Saturday, April 16, 2011
Today I realized I was prepared for Mike’s death—but not for his absence. I also realized just how much I needed his memorial service.
My son and I got to the Soldiers Home chapel about half an hour early. I had made a scrapbook for the memorial table, and we also brought some framed photos of Mike. As we set those up, Mike’s good friend Wendy and her husband arrived—she not only had brought bigger (and more nicely framed) photos, but she had brilliantly Photoshopped Mike’s oxygen tube out of the Valentines Dinner one. (He had told her he wished he’d removed it before I took the picture.) They were perfect.
Ray McDade came in and parked at the end of our pew. Gary was there, as was Greg the backup Bingo caller, Mike’s longtime friend Michelle and her family, a group of Mike’s breakfast buddies from the snack bar and Mike’s son and his family.
Mike’s roommate and his wife came, and from across the aisle she handed me the sweetest homemade sympathy card ever. Inside it read, in part: “Sure, ya, we miss him.”
Between that and the fill-in-the-blanks standard feel of the service, I thought I was going to be OK. But then it was sharing time. A resident and a volunteer spoke briefly. I was fine. But then Bob, the Trivia master, stood. And suddenly just the sound of his voice flashed me back to every Trivia session Mike and I had ever attended—it was such a vivid, surprising image, it startled me as much as it saddened me. And by the time Bob took to the podium to recite John Gillespie Magee’s poem “High Flight” (Bob and Mike shared a love of all things aviation), I was moved to tears.
The chaplain warned us about the impending rifle shots, but still I jumped. Harold and another resident each fired three shots from tenderly maintained 1903 Springfield rifles, and they were so harsh, and so sharp, and so final, I finally let everything out. My shoulders shook. My son handed me tissues. I took a deep peaceful breath, looked directly at the big beautiful photo of Mike, and I said goodbye.
Today I realized I was prepared for Mike’s death—but not for his absence. I also realized just how much I needed his memorial service.
My son and I got to the Soldiers Home chapel about half an hour early. I had made a scrapbook for the memorial table, and we also brought some framed photos of Mike. As we set those up, Mike’s good friend Wendy and her husband arrived—she not only had brought bigger (and more nicely framed) photos, but she had brilliantly Photoshopped Mike’s oxygen tube out of the Valentines Dinner one. (He had told her he wished he’d removed it before I took the picture.) They were perfect.
Ray McDade came in and parked at the end of our pew. Gary was there, as was Greg the backup Bingo caller, Mike’s longtime friend Michelle and her family, a group of Mike’s breakfast buddies from the snack bar and Mike’s son and his family.
Mike’s roommate and his wife came, and from across the aisle she handed me the sweetest homemade sympathy card ever. Inside it read, in part: “Sure, ya, we miss him.”
Between that and the fill-in-the-blanks standard feel of the service, I thought I was going to be OK. But then it was sharing time. A resident and a volunteer spoke briefly. I was fine. But then Bob, the Trivia master, stood. And suddenly just the sound of his voice flashed me back to every Trivia session Mike and I had ever attended—it was such a vivid, surprising image, it startled me as much as it saddened me. And by the time Bob took to the podium to recite John Gillespie Magee’s poem “High Flight” (Bob and Mike shared a love of all things aviation), I was moved to tears.
The chaplain warned us about the impending rifle shots, but still I jumped. Harold and another resident each fired three shots from tenderly maintained 1903 Springfield rifles, and they were so harsh, and so sharp, and so final, I finally let everything out. My shoulders shook. My son handed me tissues. I took a deep peaceful breath, looked directly at the big beautiful photo of Mike, and I said goodbye.