Here are my dead. My trip. It was much that I thought it would be and nothing that I had anticipated. Being with my family the laughter far outweighed the tears, even for the somber occassion. As for my "dead tour", there was no way to listen to my Ipod in the rental car. Half way to my Dad's grave I realized that it did not even occur to me to turn on the radio, I drove alone with my thoughts to sing in my head.
My father is burried in a Very Catholic cemetery. The family of St. Seton is burried there and it is a bit of a tourist spot, complete with ringing bells. I have been there a few times and the thing that always strikes me the most is seeing MY last name on a tombstone. I forgot flowers and did not want to drive back into the small town to try and find some. I did feel the need to leave something to say I was there. So, I borrowed a little bit from the Jewish side of my family and I left stones. I left one for me and one for the other relatives that came to visit him during the week. (My brother his wife and their kids). It felt rebellious to apply a Jewish tradition in a catholic cemetery. But I loved it. I did not stay long with dad because I was anxious to get to Eric.
Arlington National Cemetery is an amazing place. And being the widow of someone interred there you are ushered past the tourists, soluted at and permitted to drive to the gravesite. It made me feel like I belonged. And indeed I do. Not only was I visiting Eric but I was also visiting my own final resting place.
I found the site easily and sat and looked at his stone. Seeing it for the first time. I looked at his neighbors and told them all hello as well.
There is no place at Arlington to leave flowers, or any momentos. But I wanted to do something. So I kissed it, with lipstick on. I called the kids at home and they told me to kiss it for them. So I did. Again I felt rebellious, and it felt good. His stone looked silly with all the kisses on it. Will someone seeing that think of his sad widow or will they think he had many mistresses? Who will have the job of cleaning it off? Will my phone ring in the next few days with an admonishment?
Sitting there I mostly thought about how strange it was to see my own grave. Much like Ebinezer Scrooge begging the faceless ghost to give him another chance.
After I left I did not call down to the young boy to fetch the prize turkey in the window. But I did drive into Alexandria, found an Italian resaurant and proudly declared, "Table for one." It was there I felt Eric with me. Not at his grave. But at the restaurant. And he said, "you go girl."

PS. It is not death I am afraid of it is dying.

sic transit

This is my attempt at hope--not one of the thousands of women and children lost during the General Slocum disaster in New York, but one who survived. Lately I have had an ear for the morbid, I am afraid, having recenlty toured the Wisconsin death trip of 1898 (on paper), complete with eerie images of the deceased. I have always heard that meditating on death is life-transforming, and I do hope that it is. I hope your time brings a breath of air into your life, and life and lives.

I hope to one day be an old person who is ready for death. Right now I fear it mightily and were it to come I would hold on to the doorframe on the way out. I held a baby today, a beautiful, tiny baby, and watched as the new parents packed up their home for a new life. I thought of all the wonders that await them, and the moments of intense suffering. What is important, I think, is that we are not alone.

I envy the space and time you will find, my friend, and the adventure. Give my best regards(and I mean that sincerely) to your dead.

Greatful Dead

Where are you Dear Friend? I see you from time to time, but you go by so fast I have no time to shout. Are you weighed down in the mundane dealings of life? Have you reinvented yourself and found a new identity?
In my last writings I lamented about the travels of others while I was stuck here. Be careful what you wish for. I will be travelling this coming week. Not to an exotic island of far off land, but back in time. I will be going back to my birthplace. Baltimore. And I will be having a family reunion of sorts. My cousin/God Mother died last week from a car crash and we are all going for her "Celebration of Life". Tears will be shed but I also know there will be laughter.
When I found out she died I cried, but it was a selfish cry. An angry cry. And at one point I cried out, "I am so fucking sick of all the cool people in my life dying!" And I am. I sank into a fatalist depression realizing that the longer I live the more death I will witness.
I have known people in their eighties talk about death blythely.
"You hear Joe passed?"
"Hmm."
"Pass that orange juice over here."
Will death occupy those same feelings for us one day? Will it get to the point where we feel we are just in line waiting for the inevitable? Depressing thought really.
I decided to turn my trip into somewhat of a tour. My mother has called it the Greatful Dead Tour (spelled that way on purpose). I am going to stay an extra day and drive out first to my father's grave and then to Eric's.
I will be alone in a car with music, coffee, cigarettes and my thoughts, as I drive through the Maryland countryside. I will pay homage to those that I love that have died, but here is my little secret. I am loking forward to the time alone to pay homage to my own life.
Come back to me Friend and tell me where you are.