Friday Fragments - September 30, 2011

So I took a little hiatus from blogging and now I'm back!  I said tomorrow would be my grand return but then my grandmother died and I really needed a place to process.

Yesterday I posted the eulogy I gave.  Today, although it's Friday Fragments, I'm going to ramble a little about death.  Sorry, not an upbeat subject.

The thing that keeps rolling through my head is that no one really warns us about the process of death.  Someone has broken down the stages of grief - denial, anger, remorse and I don't remember the rest or even if there are more.  Oh there's one about negotiating with God.  When I was breaking up with my first husband I went through all of those stages - nobody warns you about grief factoring into divorce either.  But it's the process that we don't discuss, maybe everyone thinks their situation is unique?  I suspect there is a lot of commonality between most of our experiences.

Someone has to be there.  I wasn't asked to formally "identify the body" but I will assume because I was present and acknowledged grandma and cried at her bedside that I sufficed as an identifier.

My drive to the hospital was abnormally calm.  I mean, Jesus, I was just told that my grandmother was found unresponsive and was being rushed to the ER.  I should be a shaking, shattered mess, driving like a mad woman.  No, I picked up my husband and we quietly drove for-freaking-ever.  That should have been my head's up.  When I entered the ER and inquired about grandma I was told a nurse would be out to talk to me.  That didn't sound right.  And when they opened the doors to retrieve said nurse there was a guy lingering in the hallway that looked suspiciously like the hospital chaplain.  Somewhere in the back of my head I pondered if he was a chaplain and if he was whether he was waiting for me.  I was escorted into a "consultation room" with a Gideon's Bible laying on a side table.  A nurse, a doctor and the chaplain accompanied us into the room and from there I heard the details of where she was found, how they tried to treat her and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I know the details have to be shared and that many people find comfort in the facts, but for anyone who has to impart this information, make it quick, get to the point.  Just because I didn't collapse and blubber like a fiend doesn't mean you need to keep rambling.  Only two thoughts went through my head, no wait, three.  1) Shut the fuck up, 2) crap, crap, crap 3) who do I need to call.  And still he kept talking.

It was nice to have clergy there but he needed to read my signals and scoot.  Instead he lingered.  That's not to say I don't have faith rumbling inside of me, but what he had to offer wasn't what I wanted or needed at that moment.

What I asked multiple times was "what do I need to do?"

Seriously, what are we supposed to do?  I know every situation is unique but where is the set of directions of the details that needed to be tended to?  Who guides us through this crap?  We get wedding planners, are there post-mortem planners?  And I'm not talking about funeral directors, although I met him in the following days.

So, here is my to-do list, modify as you see fit:

1.  Call the immediate family.  Let whoever needs to see the deceased go in and cry, don't stand in the way.  Others will avoid that process, don't hold that against them.

2.  Leave the hospital (yeah, they made it sound like we could stay there forever, that's not true, get out).  Go gather at someone's house.  I'm not really sure what we're supposed to do at this gathering.  My kids played video games and our evening was uneventful.  I would imagine that would be a good time to start a list of everyone else who needs to be contacted.

3.  Prepare for a gathering - in this case it was at my mom's house.  Clear out the fridge to accommodate party platters.  We went grocery shopping for essentials thinking of gatherings over the next few days.  Neighbors and church friends will also bring food.  Get the house cleaned, ideally pay someone to do it professionally.  Put out a call for folding chairs and load up on paper plates, cups, and plastic utensils.

4.  Meet with the funeral home.  Holy moly, we were there for HOURS and this was with everything prearranged.  This is when you will compose the obituary, contact your minister, decide on flowers and if you don't have the luxury of prearrangement pick out a casket or urn.  You will faint from sticker shock.  The obituary writing, composed by a stranger and grieving family members is always filled with misinformation.  A group of friends has half-jokingly suggested that we should write our own obits.  After sitting through two of these, I would strongly recommend writing your own.  Tuck that in with your prearrangement details (because you really have to go that route, or at least have your final requests spelled out.  I cannot imagine figuring all of that out on my own).

