tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4757340522521902110.post4019266206143486490..comments2023-03-26T16:50:08.726+09:00Comments on Riding the Waves: Rituals after Dying Pt. 1/GyeongjuUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4757340522521902110.post-42904443678050651422014-05-22T09:57:22.424+09:002014-05-22T09:57:22.424+09:00This tore me up. I do most of my computer time at...This tore me up. I do most of my computer time at work, and I'm kinda thankful that today is an exam day and my office is empty, cause I am a teary eyed wreck right now. Saying goodbye is so important. <br />We as his Daegu friends held our own wake/memorial, but seeing your pictures brings a deeper sense of closure to it all. In a way, it's even more shocking. It very much makes it 'REAL'. <br />The rituals you experienced for saying your goodbyes were beautiful. I think I would have been traumatized about the 'comb out bone' room too, but I can see that for many people, it is something they may need to experience as part of their closure/grief process. <br />I guess at the same times, coming back to revisit someone's passing is part of our grief process too. My cousin died, too young. He was a great favorite among our family. Before he passed, I had finally got to talk to him for the first time in 7 years. I am so thankful that I got to have that time. He passed far away from 'home' too. I wasn't able to attend his wake and be with my family, but that summer I stayed with my aunt (his mother) and was able to grieve with my family. To this day, I revisit his death and grieve. This was five years ago. It now only seems like two years ago. I imagine that after awhile, it will start to feel like 5 years, when I will actually be something like 8 or 10 years after the fact. <br /><br />I think in many ways this is how it will feel with Gareth's passing. It feels like yesterday, but we are now a couple of months down the pipeline. Like the other weekends we were camping, and Tammy and I were thinking, "Gareth should be here. He would love this." Next week is our Marathon to Shakespeare production, and I can't help but miss Gareth and the excitement he brought to the project. Truth is, with his passing, the project almost died before it even started. A week or so before he passed, he sent me a list of ideas he had for this Shakespeare project. Hamnet! 12th night in 12 minutes. Henry the V as a flashmob. (I really delighted in that idea, and still hope one day to see it happen) <br /><br />We miss him. As I sat here in my office crying, I could almost feel him say, "Hey, it's ok." Yes, it is ok. It will be ok. Doesn't mean we don't miss ya man. <br /><br />I don't always read all of your blog posts, but sometimes I see one and think, 'I have to read this one.' This was one of them. It was beautiful (like all of your posts) and insightful. It helps. It makes us aware of things. <br /><br />As always,<br /> A cheerleader in your corner,<br /><br /><br />Elaine<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4757340522521902110.post-77378119634962273952014-05-22T07:55:49.464+09:002014-05-22T07:55:49.464+09:00We had to wait 2 more days for the Neptune Society...<br />We had to wait 2 more days for the Neptune Society to open. It was Presidents' Day holiday weekend and they were closed. The counselor (more of a sales rep) at Neptune Society maintained her business-like soft manner. I expected some words of compassion or something. I got gentle efficiency. I wanted her to feel what I was feeling. I asked her if she had any children. She replied she had a daughter and told me her age. When we were going over the paperwork, I read in the contract a phrase referred to as "Disposal of the Cremains." I reacted with tears and controlled anger and told her that they needed to change their wording. I objected to the word "disposal", as it Jessica were to be thrown away--disposed like trash. She maintained her gentle efficiency. If there was a nod of understanding, it was so subtle that I missed it. <br /><br />We had the opportunity to view her body before it went into the crematorium. That would have meant hanging around for an undetermined amount of time, away from our home. The "sales rep" at Neptune didn't even know the location of the crematorium. It was not there at the office site. John could not bear to see her body. All he wanted to do was get back to my brother's house, where Jessica's car was parked. He wanted to get as far away from the hospital and as far away from LA as he could. John drove us to my brother's house after we made arrangements with the Neptune Society. John drove Jessica's car the 6 hour-drive to our home, carrying the last of her belongings. I waited 3 more days for my sister to fly into LA so she could drive me and our car back home. I was in no shape to drive. It would be 2 weeks or longer before I could drive. Then it was difficult to drive without my vision being clouded up with tears. <br /><br />Did you find it helpful to see Gareth after he was dead? I would imagine it would be traumatic and painful to witness that last step of his cremation. I don't know what I need. I think about seeing my mother's body in her gasket at the viewing. She was cold and looked artificial. What was most different about he was she had these big boobs. In her elder years, she stopped wearing a bra and just wore a t-shirt, and her large, sagging boobs hung at her waist. She looked boobless. Her burial clothes included a bra which gave her support--thus the big boobs. The funeral home had put pink lipstick on her. My sister changed it to red from the red lipstick she had given the funeral home. Mom always wore red lipstick. In seeing and touching Mom, I knew she was no longer there. Yet, this was a different situation. She was not a young person, nor my daughter, who died, in her prime, a tragic death. She was 94-year-old and had lived a full life. She was happy to have had her children and grandchildren, and her simple pleasures. She called herself a "lucky lady." Jessica was very unhappy in her last days. Her tragic death was preventable. <br /><br />I wish I could have seen and touched Jessica's cold, lifeless body. Maybe it would help to know she is no longer here, because I still can't believe it. Maybe it wouldn't. I will never know and I just have to grieve and keep on keeping on. I know that time will not help with this, but love will. The best we can do is surround ourselves with love.<br />Aunt Mary G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06233084795581608295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4757340522521902110.post-82624673683130732412014-05-22T07:55:29.252+09:002014-05-22T07:55:29.252+09:00I never got to see Jessica's body after she en... I never got to see Jessica's body after she entered that elevator to go down to the operating room where her viable organs would be removed for transplant. We were not allowed to see her in the hospital mortuary. The most they could do was sew her back up after her organs were removed, place her in a cart that would be covered, and bring her back up to the surgical ICU for my final good-bye, and then take her back down to OR and continue with removing her corneas, bones, and other tissue, such as skin, for transplant whenever they did that process. The family care counselor from the transplant agency was concerned that this would be too painful for me. I was weighing my decision, when I thought that bringing her back up for me would create a lot of trouble for the staff, especially, if it didn't pay off for me--meaning that it didn't helped me to see her lifeless body. So I said I needed to see the helicopters flying away with her organs. There were no helicopters, but her organs were taken away by limousine. We stood on the corner of the street in front of our lodging. The limousine was suppose to turn left and drive by us. We waited and no limousine came. I called back the transplant agency's family care counselor and she told me the limousine had already left some time ago. That was when I recalled seeing a black limousine turning right, away from us. If we had known, we would have toasted the limousine. We were toasting what was alive of Jessica and would remain alive after transplants. Later, I discovered they could not use her cornea, bones, or skin. Not only had I missed toasting her off, but I could have seen her after all in the hospital after the organs were removed. Several weeks had passed when I got a letter they were not able to use her tissue and bones; the only organs that could be transplanted were her kidneys and her liver. I am glad that she could give continued life to 3 other people. However, if I had known all this, I would have opted to see her at the hospital after the organs were removed or at the Crematorium before her cremation.<br /><br />Aunt Mary G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06233084795581608295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4757340522521902110.post-15735959756027475612014-05-22T07:54:40.183+09:002014-05-22T07:54:40.183+09:00Oh, Bridget. Reading this brought me to tears. Y...Oh, Bridget. Reading this brought me to tears. Your writing brought me there with you. A complicated experience--moving yet traumatic. It also brought back my memories of Jessica's last days and her cremation. I hope you don't mind if I share those memories. Something about putting them down in writing so they don't continue to weigh me down. <br /><br />Aunt Mary G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06233084795581608295noreply@blogger.com