Mortality and Community

[Griff]

Its funny how things fit together. Maybe its just that we all have to deal with the same things... sometimes the timing is just interesting. James posted his losing religion thread which came from losing his sister at an absurdly young age, we buried my friends cancer ridden Mom yesterday, and my Moms recent bout with pneumonia has revealed a terminal cancer. I haven't talked to my other friend lately but their hope for their daughters cancer going into remission is waning.

So, I get to lead my girls through the loss of their Grammie. I've decided to be straight up with them. They know it's cancer and they know that she is very sick but I don't think they have their heads around the finality of the thing. As for me, I mourned back in 1982 when she had her radical mastectemy. We've been on bonus time with Mom since then, we've been blessed. I'm just so glad to know her now as an adult. It turns out, obviously, that Mom is a much more complex person than I knew back then. I'm going to to try to model my care for her on her care for others, including my friends Mom.

We had the funeral at one of the oldest Catholic churches in the area. Its a pretty little woodframe structure with a bad foundation based on the roll in the wainscoting. She was buried in the adjacent cemetary, where all her Irish-American ancestors are interred. She was a huge fan of Irish music and would have been pleased with the version of Lady of Knock that another local woman tore off. I was sitting in that church and at the luncheon after thinking how lucky we are out here in the boonies to still have our community even though its days are probably numbered.

Most of my friends beat feet out of the area because the local economy is crap and America is a mobile society with little patience for community building and maintenance. The right wants a mobile work force and the left wants to replace voluntary community with mandated community, thats two strikes but we'll try to even up the count.

This was gonna be about the utility of religion and ceremony in these moments of transistion, everybody getting together to celebrate a tough woman who had a hard life and reflect on themselves realizing that they need to step up because someone needs to fill the various roles she had in the community. I was thinking about the death of Toads relationship as well and how some kind of get together is appropriate for such things. I forget who it was but I think they were Methodists who formalized their divorce in a religious ceremony. I suppose the same thing could occur with plastic spoons... Community is a difficult concept ecompassing economics, politics, religion, and neighborliness. I'm still chewing on it. peace out griff