I don’t remember when I started to talk about death. Mom and I used to talk about it–what we thought happened afterwards in particular. In my early teens, Mom, her college classmates, and their professor spent the night in a cemetery with recording equipment and cameras with infrared film. Later, Mom’s boyfriend (who had been the professor and that’s another story) claimed his house was haunted by a man who died by suicide.

I lived in that house for a short while (about six months) and, for the record, I never saw anything ghostly. Though I did see the holes the boyfriend punched into the wall after an especially bad night.

My dad, on the other hand, never talked about ghosts or death or anything remotely otherworldly beyond Star Trek episodes and claiming to be from outer space. He loved to say that I wasn’t born but found in a giant egg in the woods. (And no, people of a certain era, this wasn’t a reference to Mork & Mindy because this was, in fact, before the show ever aired.)

My dad had 90 years on this planet. My mother had 45. Far too many people get significantly less time than that.

My dad died alone in a room in an assisted living facility, his money gone along with his clarity. The last time anyone saw him, he was confused and saying things no one understood. He could’ve been here with me, of course. Everything was set into place–his finances and his things. It will bother me to the end of my own days, how everything was upended and ruined, but as we all know, the past can’t be fixed and we have to arrange the pieces we have left.

My mom died at work a week before Thanksgiving in 1989. She collapsed from a brain aneurysm. I was a thousand miles away at college. Dying on an office floor seems unfair for anyone.

But the world is unfair to many. Every time I hear someone talk about how a family member passed while surrounded by loved ones, I’m grateful. It’s a gift almost everyone deserves but too many are denied. Don’t take it for granted.

Four months after mom’s death, I was able to be there for my grandmother. Whether or not she knew I was there is debatable. You see, mom and I had the same name. “Marta’s here.” She squeezed my hand. Maybe she knew it was me. Maybe she thought it was her daughter. It’s okay either way.

People don’t like to talk about death. Understandably, but also unfortunately. It comes for us all, as they say, even the obnoxiously wealthy who try desperately to buy their way out of it. You would think a fear of death could make us more compassionate and more determined to make sure more people can have a good death. But it seems the opposite is true. Just look at the news and the people and the systems inflicting horrors and death on individuals and multitudes, as if the suffering of others will save us. Is fear the mind killer, or is the killer of the heart?

I’m going to re-read Momento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life. And I’m going to take out my cards–Morbid Curiosity: A Game about Death and My Gift of Grace: A Conversation Game for Living and Dying Well. No, I don’t think it’s being morbid or wallowing in grief. It’s a period of mourning and a journey of understanding. Accompany me if you will.

I want to acknowledge and honor the losses. In Bulgaria (and I’ve written about this before), people put up death notices. They put them up when someone dies, and then again a year later, again five years later, and again at ten years, at twenty, as long as someone is around to remember. (And yes, the missing posters put up around New York City after 9/11 reminded me of this.) People there in mourning might put a black ribbon on their apartment door too.

My father isn’t getting a funeral. There’s no money for one, and in the aftermath of the divorce (and Dad outliving many he knew and others being far away), the expense makes no sense. So, I’ll have to find another way to mark his passing. Rituals are important, aren’t they? They’re markers on the journey pointing to the next road, acknowledging where we’ve been.

I don’t want to end without mentioning my dear friend, Jeannine. She died in November. It hasn’t even been a year! She loved hearing stories about my dad, and she worried about him along with me. When we were in Salem, Massachusetts together, we visited so many cemeteries! She is missed.

There’s always so much more to say, but I’ll end here. Thanks for reading.

💙💙

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