Adventures in Thailand

My Grandmother died yesterday.  She had been pretty uncomfortable for a while; it sounds like she just said “I’m done!” and called it quits, passing away in her sleep peacefully.  I like to think that she’s in a better place and is now reunited with my Grandfather, who died some 22 odd years ago.  All deaths are tragic, but this wasn’t one that was a total surprise, like a horrible car accident or what happened to Tim Russert recently.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept when a member of your family, someone who has the same blood running through their veins, leaves this world at the end of their life.

My slow education about death and mortality took a turn in college, when my best friend’s mom died in her 50’s from heart disease.  She was this tiny Japanese lady, who even though she had lived in the States for 2 decades, still had this thick accent when she spoke English.  She had 2 sons, one a few years older and one almost exactly the same age as me.  Her son Tony asked me to be a pallbearer at the funeral, meaning I would be one of the people carrying the coffin from the hearse to the grave.  I can still smell the whiffs of embalming chemicals as I took each step with the handle of the coffin firmly within my grasp.  That smell had made it so real.

After we had put the coffin in place, I broke down and bawled my eyes out.  Why?  I didn’t really know this woman that well.  I was great friends with her son, and I had been to her house a few times, but I didn’t have any emotional stock invested in her.  Yet I cried like a baby.  I remember even after the funeral that I didn’t understand why I did that.  I’ve never been known for shedding lots of tears in my life.  I think I was watching and trying to sympathize with Tony, who at the age of 20 or so, was burying his mother.  That’s something that no one should have to do when they’re that age.

I won’t be able to make it to my Grandmother’s funeral or memorial service in Connecticut.  The Foreign Service, while wonderful in many ways, also at times makes it very difficult to attend major family events that are happening back home. Thankfully, I have been able to communicate fairly easily with everyone, reminiscing about all the wonderful times we had in Old Lyme with Grandma.  To me that is the most fitting way to grieve someone’s death, picturing in your head those wonderful events of the past, the way that you experienced them with your family.

So I will be remembering Grandma in my own way, watching her swim in her funny cap like she did in the freezing cold water of Long Island Sound, except that this time she’s in the warm, tropical waters of Fiji, right over there.