Clyde and Yvonne

Be Not Afraid-hands by church in Ireland

Thinking about my God-Father, Clyde, passing yesterday. About my God-Mother, Yvonne, trying to keep her energy and smiling inside about her husband's walking on.  Knowing he's journeying. Pain-free, worry-free, and seeing the faces of God.  

None of my thoughts can move very far without thinking about Mom.  We're here in Tennessee, so far away from the "viewing" on Thursday, and the funeral on Friday.  Another friend passing, and her friend Yvonne grieving and struggling with her health morning, noon and night.  I feel for Mom.  But, I know that all this is a process for her, not a finality.  She knows about death, losing a loved one, picking up and putting one foot in front of another to move on.  She loves big and will continue to love big.

Mom lovingly made a delicious meal last night.  Focusing on the ingredients, cutting, folding, heating, serving.  I guess each of Yvonne and Clyde's children and grandchildren are using their five senses to conjure up those precious memories we depend on to make it through illness and death of a loved one.  They're crying, holding each other and waking up at 3 a.m. to wander and look out the windows for some tangible answer to life and death.

I won't see Clyde again.  I do have memories to keep of him.  Yvonne told me several times when I would stop by and visit her and Clyde, "When I miss my family I close my eyes and see my mother hanging clothes up on the line outside or getting food ready for dinner.  I can see my dad smiling as he sings the songs we always sang.  I know they're waiting for me to join them with the rest of my family.  I even talk to them sometimes when I miss them so very much."  She would close her eyes as she taught me this technique.  She smiled and I was sure she really did have the home movies of her family behind her eyelids. 

I let myself cry about death.  I don't always want to analyze it away.  It hurts, it feels lonely and final.  The expectations we put on ourselves as 

"The living" can be a burden.  I'm learning to simplify what my responsibilities are as the one left here on earth.  I need to love, to share, to be open to my gifts and their possibilities as well as open to the barriers that will get in my way in developing them.  I need to make memories with family and friends that include as many of the five senses as I can.  

So, when I pick up the phone to call someone it's good.  I have the sound and the picture behind my eyelids.  But, I know I need to include some touch, taste and smells with those memories as I make them.  It's not practical or easy to do. 

I just hope as I cry about the loss of Clyde, I learn from Yvonne as I picture her in the hospital, hooked up to oxygen, missing her life-long partner.  When she closes her eyes today to catch her breath (in-between holding her family's hands, answering the phone, taking her medicines, sleeping and trying to eat) she'll see her and Clyde together.  Her and Clyde watching a Tiger's game, out in the woods hunting, praying the rosary, laughing at family events, or just sitting and listening to music.  It will help her breathe easier and her prayers will come, as always, to ask the Lord to hold her hand and be with her through this process from life to death.