We started to think that we should give her extra love, extra treats, extra hugs and brushes and walks.

Over the past three weeks, our fluffy old girl began to really slow down.  She was sleeping most of the day away.  She stopped wagging her tail and spent hour after hour hiding behind the couch.

Her stomach got worse, her symptoms increased. We talked about euthanasia. We consulted with the vet.  We tried to spend quality time with our beautiful old girl.

She kept getting weaker. She no longer stepped out onto our deck as we arrived home, singing and jumping around in her joy at seeing us again.

And last Friday we debated whether or not we should go away for the weekend with our friends. They had invited us to spend three days out on Martha’s Vineyard in their new boat.  I really, really, really wanted to go, but I felt guilty.  What if the old girl gave up the ghost while we were away?  Paul and I talked it over, then decided that it would be OK to leave the dogs in the tender care of our youngest son, Tim.  We knew he’d be careful and would appreciate Sadie’s fragile state.

But we forgot that Tim is only 23!  He isn’t thinking “end of life care”.  He apparently came in the door full of life and youthful energy.  He brought a friend.  They cooked, they went into the hot tub, they listened to music. I’m sure they laughed a lot and hung out with friends and drank beer.

They gave Sadie her medicine, but I guess they forgot to pity her or sniffle over her. I don’t think they ever remembered to say, “Oh, you poor old girl…..”

So, yep, you guessed it.

As we drove down the driveway after our weekend away, both dogs raced out onto the deck, both barking and singing and howling with pleasure.  Sadie danced around, her tail going a mile a minute, her big furry face filled with a happy doggy smile.

She’s been full of energy ever since.

I should have figured.  As long as I keep thinking of her as a spry old broad, she’ll keep acting like one.

Way to go, Tim!  Way to go, Miss Sadie!

Eternal Rest

/ momshieb / 16 Comments

Graveyard_8_by_MatrixStock

For most of my life, I assumed that my final resting place would be a graveyard.

Everyone I ever knew followed that typical American path; you die, you are embalmed, you have a wake where everyone kneels in front of you, praying and thinking “Jeez, she looks awful…..”

In my experience, the end of life was marked by church, uncomfortable black clothes, a wake, a funeral and a big lunch afterwards.

I assumed that one day I, too, would lie there like a sunken, waxy version of my worst self, surrounded by dozens of cloyingly aromatic flower arrangements.  I assumed that I would then be lowered into the ground in my gleaming wooden coffin and that a big headstone would be placed there to mark my location.

It didn’t seem so bad to me when I was younger! I have always loved to wander through old graveyards, reading the stones and trying to imagine the people below me and the lives that they had left behind. It seemed sort of romantic in a strange way, you know?

But now I am older.  I’m a bit closer to that final rest than I used to be.  And I am experiencing more wakes, more funerals, more loss.   I have friends who are battling life threatening illnesses.

So I’ve been rethinking my original plans.

First off, I am not so sure that I want to be pumped full of chemicals and placed in a sealed casket.  I mean, I eat organic, locally grown veggies.  I clean with vinegar and baking soda.   Why would I want to spend eternity with chemicals in my veins?  And why the super sealed casket, lead lined and “water safe”?   Once I die, I realize, I will not be coming back.  No need to stay dry.

And holy crow! Why would I want my family to spend that much money on something that will only be seen for four hours?  I’d rather have them use the same funds to take a nice trip to Italy and drink to my memory.

So…..I have been thinking about a “green burial”.  Put me in a simple pine box, let me decompose and become fertile ground for a nice lilac.

But I had an experience yesterday that made me rethink even that idea.

I was attending the funeral of my wonderful, funny, fun loving, lively Uncle Lennie.  We had been to the church, and were now approaching the graveyard where he would be laid to rest.  It is a beautiful, green place in a lovely little New England town.  Trees, flowers, beautiful thick grass, carefully maintained headstones.

But there was a sign at the gate that caught my eye.  It read, “No bicycles. No dog walking.  No playing.”

No playing?  No playing?

What does that even mean?

My Uncle was a professional baseball player.  If we played catch one day by his graveside, could we be arrested?

What if we brought a chess set, and decided to enjoy a calm fall day by playing chess and remembering our Uncle?  Would that be against the law?

Could we play a violin or a guitar in his honor?

No playing?

I don’t understand.

I do realize one thing, though, as I think about my own “eternal rest”.   I would hate like hell to be left in a place where dogs were not welcomed.  I would never, ever rest easy in a spot where children were forbidden to romp and frolic and laugh and play.

