Is it that it's too hard? Too nebulous? Too locked into doing what our moms and dads did for their loved ones? When does our impressions start about what dying and death means, and how we are supposed to handle it?
I was eight when my Aunt died, and this was my first 'death in the family'. I had no experience in such loss other than television or classmates with big families. Our family was small, contained. We did not see death directly often, nor was it even talked about outside a whisper, perhaps as a Halloween costume. Even to ask if an elderly person was dying, or old enough to die was worthy of getting punished. Pets simply disappeared. I didn't even know what a funeral home was, let alone what happens in one, or what a viewing was supposed to be, until I went to Aunt D's.
The first thing I was told after my mother told me that my aunt was dead was not about what I understood of the sentence "Your aunt died last night.” Rather it was “We are still having Easter dinner at Grandma's. Don’t talk to your grandmother about anything. Don’t talk to your cousins [my aunt’s son and daughter]. Be quiet and stay out of the way of the adults". Yes, we did have Easter dinner, in uncomfortable silence, with just a hint of 'plans' being discussed among the adults...funeral plans- but just called 'plans'. What I found out later was from newspaper articles and my mother's jerk boyfriend at the time. My aunt had some drinks, drove home, never made it. My mother was the car behind her- she was the one my aunt was out having drinks with. She was following her home in that old 80's way of following someone home to make sure that they got there safely. She was the one who called the ambulance. Just imagine the family dynamics under the surface. Imagine it still, always just under the surface.
Pictures of my Aunt were put away right after the funeral, only to be looked at secretly by us kids when no one was around for years. When me and my cousin got ‘caught’ once, about year later, re-reading letters that we children left for Diane’s casket as a goodbye, that we promised would bring fish we caught to her grave. That I would take care of the clock my mother gave me from my Aunts now empty apartment. We were yelled at for going into those things without permission.
There were many facets to how it affected me- for one it was my first impression of death, and my aunt was treated as if she had gone on a walkabout indefinitely instead of that she had died. The viewing I went to showed someone in a box who looked nothing like my aunt, wearing clothes she never would have worn in life, (for good reason, it was actually an outfit of my mother's). The funeral directors had gotten the makeup wrong, covering the accident marks, it looked like a mannequin, taking the detachment a further step.
I was not to go to the funeral, it being ‘not for children’, even though the viewing was okay. My cousins we allowed to go to the viewing, so it was okay for me to go...required, actually. They did not go to the funeral, and since no other kids were going to be there, I shouldn't be. I was now required not to be there. That was the thinking. I was sent to school as normal instead. My teacher saw the obit, pulled me aside and asked me to not mention anything since it may scare other kids. I essentially had a self grieving process, since no one wished to talk about death and grieving with me. My mother could not share her own emotions and was traumatized, my grandparents just lost their 28 year old child, so I was rather left to my own devices in figuring things out.
I had been told by classmates that a soul stays on earth for three days after death, so I was convinced that my aunt would return as a zombie. Every sound and creak in the apartment was my aunt returning to take someone to heaven with her, I was convinced. I did not sleep for three nights after Easter that year. Then had nightmares about the viewing for years after.
There were also a lot of cakes post funeral showing up at my grandmothers house, and I called them "Going to Heaven Cakes", as if it was a going away party, we all got gifts, things from my Aunt's house, my Aunt got lots and lots of flowers...again a misunderstanding (or a child’s pure understanding) of how death was being treated around me. Then I was told it was cruel to my cousins to think of it like that.
But a going away party I think would have been more my Aunt's personality. She was full of life. A bold personality. A modern Huntress. She got a funeral that was respectful, traditional, but lifeless and not filled with my Aunts being. Perhaps this was the seed, a small thing buried in the concrete of my mind for over 30 years before sprouting into the path I've only recently started...
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