On Growth and Dying

But I will likely never again have the same growth. This thought pulsed through my head as scenes from that crazy week flashed through my mind. The text that my father-in-law was in the hospital. The decision to remove all life support. Dropping the kids off at school and driving for 2 hours up the long, flat stretches of I-70 to try to reach Dick’s hospital room in time. Arriving in the parking lot only to find that my father-in-law of 20 years had already passed away. Wondering if I should not have stopped for gas, or lingered less at home.

The next few days felt surreal and morbid and unreal. Going shopping with my children for appropriate funeral clothes. Walking into a funeral home with my mother-in-law to plan the cremation services and funeral. Making an appointment on my electronic phone calendar to “Pick up Dick’s ashes – 8:30 a.m.” – only to be topped by the surreal-ness of actually picking up Dick’s ashes at 8:30 a.m., which was itselftopped by the fact that the ashes were delivered in a very nondescript recyclable evergreen grocery bag.

The funeral itself was a beautiful service, with a flag salute and a heartfelt eulogy and the embrace of dozens of friends and strangers alike and dry ham sandwiches put together by a team of invisible women. I thought getting through the funeral would be the hardest part of processing my father-in-law’s death, but I was wrong. The next morning, I arrived at work promptly at 8:30 a.m. and was not able to get out of my van until well after the hour digit on the clock rolled over to 9.

I typed up a message to an online group of friends: “Help, My father-in-law passed away and I am sad. So very sad. I feel selfish saying this because it wasn’t my father who passed away, and my husband has it much worse than I do, and I need to be a rock for him. But I am still sad.” A friend responded, “Grief is just another sign of love.” The intensity of both my grief and my love took my breath away.

Now, some days pass in the chaos of backpacks and homework folders that need to be signed and overdue library books and boiling pots of spaghetti noodles. Other days pass with visceral reminders that my father-in-law is no longer with us, and we will never again in the history of ever be able to talk with him on this earth. A fishing rod leaning to the left-hand side of our dusty garage. You Can’t Always Get What You Want playing on the radio and erupting in a mash-up of organ and choral pulses. The phone ringing with my caller-ID displaying “Dick and Peggy Hageman” in blocky font, when “Dick Hageman” will never be on the other end of the line.  

My grandparents all passed away when I was young and I did not have the same emotional reaction from their deaths. I choked up during my grandmother’s funeral not because she was gone, but because I was not able to sit next to my favorite cousin in the church pew during her funeral service. My own parents’ deaths feel very far into the distant future, a fictional concept that may never come to fruition. My own father sometimes bikes 100 miles a day and my mother often runs more miles in a week than I do. Living through my father-in-law’s death, though, has me recoiling from the realization of how surprising the intensity of both love and grief that can bubble up can be. And I hope I do not have to experience this truth again for a very long time.