5.  Gather the family and assemble a team of callers.  This cannot be done before your funeral home meeting because you need to know the arrangements with dates and times and location.  Prepare for out-of-towners and sending runners to the airport.

6.  Meet with the minister.  This person will ask all sorts of questions about the deceased so they can compile the eulogy.  I've sat through enough funerals to spot the minister who never met or never really interacted with the departed.  Their eulogies smack of retelling someone else's story.  I can't suggest writing a eulogy because it's a painful process, but I did find it very cathartic.  If I were going through the prearrangement deal and writing my own obit, I would consider writing a letter to my loved ones.  Hand that puppy over to the minister and let him pluck out pieces or maybe just read that instead of a eulogy depending on how well it's composed.

6a.  Notes to the minister - this is not the time to evangelize.  Prayers and words of assurance of life in the hereafter are fabulous.  There have been two funerals where I nearly walked out because the minister chose that time to recruite new members into their congregations.  This is a time for the friends and family of the deceased to gather and express their grief and loss.  That means there will be many people from other faiths sitting through your service, please respect that.  Nothing like basically telling the Jew sitting next to me that she is bound for hell because she wasn't baptized or doesn't revel in the glory of Christ The Master.  I've also seen some very respectful displays of religion - low key and reassuring.

7.  Gather pictures, songs and memories.  Have plenty of Kleenex on hand (maybe I should have made that step number two).  A small group of immediate family sat at my mom's house Friday night reviewing the selection of pictures on the picture boards.  We ate pizza and goofed around.  Yes, it is okay to laugh.

8.  Visitation, funeral, burial... Dress nicely (Please!  Just like I asked that clergy keep their evangelizing to themselves, shove your politcial statements about suits and ties somewhere and put on the button-down shirt and LOOK NICE.  Comb your damn hair and put on some deodorant!), suck it up, load your purse or pockets with tissue, and just muddle through.  There will be lots of introductions to people you will never see ever again, lots of names you'll forget, lots of faces that pass by in a blur.  No one expects you to remember them.  There will be lots of hand shakes and even more hugs.  Suck it up and cope.  Bottom line - suck it up.

9.  The flowers and plants go with you.  Jewelry that doesn't get buried has to go home with you and the picture boards need to go home too.  Sic a cousin or someone to retrieve all of this stuff.

10.  The day after - DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS ALONE! Find someone to stay with you or stay at their house.  The first 24 hours after everyone has left and returned to work are the most mind numbing.  A friend happened to have a vacation scheduled the following week when her father passed away.  She went ahead and took the trip after the funeral and said it was probably the best thing to help her transition through the loss.

11.  Cry.  Let it out.

Grandma's Eulogy

My grandmother passed away last week - Tuesday, September 20, 2011.  I had the extreme honor of giving her eulogy....

Everyone here knows Dorothy McDowell in a different capacity – as a friend, neighbor, as Aunt Dorothy, mom…  To my children she is Grandma Mac, but to me she has always been nothing but Grandma.   My mom tells me that when I tried to distinguish whom I was talking about I described her as “Grandma with the white hair”.  Grandma really did know how to rock her silver locks, didn’t she?  And now that I’ve become a grandmother myself I figured it’s okay if I let my own silver start to show through.

Letting our true colors show is only one of many lessons we can take away from this strong, vibrant, little person.  Grandma wasn’t a particularly loud person and she didn’t make herself the center of attention, yet she was always a strong presence. 




All of the people in this room can only account for so many years of Grandma’s life.  Everybody here has only known her as Dorothy McDowell, but before she had that name, there are another 24 years, before any of us met her, her formative years, that most defined her. 

When Tom Brockaw described “The Greatest Generation” he was talking about my grandmother.

Dorothy Dickson was born in 1916 in Richmond, Missouri, a little town in the farm fields north of Kansas City.  When she was born there were still people around who could give firsthand accounts of the Civil War.  She would have seen parades with 80 and 90 year old veterans marching next to recently returning WWI vets.  In her childhood farmers talked about the devastation of the dust bowl of the 1920’s and she came of age during the Great Depression.