The only thing that would be sure to make me haunt this world would be to force me into a joyless, child free, dogless place.

I am thinking a lot about cremation and the “scattering of the ashes”.  I would love a chance to spend eternity in the Atlantic Ocean. Where I would most certainly play with the dolphins!

Life is such a winding road

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

SONY DSC

It’s a funny thing, but this Christmas has me thinking about death.   Oh, not in a scary, sad, “ghost of Christmas future” kind of way.  More like in a “So I wonder what happens next” sort of way.

My oldest child got married in July, and two of my closest friends are about to become grandparents.

I’m thinking about the fact that my generation is in the process of taking the next step up the ladder, making way for a whole new generation of young parents and their babies.  I’m thinking that life has carried me along the winding road to where I am now, and that everything that has happened before now has led me to be ready for this next step upwards.

I don’t mind thinking about my own turn as “Nonni”, whenever it comes my way.  I don’t mind leaving the parenting to a younger set.  I don’t mind being the one who will one day get to cuddle, spoil, tickle and hand back.  I’m ready.  Life is a winding road, but it leads us all to the next phase.

And I’m thinking so much about my Dad.  He loved babies, he loved kids, he loved holidays and crowds and too much food and really good conversation and chaos and laughter.  He loved us.   A lot.

My Dad died six years ago.  For me,  the world seemed to stop turning after his death; how could the world go on without him?  But gradually I realized that the seasons continued, the days flowed by, the children grew and my hair went slowly grayer.  My life went on, but I also began to understand that his did, too.  I felt him, I “saw him”, I talked to him in my dreams.

I have felt my father’s hand and his hug and his breath many times over the past six years.  A few months after his death, my daughter needed emergency surgery.  When she slowly awoke from her anesthesia, she told me, “I was with Grampa. He was wearing a flannel shirt and he sat with me, holding my hand. We were at a little round table. I felt so safe with him there.”  She told me that she saw my Dad look at his watch, then look up at her.  She told me that he said, “You’ll be OK now.  Time to go.”  He got up, hugged her, and left.

And she woke up, looking at me.  She knew that he was with her.  I knew it too, because I felt it deep, deep in my heart.

This morning I read the blog of a wise old curmudgeon who goes by the humorous name of “Daddy Bear”.   In his thoughtful post “New Year Thinkering”, Daddy Bear thought about his own death.  He phrased his ‘thinkering’ in such a lovely way that I understood that a lot of people hold my belief that life goes on, even after death has found us. You should read his gentle words. You will find comfort and inspiration.

This Christmas, I had my children around me.  I felt my father in the room with us, smiling and laughing and enjoying the love that they feel for each other. For Dad, family was everything. He valued his family more than anything else in his life. I felt his spirit in the laughter and joy of my boys on Christmas. He would have been so proud of the love that my children feel for each other!

This Christmas, I gathered with a huge group of my cousins and their children, eating the same traditional Christmas foods that go back generations.  We ate octopus (“pulpi”) and squid and shrimp, cooked the same way that my Grandpa taught us to cook them. My Grandpa who has been gone for 28 years.  We ate “Nana pizza” cooked exactly the right way by my sweet niece Angela, who copied her Nana exactly, although Nana has been gone for seven years now.  And it occurred to me, as I hugged my cousins and ate my “boopie” and drank my wine, that my grandparents have achieved a kind of immortality through all of us and all of our children.

Life is a long and winding road, and none of us can ever predict the roadblocks or the washouts or the detours.  Still, we go on, because we can’t turn around.  Life is a winding, bumpy road, but we are committed to reaching its end.  Life is a funny, surprising adventurous road, and sometimes I think we all wish we could pull into a rest area and just let the traffic go on by.

But we stay on the road, because we have no choice.  We bump along, enjoying the scenery as much as we can. Eventually, we come to the parking lot, where our personal road comes to an end.

But our kids drive on, past where we have stopped. They carry our hearts, our smiles, our round eyes, our preference for salty over sweet.  They drive right on, covering their own winding, bumpy roads, long after we have stopped driving.

And we live on, because our children and their children carry our spirits within them.  We live on, because even after we shed these achy old bones, our hearts stay close to those we love.

This Christmas, I am thinking quite a lot about true immortality, and about the many ways that each of us will live on. We will all live on through those who have loved us. If we leave behind a loving and happy family, how much more secure is our immortality!

Dedicating this post to my funny, smart, loving, feisty, immortal Uncle Bob.