Reflections
I’ve meaning to write about this for a while, so now is as good a time as any. I took Alana to see Barry Manilow at the Fleet on October 1. OK, get it out of your system. Yes, we are Fanilows…get over it. There’s a whole history with us and Barry Manilow. His music got us through the night before my wedding when Alana would spontaneously break into the first few verses of “I can’t smile without you,” and no matter how stressed I was I couldn’t help but laugh.
So, we went to this concert, and, man, was it cathartic. Alana truly enjoyed herself that night, and that was my whole plan. Not that anything could erase from her mind the fact that she had recently lost her mother, but as least it was a night of laughs, of song, of friendship, free of desperation and sadness. And I wanted that for her in the worst way.
We called it Best Friends Night Out. And it was. We sang along with Barry and all the other geeked out Fanilows and had ourselves a grand old time.
I talk to Alana often, but we don’t get to see each other all that much. Since her mother passed, I’d only seen her a handful of times. I’ve put off writing about the wake and funeral. But I want to relate those days now.
Mrs. A’s death was sudden and horrible. I went to the house the next day with a meat platter. An inane gesture, but I figured they still had to eat. The funny thing is, it was John (the dad) we had all been worried about. He had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer and was preparing to go in for surgery. (He had the surgery 7 days after he buried his wife. Turns out it’s stage 4 cancer and he’ll need to start chemo soon).
So I went to the house and tried to comfort the family as best I could. None of the kids could look me in the eye. The moment our eyes met they all tended to break down. I was good that day; I shed few tears and considered myself as being strong for the sake of the family.
The night of the wake was a different story. Again I was determined to be stoic. But before I even parked the car, I broke down and found myself inconsolable. I walked in with Joe and with our friends Diane and Eric. As soon as Alana saw me she walked over and hugged me in an effort to comfort me. That’s Alana. Her mother dies and she’s trying to comfort me. We stayed there for the entire 4 hours. We saw people we hadn’t seen since we were kids. Kids we swore we’d never lose touch with. Kids we hadn’t seen in over a decade. These kids were now adults and were honoring the friendship we once all shared by paying their respect for this wonderful woman and her family.
I found myself drawn to the casket more than once that night. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help thinking this was the last time I would ever see Mrs. A and there were things I wanted to say. There were things I wanted to thank her for. There were things I wanted to tell her. It didn’t look like her lying there. I suppose it rarely does. I put my hand on her arm and whispered my thanks for her love through the years. I promised to watch over Alana and the others. I promised to always be there for them. I thanked her for all the laughs over the years and I promised I would never forget her kindness. Then I kissed her forehead and told her I loved her for the last time.
A bunch of us went for drinks after the wake. We reminisced about the “good old days.” About partying at the Andrews’ after the proms and after the different concerts we’d attended as teens. We laughed about Mrs. A’s constant ribbing of my fascination with all things Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis. Her death came 1 month before the annual Jerry Lewis telethon. The telethon was always a special time for us. I would spend the weekend at Alana’s and we would watch the entire 22 hours. We would make pancakes at 3 in the morning and laugh at the old Martin and Lewis routines they would show while the hosts were catching cat naps. And one year Alana and I did an impromptu Martin and Lewis routine that had Mrs. A holding her side laughing. She asked us to do it whenever we were together and we obliged, enjoying the laughs and wanting to make her laugher harder.
I sat with the family at the funeral. It was honor for me, but again it required me trying to hold back any show of emotion for the sake of the family. Funerals, if at all possible, are even worse than wakes. There’s a sense of finality at a funeral that is just so cold and horrific. You stare at the coffin and imagine your loved one at rest, or not so much. It’s disconcerting and harrowing and awful. I decided long ago that I wanted to be cremated when my time comes. And in the event that my wishes are not honored, Alana has promised to “flick her bic” in the middle of the funeral home if she has to.
We all cried during the service. We cried and we held onto one another. And when we started down the aisle on our way out of the church, it was difficult not to notice the faces of the children we’d grown up with, faces that now belonged to adults we’d grown apart from. Tears streaming down the faces of these men and women who we’d known as children. And once again we saw their faces as children, our friends; and our tears brought us together in grief and we mourned for all that was lost.
Alana and I talk often. We try to meet for dinner at least once a month. It’s hard to talk to somebody for the first time after going through something like this. Do you bring it up? Do you ask how she’s doing? How sick she must be of that. So I let her guide the conversation. Sometimes we talk about it, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we talk about how her father is doing, sometimes we don’t. But always we end our conversations with “I love you.”
