Today I attended the 6th funeral in 3 years. Death and I are getting very acquainted with one another. Even though the funeral I attended today was not family, she was the grandmother of a dear friend and my heart hurts for her today as well as for myself. I was on the fence as to attend or not. I wanted to be there for my friend, but six? Really?
For me, funerals and weddings always make me cry. I simply cannot escape the tears. Even before my sweet mother died, I couldn’t hold it together at a funeral. It started when I was 19 and lost my grandma, my mother’s mother. We were very close. And now? Well, it’s even worse. With each organ rendition of Amazing Grace, I sit there and relive my mother’s funeral and death even. I cry and cry and cry. It’s embarrassing, really. All that crying and snotting. I do not cry pretty. I can be quite inconsolable.
I’ve been told more than once I’m over-emotional. I would have to agree with that statement. I feel things so incredibly deeply that it physically hurts. You’ll never cry alone with me around. My mom always said I wear my heart on my sleeve, but now I think it’s moved to just dangle around on the ground with veins hanging on by a thread with an interstate to my tear ducts. It has gotten worse. Maybe it’s my age but I swear after I had my son things just changed. I would cry during tissue commercials. Oh and don’t even get me started on those sad sad animal commercials. What is happening to me?!
I’m quite tired of having Death knocking. Hell, he’s not knocking, he just walks right in. He’s such a bully. A thief in the night. A cruel thorn in a beautiful rose of a life. But sometimes he is a welcome visitor. But don’t stay too long Beautiful Death. Lest we forget who you are and get too intimate with you.
Occasionally, I feel to have but one reason to live, I feel so lost most days without my mom. Still. But then I remember a way. I manage to find a way. Sweet Death leave me. Now is not my time. I watch as you take those around me, but know this. I see you. I know you. And I am not afraid of you.
Death still waits.
Oh Jaime, I hear you. Your post had me in tears by the second line. I hear from my husband that I am overly emotional and that I cry over everything, and it’s true. I am overly sensitive. It makes me better able to pick up what others are thinking or feeling. Which often leaves me feeling upset because I know too well when others dislike me or my child. But on the plus side, my empathy helps me to be a good friend and a good caregiver, especially in the face of death. I took care of my dad in his last week of life when he had become bedridden and the cancer finally finished him off. And I know I did a good job of helping him stay calm, and as comfortable as possible. I did what I could to help him maintain his sense of dignity and to make sure he knew he was not alone or a burden. I wanted him to feel supported as he lost his last vestiges of control.
Being overly sensitive is a blessing and a curse. It makes us experience life more deeply I believe and it’s what makes us artistic. We see the world differently. But it leaves us open to more hurt.
And death haunts me to. In those moments just before sleep or as I lay with my son waiting for him to go to sleep; I’m often jolted awake by the sudden and awful fact that we are all going to die. Every one of us. Including our children. It’s the unknown and the lack of control that get me. Some nights I have to leave my sons room before he’s asleep as the panic rising makes it impossible for me to stay. I need to run. I take my dog and I run. In the dark on the trails in the woods behind our house. I run until I’ve managed to exhaust the panic.
I wonder how others deal with this.
Tina, we are living parallel lives. I have those same feelings you do! Especially about my son. I have the same feelings about death and that we all must succumb at some point. I do not panic though, but I want to be here for my son to grow up with a mother. The very thought of something happening to him is not even something I can write about but I worry about it all the time. I can bring myself to tears just lying in bed with him as he sleeps, just as you. But I cannot leave, I stay and make sure he is breathing and hold his hand and caress his sweet face and hair. Just thinking how I don’t know how I could go on “if”…
What a great gift you gave your father. Didn’t it feel like it was the last thing you could do for him? I cared for my mother in a similar way but not to the extent of you when cancer took her. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, emotional wise. She stayed in her home and towards the end, I was there to help. Cancer took her so fast, (4 months) that is was not a long and drawn out process that led to her being unable to care for herself. Just the last week or so really. I guess that was a blessing. But to be honest, none of it felt like a blessing and I cannot help but still be bitter about the loss of such a wonderful person who did nothing but good for people. I don’t want to go on, I do in my head.
I have applied the make-up and styled the hair of many of my loved ones after death. People ask me how I can do that. I feel it is the very last thing I can do for them, so I do it. It is extremely personal and healing for me. I talk to them, and of course cry. Being extremely emotional is exhausting. But I agree it does make us good caregivers and creative artists. We are able to reach deep down into our emotions and pull out what we will, occasionally too much. I sometimes become deeply attached to my pieces, do you?
I’m so glad you replied to this post Tina. It is good to not feel alone in my sometimes weird obsession with death.