Showing Up

"He looked so peaceful," I told my kids when I came home later that night.

It was the third client I had visited in the past six months within hours of their passing and before the body was picked up to convey to the funeral home or crematory.

The daughter and her husband were sitting in chairs, pulled right up to his bedside when I arrived, just as I had seen them do many times over, in the year and a half I had been working with this family.

The son-in-law, Jerry, said he had just been reading about the importance of the tradition of opening the door in a small Irish community to allow neighbors, friends and family to see the body, to have a few moments with the deceased, after dropping a casserole or hot rolls on the dining room table. Jerry was lamenting, in a sense, that this had not happened in the home town of his father-in-law John Gale, who had been a beloved physician and neighbor. He had cared quite literally for the community around him for decades, for his lifetime.

Judith said they would leave me for a few moments with him and quietly closed the door behind them. I pulled my chair up. He looked so much in death as he had in life, quite peaceful. His eyes were closed and I took his hand, still warm. I put my hand and then a cheek to his forehead, as I had many visits, over the hundreds of hours I had spent with him. I smoothed his white hair back.

Many people these days say they are afraid to see the dead body and many funeral homes no longer offer a “viewing.”

There are so many reasons now that it is more infrequent than not that we don’t get to say good bye in this way—we live far apart; parents fear the kids might be scared; we have so little time, we get lost and overwhelmed with all the chores a death requires—but there is a reason why this ritual has been in place for so much longer than it has not.

So on Thursday evening, after the sun had gone down, I sat with Dr. Gale who had become a friend and told him—again—because I was fortunate and had had the opportunity to tell him while he was alive—what he had meant to me.

But on Thursday night, I sat and spoke to this dear man, as he lay quiet, and then the tears came. I had not anticipated crying—I had cried on several visits with him before--but the quiet allowed for it. It was genuine and when I rejoined the family in the hallway, there were both tears with them and laughter.

There were some tears, but mostly laughter at the breast cancer run we did Saturday morning, and laughter and tenderness at Great Aunt Sarah’s birthday Saturday afternoon.

There’s a lot to be said for prioritizing events like these, and also a lot to be lost when we don’t.

[Postscript: I'd like to communicate that I would never share the names of a client and indeed try to keep all situations I write about here anonymous. In this case, the family asked if I could include their father's name, as his former neighbors, friends, family and patients, may appreciate remembering him through the window of this story.]