This is a really tough one for me. I have been putting off writing this post for a number of reasons; one being that I am not sure what the “hardest” thing I have ever experienced is. The language of this is tricky; and yes, I know I am overthinking things here. If it were worded “What is the hardest thing you have ever done?” it would have taken on an entirely different meaning. I suppose the death of loved ones is the hardest thing that I have experienced. Death is certainly something that you experience rather than do (unless you are a murderer, I suppose), so I am going to go with that.
One of my favorite lines from a movie is, “Childhood's over the moment you know you're going to die” (The Crow, 1994). I can’t remember exactly how old I was when my grandma Ruby died, but I was pretty young. I still lived at home with my parents so I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. My mom pulled me into her bedroom, sat me down, and told me that Grandma Ruby had died. She was very serious and I knew my dad was really sad, but I didn’t really know what it meant. Would I see her again? Did she go away? I remember asking if she was gone like Bambi’s mom – that was my best comparison. Mom said yes and I nodded, but it didn’t really sink in. I eventually pieced together that I wouldn’t be going to the big get- togethers at her house anymore, which made me sad. I was afraid that I wouldn’t see my Aunt Carla or my cousin Isaac (whom I considered my best friend) anymore. I always had the feeling that my grandma Ruby didn’t really like me or want me around so I can’t say that I was close to her. That feeling was probably manufactured by me because, from what I understand, she didn’t have the most outgoing personality. Anyway, I suppose that was my first experience with death, though it was far from the hardest.
A year or so later, maybe less, my grandfather (on the other side) died. He had been sick for a really long time. He had lung cancer which eventually spread all over his body. I remember being in his house and seeing him shuffle into the bathroom, retching. He was in his pajama bottoms and his shirt was off. I remember that I could see every single bone of his spine and that it scared me. I loved my papow very much – he was a great man. A war vet, a free-mason, and a carpenter who dedicated his later life to building toys for children who wouldn’t have gifts for Christmas otherwise; he was one of those “pillar of the community” types of men. I sat by his bedside at the hospital quietly coloring in a colorbook – that is the last memory I have of him. He wasn’t awake, he was very peaceful; and I was making a picture for him to see when he woke up. I don’t think that he ever did. He died right before Christmas. My mom and I had braved going out to the mall a few nights before he died to get him some gifts. I had picked out a red sleeping shirt with Snoopy on it for him. On Christmas Eve night I sat in front of the tree and carefully opened his gift for him, as my mom suggested. My family watched tearfully as I held up the joyfully wrapped night shirt, which everyone decide that I would keep. I slept in that huge shirt for years. When my papow died I understood. Watching my grandmother cry; seeing my grandfather’s body decay for years as it was ravaged by cancer – I saw what death was. One of my cousins and I stood in the funeral parlor days later and touched my grandfather’s hand; it was so cold. I have touched the hands of the deceased at other funerals and they all feel the same because they all are the same: shells artificially filled with life, or with chemicals to give the brief semblance of life. I’m still not sure if death or the chemicals give the skin that cold plastic feeling; either way it’s haunting. I remember someone telling me…or maybe reading somewhere that dead sin feels like cordwood; but I have no idea what cordwood feels like so I can’t compare the two.
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| A yellow-throated warbler - similar to the one mentioned in this post Credit |
I once caused the death of a bird I was trying to help; it was fairly horrific to me. I was interning at a hospital that rehabilitated sick or injured wild birds; it was an exciting place to be and I loved it more than I can express. One day I was hand-feeding a warbler (a small songbird) and it died in the palm of my hand. He was small and agile and I had a hard time catching him, even in his cage with a net. I gently held him in my hands and carefully opened his beak with a pair of tweezers. I put the piece of worm into his mouth and carefully pushed it down with the tip of the tweezers just as I had been shown. I reached for another piece of food and felt the bird start to violently tremble in my hand. I quickly opened my hand and called for one of the other girls who worked there to help, but the bird was gasping; looking at me with large, accusing eyes. I tried massaging its throat thinking that it was perhaps choking, but its eyes slowly closed and the gasping ceased. I saw the moment of acceptance; you wouldn’t think that was possible in a bird, but I swear to you it is. It was so fast and so…final. The nurse took it from me and looked it over. She smiled at me reassuringly and told me that it wasn’t my fault. The bird had been weak and these things just happen. Eventually she told me that I had essentially scared the bird to death – that it kind of had a heart attack. Apparently this was not too uncommon in warblers that they tried to help, but for me it was devastating. I never handfed another warbler, even when asked.
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| Credit |
For the sake of not making this post a book all its own I won’t detail every death of someone I loved; though there have been more that were perhaps more significant because I was much older when they occurred. I will instead close in saying that death will likely be the most difficult or the hardest thing, that anyone ever deals with. I realize that as I get older I will have to say goodbye to more and more of the people that I once cared so much for and that eventually the ones that are left will have to say goodbye to me. I am not unique in this point. One thing that we all have in common is loss. If sorting out death in your mind and finding a degree of acceptance is not the hardest thing you have ever experienced, you have never experienced the hopeless descent of someone you love. As Jim said, “Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws.”
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