Two Funerals & A Wedding

Earlier this month over the course of eight days, I attended two funerals and a wedding. The first funeral was on a Friday morning for the husband of a friend’s friend whom I have gotten to know over the years. When Mark died she gave me a pen with a note telling me to keep writing. It’s still in the box and every so often I get it out and hold it in my hand before putting it away again, so afraid that I might misplace such a beautiful thing. I went to the funeral home, hugged the widow, and sat with some neighbors during the service. I was mostly fine but when it was over I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I sat in my car for a bit and watched as friends and family poured out of the funeral home. I don’t think there is anything sadder or more beautiful than seeing an army of people stopping their life to remember and pay respect to one.

The next day I went to the funeral for a friend’s son. He was young, successful, and married with two small children until it abruptly ended. Hundreds of people poured into that church – many I knew along with a host of his young friends and colleagues. For some of us this was a repeat of returning to this church after ten years earlier when a beloved husband and dad died. Over the years I observed this friend with her grace in loss and thought, “That’s how I want to be if Mark dies,” never hearing the loudly ticking count-down clock. So there we were again watching this graceful mom and widow, her daugher-in-law newly christened with that awful title, his brother and wife, and so many family members filling the front pews. Within those walls the utter unfairness of this death was as palpable as the shock.

The following Friday the kids and I headed off for the wedding of Mark’s niece. When she got engaged and we received the save-the-date card, I told the kids that they should all plan on being there. Like them my niece has lost a parent, the sister my kids’ dad loved dearly, and if life had played out differently Vicki would have been front and center and Mark would have been beaming from the sidelines. But the certainty I had about being there waned as the wedding got closer as this would be the first time I would see any of Mark’s family since his funeral. For many months after Mark’s death I tried to stay in touch but every phone call would send me spiraling with sadness and anger. I was already so far down that I was terrified of what would happen if I went any further and so I stopped most contact.

We flew into Detroit and the next morning piled into an Uber to spend some time in Ann Arbor before we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Mallory was sitting next to me in the car and asked if I was doing okay. I was not. My anxiety was through the roof so I surprised myself when I said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep holding all of this against Grandma when I don’t know her whole story. I have to let this go.” Over the years of our marriage, my mother-in-law would frequently tell me that there was nobody more perfect for Mark than me. “You have always let him be exactly who he is,” she would say to me and those words were such a gift then and even more so after he died.

We went to the wedding and sat towards the back. When it started and Mark’s mom was walking up the center aisle my eyes immediately filled with tears. She looked older, thinner, needing an arm to steady herself, and so beautiful. Then the bridal party walked up, Lou with his parents, Ashley with her dad, and in the first row on the aisle seat was a bouquet of flowers for Vicki who was very much included in the ceremony she didn’t live to see. The vows were recited, a beaming bride and groom were pronounced husband and wife, and in that joyful wedding way they hand-in-hand practically skipped down the aisle. The kids and I waited for some of the crowd to disperse and when I saw Mark’s mom off to the side we headed over to her. I hugged her tight as she sobbed in my arms. “This is so hard,” she said and I told her, yes, this day was as brutal as it was lovely. The kids all enveloped her in hugs and she introduced us to everyone around her.

When Mark died, people had all kinds of ideas as to what happened that day that caused him to end his life. Sometimes they felt the need to share their theories with me and I have been asked several times if he was cheating on me. He was not and never had. Because I still fiercely love him I protect him in death as I would in life. It is also because I know what he told me and I know what I saw but there are huge gaps of time that are blank. I was so hurt when people filled in the blanks to come up with a story to try to make sense of a senseless act. Somewhere along the way I did that exact thing to my mother-in-law which I hadn’t realized until I was sitting in the back of an Uber.

The rest of the night was perfect. My kids have never been to a single wedding reception that they haven’t danced for hours. I was on the dance floor with them and grabbed my mother-in-law to join us. “This isn’t like the old days when we did the polka,” she said with those same beautiful eyes Mark had which were a slice of heaven to see again.

At the second funeral the minister said, “Love is notoriously bad at letting go,” and oh dear god I thought, how have I only thought of that as a negative thing? In a world that encourages moving on from our losses as quickly as an expiring lease, grievers prefer to share our stories and our tears and remind everyone that this beautiful and gutting thing stays forever.

As it should.