loss

Wade is in Los Angeles right now, and had to go through the difficult experience of burying his father on Friday. He told me that the funeral service was beautiful, and kind of crazy. When the minister started the service, a huge storm came on at the same time. This is L.A., where it's always sunny and never rains. The wind blew the doors of the church open and made the flag on Bob's coffin flutter around. It was a show of theatrical thunder and lightning throughout the whole ceremony. The minister apologized, and said that it was storming too hard for the sons to walk the coffin out, and that they would have to finish everything inside the chapel. The rain lifted just as it was time for his sons to walk his coffin to the grave. 

Can I tell you about Bob for a moment? He was a crazy artist. The guy could make art out of anything. His main thing though, was finding four-leaf clovers and turning them into pictures of carousel horses. I was unable to get a really clear photo of this picture that hangs in our kitchen because of the lighting. This thing is enormous and takes up most of the wall. And it's filled with four-leaf clovers. Bob had this almost magical gift for finding them. I remember once, when we went to the park with him, we were sitting on the picnic blanket and Julian was playing with some trucks, and Bob said, "Look, there's a four-leaf clover." And I couldn't see it. I thought he was bluffing. But he walked over, about 20 feet away, and picked it out of a patch of clover like it was no big deal. He said they were a different color to him. He made hundreds and hundreds of pieces like this, and we have several in our house. 

When Wade's brother and his wife were sorting through Bob's apartment and his belongings, they found a box full of thousands of clovers that Bob had picked, pressed flat, and dried. They were going to be used for making more art. Only, he got too sick to do what he loved, so they stayed in their box. So at the funeral, as people were walking by the grave, they reached into that box and grabbed handfuls of clovers, and dropped them in his grave.

One thing that I have learned through this is that children sometimes have a difficult time expressing grief or talking about death. There are so many questions, and how am I supposed to answer them when I am so confused about it myself? I have no answers. When it became clear that Bob wasn't going to survive this last stay in the hospital, Julian started asking questions about the situation, and some of his questions seemed insensitive. If I didn't know him, I would think he was just being rude. But I have heard that children filter these things differently, and their extreme bluntness about a subject that most adults try to handle very delicately and gracefully, can be somewhat alarming. We're understanding that this is a loss for Julian, too, and his questions, blunt as they are, are just as valid for his grieving process as anyone else's.

Whatever it is that comes after this life, I hope that Bob is at peace now.