Grandma’s family were not wealthy people.  They may have owned land, but they also worked it.  These were not merchants and bankers, judges and congressmen, but farmers and laborers.  Her father and grandfather and great-grandfather were coal miners.  Her father even worked for a few years at the Kansas City Zoo.  Workers – a long legacy of workers.







Grandma received an education and even graduated high school, something not necessarily guaranteed for a person of her generation.  After high school she got a job.  It was grandma who bought the family’s first car.  When her parents and younger sister moved to Los Angeles, it was Grandma who drove her grandfather across the plains and mountains and desert to join the rest of the family.

It was after her arrival in Los Angeles that Grandma became the person most of us remember.  Grandma was introduced to a widower a few years her senior.  They went on a blind date and months later on Christmas Day 1940, Willard and Dorothy drove to Las Vegas and got married.  They enjoyed over 50 years of wedded bliss until my grandfather’s death in 1994.



It is impossible to think of Dorothy without Willard.  They were the funniest couple to see – her barely over five foot and him towering at 6’4”.  You’ll see the McDowell genes well represented in this room with my cousin and my brothers… even my own sons aren’t lacking in height. 

Grandpa was a gentle man, but it seemed the person who was most able to provoke him was Grandma.  I remember riding in the backseat of their 70-something Maverick and listening to them bicker over the directions to get to the grocery store.  And they would bicker over what to eat at dinner and what to watch on TV and just about anything else under the sun.  My husband accuses me of being feisty, but once he met my mother and grandmother he started to understand that I came by it honestly.

Grandma continued to work after she married.  I grew up surrounded not by stay at home moms, but with working women.  Women who contributed to the family’s income and dealt with the modern problems of juggling a 40 hour week with home and children and a social calendar.  She had a strong work ethic that was much more than someone who didn’t know how to sit still.  And she did not know how to sit still - even when she was sitting she was busy.  You can look back at her childhood to her parents and grandparents to see where it generated.  She was a coal miner’s daughter, a farmer’s granddaughter.  She came from rural Missouri during a time of extreme poverty and loss.  Work was not available to everyone so it was something to be valued and cherished.

Grandpa, like his father and his father-in-law, was a mason.  He and Grandma joined Eastern Star.  They were active with the lodge and were instrumental in building a new masonic temple in San Fernando, California.  They supported the masonic youth groups.  Their son, my Uncle Don, was a Past Master Councilor of his DeMolay Chapter.  My mother is a majority member of Job’s Daughters.

Job’s Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star, lodge, Shriners  - initiations, installations, receptions, fund raisers – all made for a very busy calendar and Grandma kept up with it all.  Is it any wonder those of us related to her are always on the go?  It’s in our blood!

Not only did Grandma attend all of these functions but she usually was the one behind the scenes orchestrating them.  It was nothing for Grandma to put on a dinner reception for 200 people.  She knew how to command a committee, design the decorations, and corral people through a buffet line.  Long before the title “event planner” ever existed Grandma was doing just that and could do it in her sleep with both hands tied behind her back!

As Grandma’s memory failed these past few years, something she would resurrect in her less lucid moments was that she was preparing for a large dinner event and she would complain that the same few people were the ones who always did all of the work. 

We will all carry different memories of Dorothy McDowell.  Mine center mostly on an active couple who had a beautiful house in Sylmar California with a perfectly manicured yard maintained by my grandfather.  I can still vividly remember Grandma laying a piece of lettuce on her back porch, ringing a little brass bell and then patiently waiting for a snapping turtle named Petey to lumber out of his hiding place in the decorative grasses or from behind a cactus to slowly saunter across the lawn and come get his daily treat. 

My brothers will probably remember riding bikes with Grandpa to collect stray golf balls.  Grandma would wash the golf balls, store them in egg cartons and stash them away in the garage until they could be sold back to the golf course.  After one of the big earthquakes they opened the garage only to have hundreds of golf balls spill out onto the driveway and roll down the street!

There are a million more memories of Grandma – so many of them intertwined with the people in this very room.

