Requiem Aeternam
My grandmother died on Thursday. Her decline was quick and the end merciful . . . if you can call it that, dying without tying up the loose ends that way. It was the same way with my other grandmother. I wonder, when she left her house did she turn and look and know she would never see it again? The last load of laundry, did she say, I'll do it when I get back? The book she never finished, the plants that she would water when she got back . . . Do I want to die that way, quickly, without anticipation? But then, I think, when you get older surely you know, surely it follows you, the knowledge that every day may be your last. As a younger person that seems a burden, but they say as you age you begin to look forward, because you grow tired.
At the funeral there were the usual platitudes spoken by a cheesy Southern preacher, the usual thirties-era church songs played acappella (of course) as visitors walked by the coffin. Strangers had washed her body, strangers had dressed her and prepared her. How sterilized it is these days, so that we the family don't have to "suffer" by taking care of our own. She looked waxen, a bit shrunken, the hands stiff, but not used up, the way I had expected.
When my grandfather walked up to the coffin he simply said, "Bye, sweetheart."
At the graveside the same cheesy preacher spoke Gnostic nonsense about this not being Alice, it was only the body God gave Alice to use on earth. Hogwash. That body that was born and lived and bore children and aged was as much Alice as the part of her now beyond. Don't demean death that way, don't pretend it isn't the most vulgar of insults to human dignity, that it separates what was never meant to be separated: the body and the soul. Don't pretend it isn't what it is.
All weekend I thought,
I'm all she has to pray for her. No one else knows to do it. I wasn't close to her in life; now, in her death, I'm the only one she can count on.
When we arrived home on Sunday night the terrier was nowhere to be found. Lady was there, though, looking at me with what I know is anger for having left her for three days. This morning, I opened the front door to put something on the porch, and she went out, sat in front of the door looking at me. She was telling me that this time I wasn't going anywhere without her.
A partial indulgence can be obtained by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed, even if the prayer is only mental. One can gain a plenary indulgence visiting a cemetery each day between November 1 and November 8. These indulgences are applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory.
A plenary indulgence, again applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, is also granted when the faithful piously visit a church or a public oratory on November 2. In visiting the church or oratory, it is required, that one Our Father and the Creed be recited.
A partial indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, can be obtained when the Eternal Rest (Requiem aeternam) is prayed. This is a good prayer to recite especially during the month of November:
Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Labels: death, family
