Death of a Hired Hand

It has been gray and dreary here these last few days with strong storms coming down from Alaska. Winter is the rainy season in Southern California. The rain reminds me of my "Repair Guy" Alex who died in an accident on the slick roads last winter. Like most homeowners, once you find a "Repair Guy" that is good, reliable, trustworthy, and knowledgeable, you are breathing easier knowing you have a partner to help with the things that inevitably break down. Alex was there to help ever since we bought our house twelve years ago. Alex nursed my old washing machine back to health and gently broke the news when it was time to let it go. He tuned up the furnace and easily diagnosed and fixed our tempermental refrigerator. We got to know each other through our intermittent visits to keep this 40 year old house running. He saw my kids get bigger and I learned about how he moved to the United States from the Ukraine twenty years ago and about his wife and son. We had a bond.

I didn't find out Alex had died until last summer when I called his office to schedule a repair. The man who answered the phone became choked up and told me that he was sorry he would have to send someone else out as Alex had been killed in an accident in the rain last winter. I burst into tears, the loss of this young man struck me so hard and I was overwhelmed for quite a few minutes. I apologized for my emotional outburst and expressed my sympathy for Alex's family and coworkers.

A friend who also had Alex as their repairman had a similar reaction as me upon learning of his death. I thought, "Gee, we were just customers of a serviceman. Why this level of emotion?" I realized that it's not the quantity of the relationship per se, but the quality. That this person and I had a genuine connection and caring, and like ripples in the water, it touched my heart and spirit. I think of Alex's wife and young son and how they must miss him. I am not ashamed to say I miss him, not because of his work, but because of who he was and how he treated me, kindly, patiently, and warmly.
Rest In Peace, Alexander. Thank you. (Отдых в мире, Alesander. Спасибо.)

Tertiary Mourning, Part Deux

I hope you breathe a sigh of relief as I spare you any more pithy comments. (At least for awhile.) It’s been very hectic between work (cold, flu, pneumonia, and RSV season) and the holidays. We still need to put the house back together after painting, attack the Mount Everest of laundry, start holiday food shopping and cooking, gift wrapping, and decorating. Our artificial tree is still safely ensconced in its’ box in the garage. Does the term “Deep Weeds” come to mind? It does for me. I was talking with my husband and we’re both fatalistic about it all. I mean what’s the point? It’s kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and it takes away that we are blessed, thankful, and appreciative of our abundance.

There is sadness and sweetness of the season IRL and in blogland. I still have been ruminating over “Tertiary mourning” and how it changed and touched me as both a giver and recipient of this type of authentic and unexpected caring.

Twenty two years ago, I was a witness of tertiary mourning when I watched my mother embrace another mother, a stranger, who also lost her much loved and missed child. The beauty and terrible grace of that moment lives within me still.

It opened my heart and mind to the power of this gift, a simple embrace, an acknowledgement. My mother at that moment, was and still is, extraordinarily brave. I think when we reach out to provide comfort we honor our lost loves. I thank her for her example by not being afraid to be present during grief.

I know her son, my brother is proud.

Blue Christmas

This Holiday season, more so than in the recent past, is tinged with sadness for me. I don't know if it's the fact that it's the twenty fourth anniversary of my brother's death at age 24, my perimenopausal hormones, or maybe now that my kids are bigger, I finally have time and space for these feelings. Probably all of the above is the right answer.

I was very moved by this post from Mel about "tertiary mourners". Tertiary mourners are essentially strangers, people in the blogosphere or acquaintances, who abide and support people they really don't know.

I am tertiary mourner and feel genuine caring and connection. To mourn alongside someone whether they are close in distance or relationship doesn't matter to me. I honor our common humanity, offering a hand, a small gesture of comfort in dark times, the "kindness of strangers" as Mr.Tennessee Williams put it. It is a privilege and honor I do not take lightly, but I give freely.

The first time I was a recipient of tertiary mourning was twenty four years ago when 35 of my college classmates signed a sympathy card for the death of my brother and mailed it to my home. My parents and I were incredibly moved, still are even after all this time.

Thank you, dear bloggy buddies who have been my tertiary mourners also. You are supportive of my losses and sadness. You give me a safe place to lay my burden.

I think tertiary mourners are the Greek Chorus of our tragedy, our comedy too.

I have made a decision this year that I am not going to repress my feelings of sadness or grief. I will give them the light and attention they deserve and are due.

Here are two poems about Death that bring me peace.

Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

Death Is Nothing At All
by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918),
Canon of St.Paul´s Cathedral

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room,
I am I and you are you,
Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used,
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,
Laugh as we always laughed,
At the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect,
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same that it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind,
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval,
Somewhere very near,
Just around the corner, all is well