by Sam van Almen

Created on: September 23, 2009   Last Updated: September 24, 2009

I sat in the pew stunned, outside myself, and empty. People moved all around me but I was unaware, even the sounds were muted as if coming through the glass walls of a bell jar. I had known for months that it was coming. My fathers cancer had a horrible and predicted outcome. I had seen him alive just a few weeks ago when it looked like he was so near the end, but something inside him caused him to rally and sent me back to work and family.

The call came just a few days after my return home. The rally had burnt itself out and my father was fading fast. I packed up my daughters and headed to his final destination. We were all in the room with him as he breathed his last. My mother held her arms outstretched, his pallid hand in hers. I could not raise a tear as she gave him permission to go. Inadequate words remained frozen in my throat as a final grimace passed over his face. A last ragged breath...and he was gone. I wondered why I had led my girls into that room just before he died. Part of me wanted to protect them from seeing this cruel but natural end to life. It was as if something had touched me and let me know that it was important for them to see this final passing. When the moment came they dissolved into tears and I stood there, mute, holding them in my arms, eyes misty...but still unable to cry.

Time passed. It could have been hours, days or even weeks, but I found myself sitting in the church, surrounded by family and friends but feeling so lost and alone.

The duality of the funeral ritual struck me. On one hand it was a family reunion, with all the hand shaking and back slapping and questions about how you have been. But there was an inner circle of quiet grief, centered for the most part in the first pew, consisting of the widow, sons, a daughter, and their children. People move into this circle to weep or to give condolences, and move out again to re-engage in the reunion. It seems everyone is allowed this movement except for one, the widow, my mother. The beautiful girl who, as a teenager, fell for a dashing soldier, and saw him off to war. The young mother who welcomed him home only to send him off for a second round of battle in another far off land. The dutiful, faithful woman who then followed him around the world as he finished his distinguished military career, and who finally settled down with him thirty miles from the place they met so many years ago.
During the conflict in Korea my father was awarded the Bronze Star. Now it had passed into the hands of this heroic woman. She deserved it as much as he. For twenty years she had delayed building their common, small town life because of a love I envy to this day. My father had lived a long and exemplary life, and now she must go on without him.

When my own tears finally came, they were for her. I hope they have not stained this page.

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