I brought Dante down to the river today for an off leash stroll, and as I looked across the Connecticut, I recalled the first open casket wake I ever attended. It was upon the death of my beloved's very remarkable mother, and we were in our early 30's.
All those years of growing up Unitarian, where ,when somebody died, you were supposed to put on bright clothes, say nice happy things about them, and then go home and drink a whole lot of martinis.
There was no mourning allowed. It was fascinatingly similar to my mothers Baptist upbringing, which often insisted that one 'Not speak of 'the dead'. I'm seriously not certain how that one works out.
And of course, there are other ways of being Unitarian and Baptist- I know these were my own family's interpretations and ways.
But the tradition of the open wake, to me, was wondrous.
There was the woman I had loved so much, and admired, and there she was.
Or rather, there was her body. And she was there no longer.
And you had that experience that you have every single time,
whether it's a person or a hamster or a Gemma-
of waiting to see them take a breath.
It's such a profound experience,
as the realization of what has happened
slowly and gradually seeps into our consciousness,
and gradually, into our subconsciousness.
Many of us grow older, and realize that once we've had a dream
and whatever changed in life is there, in the dream,
we know we've digested what happened.
Although ,seven years after my mother-in-law died, I had a new baby daughter.
As we slept together, I dreamed that my beloved mother-in-law walked into the room,
woke us , and took my daughter into her arms, saying to me
"Oh, I always wanted a granddaughter!",
and as I lay on my bed, propped up on my elbow,
she danced around the room with my infant child,
happiness spilling from her face.
Then she handed me back my baby,
kissed me goodbye, and left.
The dream has become a memory now,
deep inside of me,
something that happened.
Something I will never lose.
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