I am very fortunate that in my 41 years I have not had to deal with the death of someone close to me. Before my mother passed away in May 2005 I had only been to one funeral and that was of the wife of a close associate through my work, Larry. This one experience did very little to help with the pain I would feel at the loss of my mother.

Clare, Larry's wife, died of a suicide drug overdose which came as a big suprise because the few times I had met her she was very positive and had a very upbeat personality. Her death brought to light the reality of how little we really know about the people we interact with. I attended the burial for Clare. Clare was of the Jewish faith and I asked another of the attendees what the purpose of the pail of dirt next to the burial site was for. He smiled and began to tell me of the ritual of placing dirt from the pail onto the coffin after it has been lowered into the ground and how this act brought closure to your earthly relationship with this person and gave peace to the deceased. I took part in this act and keeping the lesson I had just learned in mind I closed my relationship with the Clare I knew and felt comfort in that she was now on her way to peace.

This lesson of closure would not be available to me at the time of my mothers passing. My mother's wish was to be cremated and that there not be any "fuss" made over her death. My father stayed true to their agreement to do this and she was cremated. My parents live in Florida and I in Michigan with my two daughters. The cremation took place as my daughter and I were getting down to Florida in the days after my mothers passing. The "service" for my mother was that of my father, myself, my daughter, and my brother driving to the funeral home and picking up my mothers urn. We returned to Michigan the next day without having made any "fuss" over my mother as she had wished, but I felt very empty on top of my sadness. Without some kind of marking of the event it felt very much like it hadn't really happened.

It was left up to me to notify people of my mother's passing and one of the people I thought it would be fitting to notify was the high school she had graduated from in Massachusetts. I wrote the alumni director by email and she replied that she would post the death in the next newsletter and if I wanted to write a eulogy or even just a few words she would add it to the newsletter. I sat at my computer and started to think about what to write. I had never thought

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