Happiness Quotient Headquarters

I must apologize for the long silence on my blog.  Unfortunately, life sometimes takes you away from such things.  In my case, it has been an eventful few months, a period during which both my brother-in-law Don (featured in a past blog) and my mother-in-law Laurel died within days of each other May.  It has also been The Summer of Love, as my domestic partner, Kasey, and I took advantage of California’s new marriage laws and officially got hitched on a beach near the Golden Gate bridge.  So I have been thinking about life transitions, and the ceremonies that mark them, after going through two funerals and a wedding within a period of months.  I would like to share a few memories that were special for me, some of them poignant, some of them joyous, some of them heartwarming, some of them heartbreaking, and some of them bittersweet.

My mother-in-law Laurel died four days before her son, Don.  In fact it was on his birthday.  She wanted it that way.  It pained her to think she would outlive a child.  “That’s not how its supposed to be.”  It happened fast.  She died only a few weeks after we learned about her lung cancer.  It’s not a nice way to go, and she was afraid of pain.  She wanted it to be over.  Still, the pain meds made her even more endearing, giddy, and funny.  She told a lot of stories I had never heard.  My most vivid memory is of us bringing her gardenias, which were her favorite flower and the type her sister used to bring her all the time.  She buried her face deeply into the gardenia bunch, like a child would, shaking her head and drinking in the smells.  It was sheer appreciation and joy.  You could see the memories flooding her as she did it.  And then came the stories about her sister…and a story about a suitor who kept sending flowers to her hotel room until the maids begged her to tell him to stop. When Kasey asked if he was interested in her romantically, she looked up laughing and said, “Duhhhh” which sent me into spasms of laughter.

Laurel still wanted her cigarettes, which looked to us like the enemy but to her were her steadfast friends, friends that in the end took her life, dependable little Marlboro soldiers that eventually double-crossed her. And she had a bag of little chocolates by her bedside at all times.  In Laurel’s world, anything was a little more bearable if you can have a bit of chocolate as you are going through it.  She was lean and wiry and tough.  It was hard to watch that devilish spirit disappear.

It was the opposite with Don.  He didn’t want to leave, not at all.  A former Marine, he was going to hang in there to the end, fighting it with all he had. He was refusing most of the pain meds.  Perhaps he wanted to be as aware as he could be of the last sights, smells, and touches of life. The hospital was overrun by well-wishers.  Some of them were former coworkers who had not seen him since his face had been so completely changed by colon cancer.  I remember watching in the waiting room as they came out in groups—stonily silent, pained by the friend they could only recognize from the warmth of his dark brown eyes. They pressed the button of the elevator in an automatic, robotic way.  They were lost in thought, occasionally murmuring a few hushed words to each other. I surreally turned the pages of a Vonnegut novel that made me laugh at the absurd.  It was an odd juxtaposition.

Don had heard about his mother’s death.  His sister held his hand as she told him about it. We had rushed from one bedside and had driven hours to another. I hoped that somehow it was reassuring for him that his mother would be on the other side. Only weeks before, when seeing her almost unrecognizable son, she had joked, “Are we racing each other to the graveyard?”  I noticed how worried people look in waiting rooms and yet how kind to each other they are.  It is as if everyone realizes that in the end we are mostly the same—enduring the slings and arrows and cafeteria food of life the best we can.  One of his sons, Bob, refused to leave Don’s side for days until Don died.  Then he had a heart attack himself, probably at least partially fueled by his exhaustion.  Sometimes the most enduring statements about a person’s life are revealed in the behaviors, not words, of those he has touched.

Funerals and memorials seem to bring out the best and worst in people.  There was the stately glory of the presentation of the flag to Don’s wife, Janine. (If you are not impressed by the nobility of this ceremony with Marines in full dress, you cannot be human.) There was the unity of his co-workers who all showed up in black t-shirts to commemorate Don (who only wore black t-shirts). I liked that the men were crying at Don’s funeral.  It seems like the only place and time men in our culture are given permission to access that natural, very freeing, release. There was Janine, his wife, sobbing on my shoulder, saying “I don’t want to do this.  I really don’t want to do this.”  I was not quite sure what she didn’t want to do–but could only guess.  There was Glenn who asked if he could read my past blog article about Don.  When you are never quite sure if anything you write makes a difference, it was humbling to think that I had expressed what Don’s best friend felt about him.

And then there was the grumpy old geezer who left Laurel’s memorial before much happened because he was angry beer wasn’t being furnished, only wine. While I felt annoyed and frustrated, I couldn’t help thinking Laurel would be chuckling about this outraged protest over the loss of suds. She probably would have been the first to buy him a beer. Mostly I’ll remember Laurel’s leather purse, shaped like a saddle, sitting on the table amputated unwillingly from its owner, looking very out of place. The one person who most belonged there, her best friend June, was too fragile to make it, so her husband spoke tearfully on her behalf. Memorials, of course, are for the living and they show you how the living are certainly a beautiful and motley crew.

They say not to make big decisions after a death.  So my partner Kasey decided to quit her job, start her own business, and get married.  I think she realized that you are only given so much time on earth, and it was time to get busy getting what she wants. So much for not making big decisions.  After so much sadness, it was time for a celebration or two to ease the sadness. When you want to escape your pain, I highly recommend San Francisco. As Hemingway once wrote of Paris, it is an American “moveable feast”, ripe with reminders that life is to be lived well for today in all its glory.         (Will be continued in Part II coming soon)