Living and the Dead
Aug. 21st, 2023 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThis weekend was a weird one when I look back on it. It was split between joy of living and sorrow for the dead. Yet as disjoint as those two activities may seem there's a common thread between them.
The dead is my friend Del, whom I've written about many times here. He passed on Tuesday. His memorial service was Sunday. "We should spend all day Saturday and Sunday with his family," Hawk suggested. "No," I responded flatly. "I will spend at most one day this weekend mourning the dead, and since the service is on Sunday it should be Sunday."
Was I being cold by drawing a firm line around mourning? No. My life is too short to pour out days and weeks in mourning. I will mourn the dead and I will support the grieving, but it's not a blank check. There are limits.
Plus, I'll add, it was unclear that they want us there anyway." Del's husband, D., has three housemates. And a friend who regularly visits several days a week. And his parents are in town. And his sister and her husband are in town. And his cousin and her husband are in town. I was sure the house would be full. More well-wishers would be a nuisance, not a help.
So Saturday we stayed around home. Hawk had a friend, Talia, visiting from Maryland, anyway, to pick up her son, Lake, from a summer program at Stanford. We had lunch with Talia then met both of them for dinner Saturday night after Lake finished his last final exam.
In between lunch and dinner, Hawk and I spent a while at the pool. We invited Talia but she was too tired from her early morning flight. She took a nap to be fresher for dinner. Speaking of dinner, it was awesome. The food was great, the company was great, it was great to see Lake as a late teen now after seeing him occasionally over the years since infancy.
Sunday the issue of how much time to spend at the house of morning cropped up again. I repeated my objection about excessive sacrifice and my concern that we'd be more of a burden than a help. We texted our friends to get their opinion, and they agreed. We'd go to their house just before the memorial service to drive them over to it. Alleviating them from having to drive would be a help. Crowding their house all day would not.
We kind of ate lunch at home on Sunday. I say "kind of" because Hawk ate at home while I grabbed a couple slices of pizza and a soda at Costco when I went shopping there. The food was less than $5. At today's prices $5 is closer to the cost of eating at home than dining out, so I'll count that. 😅
After lunch we went out to the pool again. Twice in one weekend, yay!
While the heat of the day had broken by 3pm on Saturday when we managed to get out to the pool, on Sunday we got there before 2pm and it was still hot. In fact I think it was getting hotter mid-afternoon. The day topped out at 94°, I saw later.
The photo above is similar to many I've posted in recent weeks. It also shows that I don't always go beer in hand to the pool. Sometimes I bring Gatorade... or water!
After the pool we cleaned up, dressed in somber clothes, and headed up north to support our friends in mourning. They were surprised to have us at the house an hour early, but fortunately there was not a crowd that point. D's family had all gone back to their hotels to change for the memorial service, so we were able to hang out in a low-key fashion with D and his housemates.
The memorial service was nice. It was hosted at a small restaurant owned by a family friend. It's the same place where Del and D and got married just over 3 years ago. The service was conducted in a low-key Jewish style, as D and his family are Jewish though Del was not. Low-key in this case means there was no rabbi though there were traditional prayers in Hebrew. And brisket was served afterward. 😂
Prior to the service I had an interesting chat with a friend of D's from graduate school. We had an upbeat conversation about how getting older has made us more concerned about spending our time well as we have less and less of it left. I noted that Del's death underscored my thinking on the matter as he was just 6 months older than me. And that brings me back to what I wrote at the top of this blog entry. Sorrow needs a limit. Grieve as you must, but let's plan to pick up the pieces and move on. Life goes on. Let's spend what little time we have finding joy and not squander it crying over the past.
The dead is my friend Del, whom I've written about many times here. He passed on Tuesday. His memorial service was Sunday. "We should spend all day Saturday and Sunday with his family," Hawk suggested. "No," I responded flatly. "I will spend at most one day this weekend mourning the dead, and since the service is on Sunday it should be Sunday."
Was I being cold by drawing a firm line around mourning? No. My life is too short to pour out days and weeks in mourning. I will mourn the dead and I will support the grieving, but it's not a blank check. There are limits.
Plus, I'll add, it was unclear that they want us there anyway." Del's husband, D., has three housemates. And a friend who regularly visits several days a week. And his parents are in town. And his sister and her husband are in town. And his cousin and her husband are in town. I was sure the house would be full. More well-wishers would be a nuisance, not a help.
So Saturday we stayed around home. Hawk had a friend, Talia, visiting from Maryland, anyway, to pick up her son, Lake, from a summer program at Stanford. We had lunch with Talia then met both of them for dinner Saturday night after Lake finished his last final exam.
In between lunch and dinner, Hawk and I spent a while at the pool. We invited Talia but she was too tired from her early morning flight. She took a nap to be fresher for dinner. Speaking of dinner, it was awesome. The food was great, the company was great, it was great to see Lake as a late teen now after seeing him occasionally over the years since infancy.
Sunday the issue of how much time to spend at the house of morning cropped up again. I repeated my objection about excessive sacrifice and my concern that we'd be more of a burden than a help. We texted our friends to get their opinion, and they agreed. We'd go to their house just before the memorial service to drive them over to it. Alleviating them from having to drive would be a help. Crowding their house all day would not.
We kind of ate lunch at home on Sunday. I say "kind of" because Hawk ate at home while I grabbed a couple slices of pizza and a soda at Costco when I went shopping there. The food was less than $5. At today's prices $5 is closer to the cost of eating at home than dining out, so I'll count that. 😅
After lunch we went out to the pool again. Twice in one weekend, yay!
While the heat of the day had broken by 3pm on Saturday when we managed to get out to the pool, on Sunday we got there before 2pm and it was still hot. In fact I think it was getting hotter mid-afternoon. The day topped out at 94°, I saw later.
The photo above is similar to many I've posted in recent weeks. It also shows that I don't always go beer in hand to the pool. Sometimes I bring Gatorade... or water!
After the pool we cleaned up, dressed in somber clothes, and headed up north to support our friends in mourning. They were surprised to have us at the house an hour early, but fortunately there was not a crowd that point. D's family had all gone back to their hotels to change for the memorial service, so we were able to hang out in a low-key fashion with D and his housemates.
The memorial service was nice. It was hosted at a small restaurant owned by a family friend. It's the same place where Del and D and got married just over 3 years ago. The service was conducted in a low-key Jewish style, as D and his family are Jewish though Del was not. Low-key in this case means there was no rabbi though there were traditional prayers in Hebrew. And brisket was served afterward. 😂
Prior to the service I had an interesting chat with a friend of D's from graduate school. We had an upbeat conversation about how getting older has made us more concerned about spending our time well as we have less and less of it left. I noted that Del's death underscored my thinking on the matter as he was just 6 months older than me. And that brings me back to what I wrote at the top of this blog entry. Sorrow needs a limit. Grieve as you must, but let's plan to pick up the pieces and move on. Life goes on. Let's spend what little time we have finding joy and not squander it crying over the past.
