Same as it ever was

[jducoeur]

The positive spin is something like, "Today is the first day of the rest of my life". That's true in its way, and I'm trying to keep it in mind.

But -- you know how people who have suffered an emotional shock say that it's all like a bad dream? Folks tend to take that as a metaphor. It's not. One of the strange sensations that I find washing over me periodically is a sense of unreality that is almost overwhelming, and it borders on the feeling of lucid dreaming. There's that sense of, "Aha! Okay, this just plain doesn't make sense, so clearly I'm dreaming." Or the variant sensation that this isn't my life -- that it is *wrong* at a very basic level.

Basically, I'm living in a near-constant state of cognitive dissonance: the world is fundamentally failing to conform to my deepest beliefs about it, because at the most basic hindbrain level, Jane had become central to those beliefs.

Folks shouldn't fret overmuch: today is better than yesterday, and I *will* get past it. Frankly, one of the reasons I had to watch every last moment of the burial, long after the point where the funeral director expected everyone to leave, was to drive home the ugly reality of it. The committal service was beautiful but somehow ethereal; the truck that was needed to lift the lid of the vault and put it into place did much to ground the proceedings and make it all feel much *less* dreamlike.

Of course, the strangeness keeps coming fast and thick. While I'm working at home today, I'm copying some VHS tapes onto DVD. The one I'm copying right now, even as I type, I hadn't even remembered existed until today: a tape of her Pelican vigil and ceremony. Seeing all of us when we were much younger (and generally much thinner) sharpens the focus of reality in a horribly synchronistic way...

Comments

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

So this is a bit off topic, but comes up because you mentioned "funeral director". Before the service Sunday, Mara wondered if the guy I thought was the funeral director was in fact David Hawkwood. I didn't think he looked all that close, but I did see how she did.

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I've only met David once or twice, so I can't be sure, but IIRC Mark Douglass (the funeral director) does look vaguely like him...

[dsrtao]

My instant impression was that he was Meatloaf's blonder brother.

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

I'd like to say something profound or comforting, but there's really nothing to add to what you've said - your reaction is very much the same as mine was. The "this can't be real" period goes on for a while, but probably not continuously for more than a few weeks. Eventually it fades, though there'll be periodic resurgences over time.

You have my sympathy.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Sympathies.

One of the things which may be contributing to the dissonance is that much of the USA's general culture around funerals seems to try and evade the actual idea, and word, of death, while dealing with the practical necessities of a death.

One of the things I really enjoyed, after my father's death, were the dreams wherein I was able to talk with him about his death. If you end up having dreams like that, I hope they are great.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I supose I should mention that I don't think something mystic was going on with these dreams, but they were comforting anyway.

[canthelpyou.livejournal.com]

My father has talked a couple times about getting "visits" from his father. He was also comforted by them. It gave him a chance to tie up some unfinished business. I had a dream like that about my grandmother. I got to show her the project I was working on, which she would have liked. After that I could stop "worrying" about her, because it felt like I knew she was safe. And I don't actually believe in any sort of afterlife, but I did appreciate the dream of it.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

It still sometimes seems like I'm just waiting for Wolfie to come home. Most of the time, I'm used to it. It's like that. *hug*

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

One of the things that really made it real for me at my Mother's funeral was the act of helping to carry the casket. I hadn't had any idea until the question of pall bearers came up, that it would matter. With the exception of 1 cousin, I have no living male relatives on the maternal side. The funeral home would have provided, but something prompted me to ask how much strength was really required (and the answer was not very much) so my wife and I decided we wanted to be part of it. It was a profound experience in ways that the calling hours weren't.

It was a year or more before I stopped frequently catching myself noting things I should remember to tell her in our weekly phone call (and those calls weren't even something I liked, more like a duty...)

The other place it hits you is when you do something you know your loved one would have wanted to be there for. My wife and I had the chance to get formally married two years after my mother passed, and that was rough, because I knew it was something she would have wanted so much to be there for.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

No pallbearing for Wolfie; I had him cremated. He's on a shelf in the living room. :-)

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

Just "hugs".

[marysdress.livejournal.com]

People are so different even in the same experience. I wasn't ready for that level of realness.

[jducoeur]

*Hug*. Yeah, I got the sense that it all kind of slammed down on you yesterday morning...

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

My deepest sympathies for your loss.
I don't have anything profound or useful to say other than that I am thinking of you.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Wow, DVD of that vigil...

One thing about the Jewish rituals that did it for me, when my father died - was the tradition that the family throw the first few shovels of dirt on the coffin. The boom and the thud were so - changing.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

The entire ritual, including the week of mourning afterward, is designed to create a period of adjustment. And we make it mandatory because when you have lost a major pillar of your world is really not the time to have the burden of choice. I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that when either of my parents die, I will be able to go catatonic and let ritual and others more emotionally removed take care of things.

[jducoeur]

Yeah, I can see the value in that. As it was, I suspect I would have cracked under the strain if marysdress hadn't shouldered the task of dealing with the funeral, which kept the load for me to a manageable level...

[jducoeur]

Yeah, I confess that I was vaguely disappointed not to get that particular bit of closure. But under the circumstances, they had actually removed the earth almost a week ago, and I suspect moved it all somewhere away from the snow, to keep it clear. And Burlington requires sealed vaults anyway, so no dirt shoveled onto the coffin. So I tossed one of the roses into the vault ahead of her, as a sort of symbolic substitute...

[andrea habura (from livejournal.com)]

I was thinking exactly the same thing. When my mother-in-law died, it was that specific part of the tradition that seemed the most significant and life-altering.

[johno.livejournal.com]

I had the same sense of unreality when our young friend Miriam (she was a member of QLS) passed away. I didn't want to accept it and was in denial.

Until the burial, where Jewish tradition says, all the attendees need to add some dirt to the plot. I literally don't remember putting in the shovelful, but damn if that didn't ram home the fact that she was gone.

Pelican vigil

[andrea habura (from livejournal.com)]

One of my favorite memories of her is tied up with that. I've been thinking about it a lot over the past month.

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

I understand your sense of dissonance. Dad's death had that for me - he was in another end of the country, he died suddenly and unexpectedly, and the lag between his death & the scattering of his ashes was 5 months (plus I was pregnant).

It was watching his ashes swirling in the waters in English Bay off Vancouver (while I desperately tried not to barf in a combination of morning sickness & sea sickness) that it finally hit me - he wasn't ever coming back.

I'm glad you found a way to make it real for yourself. I know that it likely hurt like hades, but it does ultimately help.