On Grief, Death, and Dying
Sep. 14th, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleWendy Sue Martinez is the coworker I mentioned, who passed away last week. Her service was this afternoon. (A note on corporate culture: We don't refer to people's death or their funerals at my job; we talk about their passing, and their service.)
I was surprised by how affected I've been by her death. I hadn't seen her in over a year, and I didn't know her that well before that. I was writing a card to her husband and children today, and thinking of what I could say that was personal. We have no staff room, so those of us who bring our lunch and don't want to eat at our desks eat at the table in the lobby. What I thought of was Wendy coming in or out of the building during lunchtime, while I was having my lunch, and stopping to talk to me about food or movies or her kids. I have a very clear image of her sitting across the table from me, in front of the bulletin board, smiling and talking.
I think there are three things that are why I'm feeling this so strongly.
First, I've been thinking about my grandmother recently (and I have a different entry started that's sort of about that). I went to my parents' house back when I got rid of my dresser and took two of my grandmother's photos (she was a photographer good enough to have two shows) to hang on my walls. I went back a few weeks later and took two more. The two more aren't up yet, but one of the first two I took is right where I can see it from my computer.
My grandmother died the summer I was eleven. My brother and I were at our other grandmother's house, visiting, and I remember my parents coming to get us, and my mother sitting in the kitchen and telling us. It's the first time I remember seeing my mother cry.
The day after Wendy died, we had our whole-building staff meeting, and one of our clinicians handed out "The Seven Principles of Human Grief," which tells us, "We Grieve For Old Loss While Grieving for New Loss."
Secondly, the people around me are so affected. My boss, who I admire more and more as I get to know her better, was a very close friend of Wendy's, as were a number of other people I work with. I find that I cry when other people do, and that the reception after the service was so meaningful because people were connecting.
Thirdly, even though Wendy was twenty years older than me, she was a coworker, which, in my mind, somewhat puts her in my age bracket. I've been thinking that although I don't plan to die for a good fifty to seventy years, things happen that you don't plan for, and I need to be a responsible adult and start taking care of them. I don't have a will. I have advanced health care directive paperwork I've never filled out. I don't have an easy reference list of all the important information my family would need if I died. I haven't talked much (until the last two weeks or so) with anyone about what I want in terms of burial (I like the idea of green burial, where you decompose and nourish the earth) or a funeral or memorial service (hold it on a weekend).
I've also been thinking that I don't really know this kind of thing about my parents and what they want. You might not think that's odd; I come from a family that talks fairly openly about death. We knew from the time we were very young that if our parents died, we were going to live with Aunt Nancy. Even though my parents are still relatively young and in good health, they're older than Wendy was, and they're going to die someday, and I'm/we're going to have to make arrangements.
I have breakfast on Sunday mornings with a group of people who started out as my mom's Sunday morning Tai Chi practice group and has somewhat expanded and contracted as people stop practicing Tai Chi or come to breakfast without doing Tai Chi. One of the great things about where I live is that it's only a short walk to the Perk. I'm by far the youngest person in this group. The rest of the group is about my mother's age. They're at the age where many of their parents are dying and they're thinking about what they want when they die. This week, one woman, N, told us about the experience of going to scatter her mother's ashes in the ocean. Earlier, they'd had a discussion about how N and C are water people, and my mother is an earth and air person. (I'm not sure which system they were talking about, but it doesn't matter: I can assure you that I'm an earth person.) N and C talked about how they would like to be scattered in the ocean. I mentioned green burial, and my mom said that that's what my dad wants (and he has a place he wants to be buried, too) and that it was starting to sound interesting to her, but she also might like to be cremated. I thought it was interesting that no one saw the parallel between the two discussions.
I was surprised by how affected I've been by her death. I hadn't seen her in over a year, and I didn't know her that well before that. I was writing a card to her husband and children today, and thinking of what I could say that was personal. We have no staff room, so those of us who bring our lunch and don't want to eat at our desks eat at the table in the lobby. What I thought of was Wendy coming in or out of the building during lunchtime, while I was having my lunch, and stopping to talk to me about food or movies or her kids. I have a very clear image of her sitting across the table from me, in front of the bulletin board, smiling and talking.
I think there are three things that are why I'm feeling this so strongly.
First, I've been thinking about my grandmother recently (and I have a different entry started that's sort of about that). I went to my parents' house back when I got rid of my dresser and took two of my grandmother's photos (she was a photographer good enough to have two shows) to hang on my walls. I went back a few weeks later and took two more. The two more aren't up yet, but one of the first two I took is right where I can see it from my computer.
My grandmother died the summer I was eleven. My brother and I were at our other grandmother's house, visiting, and I remember my parents coming to get us, and my mother sitting in the kitchen and telling us. It's the first time I remember seeing my mother cry.
The day after Wendy died, we had our whole-building staff meeting, and one of our clinicians handed out "The Seven Principles of Human Grief," which tells us, "We Grieve For Old Loss While Grieving for New Loss."
Secondly, the people around me are so affected. My boss, who I admire more and more as I get to know her better, was a very close friend of Wendy's, as were a number of other people I work with. I find that I cry when other people do, and that the reception after the service was so meaningful because people were connecting.
Thirdly, even though Wendy was twenty years older than me, she was a coworker, which, in my mind, somewhat puts her in my age bracket. I've been thinking that although I don't plan to die for a good fifty to seventy years, things happen that you don't plan for, and I need to be a responsible adult and start taking care of them. I don't have a will. I have advanced health care directive paperwork I've never filled out. I don't have an easy reference list of all the important information my family would need if I died. I haven't talked much (until the last two weeks or so) with anyone about what I want in terms of burial (I like the idea of green burial, where you decompose and nourish the earth) or a funeral or memorial service (hold it on a weekend).
I've also been thinking that I don't really know this kind of thing about my parents and what they want. You might not think that's odd; I come from a family that talks fairly openly about death. We knew from the time we were very young that if our parents died, we were going to live with Aunt Nancy. Even though my parents are still relatively young and in good health, they're older than Wendy was, and they're going to die someday, and I'm/we're going to have to make arrangements.
I have breakfast on Sunday mornings with a group of people who started out as my mom's Sunday morning Tai Chi practice group and has somewhat expanded and contracted as people stop practicing Tai Chi or come to breakfast without doing Tai Chi. One of the great things about where I live is that it's only a short walk to the Perk. I'm by far the youngest person in this group. The rest of the group is about my mother's age. They're at the age where many of their parents are dying and they're thinking about what they want when they die. This week, one woman, N, told us about the experience of going to scatter her mother's ashes in the ocean. Earlier, they'd had a discussion about how N and C are water people, and my mother is an earth and air person. (I'm not sure which system they were talking about, but it doesn't matter: I can assure you that I'm an earth person.) N and C talked about how they would like to be scattered in the ocean. I mentioned green burial, and my mom said that that's what my dad wants (and he has a place he wants to be buried, too) and that it was starting to sound interesting to her, but she also might like to be cremated. I thought it was interesting that no one saw the parallel between the two discussions.