Death in the Family
Death freaks me out.
That's hardly unusual, I suppose, not many people are really comfortable about it. But I've never really been able to deal with death, really. I don't know how to be there for people who have lost loved ones largely because I never figured out what I'd want.
Thankfully, I haven't had much need to deal with death. The major loss in my life was when my grandmother died, back in 1995. I was 18 and had just gone away to college a month or so earlier. To this day I don't think I've really dealt with it. Occasionally I'll look at myself and see how much I got from her. She was a teacher and instilled a curiosity in me that is at the root of all of my obsessions. I wonder what I could have learned from her if I'd known her as an adult.
Two weeks ago my grandmother's sister Hyacinth died. She had a heart attack and died in her sleep Valentine's day morning lying with her husband of 50 years. She was 78.
(more after the jump)
When I got the call, I was ambivalent. Not because I wasn't sad she had died, but because I barely knew her. The last time I saw Aunt Hya alive was at another funeral two years ago, before that it was when my grandmother died, a decade earlier. People were offering condolences and I felt like I barely knew her.
I wasn't even certain if I would go to the funeral, since it was out in Pennsylvania somewhere. As fate would have it, we were already going to be 30 minutes away in Philadelphia. Tammi and I extended our stay a day and my Aunt flew in to meet us.
The funeral was surreal. I was assigned to be a pallbearer. Having never seen a dead body before, I was now supposed to help carry one. Adding to the unreality of the whole experience was the conviviality of the atmosphere. Cousins and siblings, separated for decades, were reunited. People were laughing and taking pictures. I met a cousin with whom I share a name who lives in England. I saw another who I haven't seen since she moved to Germany 15 years ago. They were all of my mother's generation, people I've heard stories and gossip about for nearly 30 years, finally real and in person.
I saw Auntie - just Auntie, she's the oldest after all - the sister of my grandmother and Aunt Hya. She looked at me, bewildered that this big grown man could be Clay. She asked if I remembered her and I introduced her to Tammi. She looked sadly toward the coffin and said to us, "She was my baby sister."
Family members stood up and spoke of their memories of Aunt Hya. They talked of how she ran the 'Hotel Hya,' providing a place to stay for so many in the family when they came to the states. She provided shelter for my grandmother and her 3 kids when a fired took everything they had. She may have been forceful and overbearing, but she was always there when she was needed.
Her son read something for his father, who was too sick to speak. He talked about the best decision he ever made in marrying her. He talked about how they saw the world together and he talked about that night, a week before, when she rested her head on him for the last time.
When it was all over I felt sorrow that she was gone. At the same time I was glad I had gone. I was glad to have gotten to know Aunt Hya and my family a little better.
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