The Funeral

Today a group of my family is going to my daughter's mother-in-law's funeral. She was not yet 69 and hit suddenly with a devastating illness that took her so darned quickly. It's left us feeling a sort of shock that someone like her, whose personality was larger than life, could really be gone from this earth in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

We always want to say something of comfort to the deceased's immediate family and I've thought about the things I could say..."I'll miss her", "She was a good person", "She was mother earth", etc.

What I'd really like to say is that she was a true character. In her obituary, her children wrote about her "passion" for life and that was very fitting. She was not a wallflower but someone who led. She was the only one you saw in a crowded room because she was in command of it. She was so many things...hard worker, artistic, gardener, lover of family. But she did all of these things in a huge way as though she always had more energy than ten people.

She left behind a husband she adored and who adored her. She left behind children, inlaws, and friends who felt the same way. She lived her life like a dynamo and now she's gone.

I feel much the same as I did when my husband died. Where did all of that energy and zest for life go? How can someone so charismatic just be no more?

I guess it's one of those unanswerable questions.

Past Script: Like most funerals, this one held a close group of shell shocked family, still reeling from the loss of their loved one. The funeral home was filled with friends and family coming to pay their respects. The family had put up large bulletin boards with pictures taken over the years and in happier times. Donna's smiling face shone out of most of them and usually her beloved husband was nearby. Neil was the quiet one and she was gregarious with a capital "G". I saw for the first time a picture of her when she was just a young woman and she looked so much like Joan Baez...beautiful and strong.

I asked my daughter when the family would be burying the ashes and Kim cried as she tried to tell me the urn would be going home with the family, to be kept until Neil passed away. At that time, the ashes (his and hers) would be mixed together and then buried. That's how close this couple was. The deepest of love in life that would transcend death.

And again I wondered how so much love, so much spirit could die. But it doesn't and it hasn't.