sc@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert) (08/13/86)
Hi, all!
I'm heading back to my hometown for my father's funeral, and would
like to stir up some discussion for when I get back. What I've been
thinking about started back in March, with a phone conversation.
I called the hospital where my father was supposed to be getting his
bronchs lased (late lung cancer....) and the nurse connected me to
someone who didn't really sound like my dad. In fact, he sounded like
he'd been gargling drano. I figure, well, he's just been regrooved,
of course it's going to affect his voice. So I ask him how he made out
that morning. "Nothing happened this morning, but I'm having that cat
scratch test tomorrow." My father wasn't, to the best of my knowledge,
scheduled for a cat scan at all, and a little alarm starts dinging in
the back of my mind. We chat a bit more, and he mentions how anxious
he is to get back to the trailer and Nina. OK, my parents live
(lived....) in a house he designed and built himself, and my mom's
name is definitely NOT Nina.
The nurse had given me the _wrong_ dying father. The one _I_ got had
not, apparently, seen his daughter in many years, and simply would not
(or could not) comprehend that while I was a dutiful daughter I wasn't
_his_, and while he was in fact a dying father, he wasn't mine.
"My name is STella Calvert, my father's name is John Calvert, what is
_your_ name," I struggle. "That's OK, Linda, I'll call you STella if
you like...." And on and on....
I attempted to tell him, "You're not _my_ father."
He responded "Your mother was a good woman, and it doesn't matter. I
love you as if you were mine." (Thank ghod! temporary stupidity kept
me from parsing that till I was off the phone, or I'd've laughed in
his ear!)
When I finally managed to get off the phone without promising to come
visit this total stranger, I broke up, absolutely and irretrievably.
Tears all the way to my bottommost chin, and at least half of them
laughter.... Nothing that funny ever gets posted to net.jokes.... Real
life is funnier than net.jokes because real life hurts more than
net.jokes. I wonder if _he's_ dead yet....
Since then, I've been wondering about our mixed reaction to death and
humor. In my family a wake seems to consist of sitting around eating
too much and telling every embarrassing story that ever happened to
the ghost of honor, punctuated with "but it's awful to be laughing
like this...." Now I don't see the awfulness, though I guess I'll be
required to look somber when someone stops laughing long enough to say
it.... To me it makes great sense that we laugh when we hurt, though
I've heard a lot of people on the net saying that some things just
aren't funny. Tonight I watched a rerun of _Moonlighting_, in which
there was a chase scene with a hearse.... and I _KNOW_ that on
Thursday I'm going to be briefly tempted to steal the hearse and set
out on a joy ride. Not because I'm glad he's dead, but because life
goes on whether we like it or not, so we may as well like it.
And yes, on one level, I am glad that he's dead, out of the terminal
lung cancer game.... Though at the end he was on enough pills that he
was two-thirds missing, the pain was mostly controlled, and yes, I'm
selfishly VERY glad he got out before uncontrollable pain caused him
to ask me to "help" him die. I'll never regret not having to give him
the book I got from the Hemlock Society.... (Thanks for the address,
anonymous netter....)
And most of all I'm glad that before he died I was able to make the
distinction between liking him (he was an unlikeably intolerant racist
fundy) and loving him. If you're down on your living parents, don't
reconcile with them for THEIR sake, but make your peace with them for
your sake -- because the dead have an overwhelming advantage -- they
never answer back. And having the last words be "I love you" rings a
lot better.
Back within the week, funny as ever! If you have any good funeral
stories, let me know....
STella Calvert
Do what thou wilt -- not just a good idea,
it's the law!
Guest Account: {cybvax0|decvax}!frog!sc