That is what best friends do.
So, we went to this concert, and, man, was it cathartic. Alana truly enjoyed herself that night, and that was my whole plan. Not that anything could erase from her mind the fact that she had recently lost her mother, but as least it was a night of laughs, of song, of friendship, free of desperation and sadness. And I wanted that for her in the worst way.
We called it Best Friends Night Out. And it was. We sang along with Barry and all the other geeked out Fanilows and had ourselves a grand old time.
I talk to Alana often, but we don’t get to see each other all that much. Since her mother passed, I’d only seen her a handful of times. I’ve put off writing about the wake and funeral. But I want to relate those days now.
Mrs. A’s death was sudden and horrible. I went to the house the next day with a meat platter. An inane gesture, but I figured they still had to eat. The funny thing is, it was John (the dad) we had all been worried about. He had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer and was preparing to go in for surgery. (He had the surgery 7 days after he buried his wife. Turns out it’s stage 4 cancer and he’ll need to start chemo soon).
So I went to the house and tried to comfort the family as best I could. None of the kids could look me in the eye. The moment our eyes met they all tended to break down. I was good that day; I shed few tears and considered myself as being strong for the sake of the family.
The night of the wake was a different story. Again I was determined to be stoic. But before I even parked the car, I broke down and found myself inconsolable. I walked in with Joe and with our friends Diane and Eric. As soon as Alana saw me she walked over and hugged me in an effort to comfort me. That’s Alana. Her mother dies and she’s trying to comfort me. We stayed there for the entire 4 hours. We saw people we hadn’t seen since we were kids. Kids we swore we’d never lose touch with. Kids we hadn’t seen in over a decade. These kids were now adults and were honoring the friendship we once all shared by paying their respect for this wonderful woman and her family.
I found myself drawn to the casket more than once that night. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help thinking this was the last time I would ever see Mrs. A and there were things I wanted to say. There were things I wanted to thank her for. There were things I wanted to tell her. It didn’t look like her lying there. I suppose it rarely does. I put my hand on her arm and whispered my thanks for her love through the years. I promised to watch over Alana and the others. I promised to always be there for them. I thanked her for all the laughs over the years and I promised I would never forget her kindness. Then I kissed her forehead and told her I loved her for the last time.
A bunch of us went for drinks after the wake. We reminisced about the “good old days.” About partying at the Andrews’ after the proms and after the different concerts we’d attended as teens. We laughed about Mrs. A’s constant ribbing of my fascination with all things Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis. Her death came 1 month before the annual Jerry Lewis telethon. The telethon was always a special time for us. I would spend the weekend at Alana’s and we would watch the entire 22 hours. We would make pancakes at 3 in the morning and laugh at the old Martin and Lewis routines they would show while the hosts were catching cat naps. And one year Alana and I did an impromptu Martin and Lewis routine that had Mrs. A holding her side laughing. She asked us to do it whenever we were together and we obliged, enjoying the laughs and wanting to make her laugher harder.
I sat with the family at the funeral. It was honor for me, but again it required me trying to hold back any show of emotion for the sake of the family. Funerals, if at all possible, are even worse than wakes. There’s a sense of finality at a funeral that is just so cold and horrific. You stare at the coffin and imagine your loved one at rest, or not so much. It’s disconcerting and harrowing and awful. I decided long ago that I wanted to be cremated when my time comes. And in the event that my wishes are not honored, Alana has promised to “flick her bic” in the middle of the funeral home if she has to.
We all cried during the service. We cried and we held onto one another. And when we started down the aisle on our way out of the church, it was difficult not to notice the faces of the children we’d grown up with, faces that now belonged to adults we’d grown apart from. Tears streaming down the faces of these men and women who we’d known as children. And once again we saw their faces as children, our friends; and our tears brought us together in grief and we mourned for all that was lost.
Alana and I talk often. We try to meet for dinner at least once a month. It’s hard to talk to somebody for the first time after going through something like this. Do you bring it up? Do you ask how she’s doing? How sick she must be of that. So I let her guide the conversation. Sometimes we talk about it, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we talk about how her father is doing, sometimes we don’t. But always we end our conversations with “I love you.”
That is what best friends do.
posted by M at
11:45 PM
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