I never properly thanked her for showing up after my youngest son was born.  I was still recovering from a cesearan and had this very tiny baby to tend to.  She whisked in and made sure my older children were fed, that the laundry got done and my dishes washed.  All of us know those are simple enough tasks, but for me at that time they were daunting and would not have been completed.  She did what she knew best – rolled up her sleeves and went to work.

She was an industrious worker, a devoted wife and a caring mother and grandmother.  Grandma was a vibrant spirit.  She may have been small but she was mighty.  She spoke her mind and never diced her words.  She came from a time and a place that was very traditional and in many ways quite conservative, yet she was in every way a modern woman.

While you can physically see the legacy of my grandfather in this room, it is my grandmother’s legacy that will be heard.  You will hear it as the women here gather, as we cackle and laugh, as we reprimand our children and suddenly start directing everyone around us.  It is in our voices and in our movements.  We carry with us Dorothy McDowell’s spirit of getting things done.  

We can only hope to live such full and meaningful lives.  Even at 94 it feels like she left us too soon.  We know as she knew that she had lived life to the fullest.  She had seen it all and done it all and now it’s time for her to guide us from the spiritual realm… which we all know will be done quietly from behind the scenes.

It is amazing to have seen her in action and to know she will continue to watch over us.

Not Quite A Vacation

I've been thinking about you and certainly there has been enough to write about going on in my life, but there seems to be too much going on.  Instead of stressing myself out and adding to my to-do list with my blog, I'm taking a break.  My plan is to return in full force on October 1st.  I'm loading up on pictures and stories in the meantime.

Here is the sunshine of my heart

Catch ya in a couple of weeks

Friday Fragments - September 2, 2011

Is another heatwave really necessary?  Blech, it's hot.  I've made the mistake of being holed away inside all summer so I barely step outdoors and burst into sweat.  I also suspect my internal furnace has kicked up a notch... grrrrrrr.

And yet, somebody who has an even more robust internal furnace has taken control of the AC dial at work.  I am actually SHIVERING at my desk every day.  This is not healthy and I foresee a major cold barreling in my direction.

I got an email from my son asking for a copy of his baptismal certificate.  I don't know if this is for wedding arrangments or getting the baby baptized.  That point didn't really matter or the fact that he can easily go back to the church where it was performed and get a new copy.  No, the problem this question posed was finding my copy. 

Part of my ADD is that I have to put things in certain places and be systematic about it or I spend all of my time trying to find basic supplies like my car keys.  My car keys will always be in my purse and my purse is always kept by the front door.  Always.  The second I stray from that habit I fail to remember the new location and melt into a non-functional blob. 

So, the kids' baptismal certificates are stored in their baby books.  The baby books have been stored in an antique trunk for twenty years.  Last year I needed to use the trunk for grandma's quilts and I moved all of the scrapbooky stuff into rubbermaid tubs.  I have a lot of rubbermaid tubs.  I learned a long time ago that no matter how dry a basement appears, they are prone to capturing water and to never ever store anything in a cardboard box.  So I have a lot of tubs.  And no clue which one holds the kids baby books.

CRAP!  <-- both as an expletive and description of what I manage to find.  Never did find the baby books, but I did come across all of the little stuff I've been holding on to (I'm a packrat, a hoarder in training) that would be awesome to pass on to my kids when they became parents.  Oooooohhhhh! (ADD kicking in)  Yeah, basically this manic search and the plethora of stuff I found turned into a whole evening.  But now I have the outfit my sons and their dad wore at their baptisms.  And I found several tiny baby boy outfits.  And an etched photo album with my son's name.  Oh and silver frames for each of my kids with their names and birthdates etched - pictures in the frames for the older kids, the youngest still empty.

Later this weekend I will start the search anew, with fresh eyes and not distracted by other baby items.  We don't have any fabulous plans for this weekend so it would be a good time to search.

Office Jokes - September 1, 2011

The following day the Elmo's were hidden around her office with only their big bug eyes sticking out.  They're still watching her three days later.  hahahhahahaha