To Make a Demon Weep

It was while waking back to my parents’ van after viewing my sister’s body that it welled up inside me.  

“Hey…”  I called out to everyone.  My folks, my sister’s two kids, a niece and nephew all grown up, my niece’s live-in boyfriend, who would drive us back to their house.  

“I just want to say something.  I need to say something and get it out before…  We start talking about other things and…  I don’t have the chance.”  

Everyone stopped.  They turned to look at me.  They waited while I said whatever it was I had stopped them to tell them.  

I paused.  And realized I didn’t really know what I wanted to say.  

It was better at my uncle’s memorial, which had taken place four days before in California.  I think it was because of what happened at my uncle’s “Life Memorial” that I felt the urge to speak about my sister.  

My uncle had made it clear that he didn’t want a traditional funeral service to mark his passing.  There was to be no viewing.  No church service.  He was to be cremated and his ashes were to be scattered around the trees he planted behind his wife’s business.  The family could have a “Life Memorial” if they wanted one.  Which is what they decided to do.  

A tent with tables and chairs was set up.  Caterers served rice & beans, street tacos and quesadilla with chicken, pork or beef.  Beer, wine and soft drinks sat in buckets of ice along one wall.  A podium faced the open side of the tent.  A microphone was set in a stand on top of it.  

My cousin Ace got it started.  He spoke about his Dad, why he, as well as his brother Michael and adopted brother Brian wore blue velour shirts and jeans (it was uncle Al’s favorite outfit).  He invited everyone to come up a share a memory about Al.  

People took turns doing so.  Some talked about how much they were going to miss my uncle.  Some about his generosity and willingness to help others.  Some told funny stories about time spent with him, making us laugh.  

Ace surprised me by returning to the podium and talking about Virginia.  He talked about “another loss for our family, too soon.  Our beautiful cousin.”  He invited me to step up to the podium and talk about this double loss.  

I got up and spoke about my sister for a bit.  How her death came just one week after my uncle’s.  I said that I hoped that November would get better soon.  I then talked about Al.  About how my Dad spoke about his generosity, only saying, “How much do you need?” when asked for a loan during trying times.  I talked about the summer I worked for him in his TV repair shop, working long hours, but feeling very accomplished the first time I diagnosed and repaired a customer’s TV at 13 year old.  I told the story about how he came to my apartment and banged on the door of all my neighbors looking for me when my mom thought I was missing, because she had switched two numbers when writing my new number down and got a message that my phone was disconnected.  I listed Al as my emergency contact after that.  Who wouldn’t want someone willing to bang on the doors of strangers to find out if they knew where you were as your emergency contact?

But at my sister’s viewing, I had blown it.  The situation hadn’t been right.  It was too austere.  I only had a jumble of images, feelings and recollections that wouldn’t come out in the right order.  And the next day, at the service, which my brother-in-law controlled, I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to make up for it.  

I did not sleep well that night.  I kept imagining Virginia’s ghost coming back to haunt me for not speaking well of her.  

Virginia’s service was the next morning.  I was still feeling out of sorts.  I realized that morning that I had failed to pack my suit jacket for the trip.  It was a reminder that I was not ready for this.  We drove back to the funeral home, met up with our family, my uncle on my Dad’s side of the family and my two cousins, then took our seats down front.  

The service was like the viewing the day before.  Plain and traditional.  The preacher was from the church where Daniel and Virginia had been married, but he didn’t know either of them.  He repeated things that Daniel had told him about them.  Some of them were not accurate.  He read from the bible.  He expressed his certainty that my sister was in a better place.  

Then, about the time I thought the service was going to end, the preacher asked if anyone who knew her better wanted to stand and speak to the gathering.  I sat on my hands.  After fumbling yesterday, I didn’t want to ruin another moment.  People that knew her through Daniel’s work stood and said nice things, about how she was always positive and wanted to do for herself, even when she was in pain.  Her mother-in-law spoke as well.  

“Does anyone else have something to say about Virginia?”  A silence fell upon the gathering at the preacher’s question.  I knew that if no one stood to say more, the service would be over.  I knew that if someone stood, they would be the last person to speak.  I knew that I did not want only strangers, even if they were well meaning, to have the last word on my sister’s life.  

I raised my hand, just as the preacher was leaning toward the microphone to move the service to its conclusion.  He nodded at me.  I stood and faced everyone else.  I noted how people were sitting in groups.  My family just behind me.  Daniel’s family to my left.  A group of her friends from her work behind my family.  And her ex-husband, father to my niece and nephew, sitting with his new wife and a couple others way in the back.  I decided to tell them about her as best I could, using memories to illustrate who she was and not worry about how it came out.  

After I was done, the preacher ended the service.  They rolled out her coffin.  We filed out.  Friends and acquaintances of hers came up to me.  They expressed sorrow for my loss.  They liked what I had said about her.  My family told me I’d “done good.”  

That was a relief.  And I’m glad it went well.  But it’s not done.  We still need to comply with her final wish about scattering her ashes.  Like my uncle she left word that she wanted to be cremated too.  It’s not that I’m referring to.  

Since my sister’s death I’ve felt the need or strong desire to “do something.”  Just…  Something.  Like take up a cause.  Or travel to some far place and go on a pilgrimage.  Or clean up my apartment.  There are so many candidates, that each one sounds just as important and right to do.  

I thought writing this blog might help me figure it out.  It hasn’t.  Not entirely.  

In the novel Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut talks about his sister and her death via cancer.  Two days before her death, her husband died in a train accident.  Vonnegut talked about how his sister did not ask, “Why me?” or curse God or Fate or the Universe.  She understood, as Vonnegut related, that the universe was a “very busy place,” and that sometimes bad things happened.  

Along with my desire to “do something,” I’ve been telling myself that my world has become a very busy place, and that I just have to go forward as best I can, doing my best to live for today, and realizing that there is a contradiction in that.  To go forward means to look to the future, carrying on toward whatever goals you have in life.  To live for the day means to look no farther than what is before you at this moment and make it the best you can, like my sister tried to do.  

I came across a Japanese saying recently that I really like.  明日の事を言えば鬼が笑う。Ashita no koto wo ieba oni ga warau.  If you speak of tomorrow demons laugh.  A nod toward how we don’t know what the future might bring.  

My impulse to “do something,” I think, is a desire to find out what I can do to make those demons weep.  Just as I did at my sister’s passing.  

Chasing a Squirrel as a Pathway to Grieving

Friday evening, while watching a video purporting to show clips of UFO aliens caught on tape in my darkened apartment, someone knocked on my door.  

“Can you help me?”  It was a neighbor of mine.  A short Asian woman with long blonde hair that had moved in a couple months ago.  “There’s a creature in my apartment.”  

“Creature?”  I could hear the video still playing.  The narrator describing a creepy security camera video that someone claimed showing a strange “creature” with a bulbous head and large black eyes peeking into their backyard in some unpopulated rural setting.  “What sort of ‘creature’?”  

“I don’t know.  I came home.  The water was running in my faucet.  I can hear it moving around.  Can you help me?”  The last was said with a plaintive whine.  She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.  

“Hold on…”  I went to turn off the video.  It kept using the term, “creature” in its narration and it wasn’t helping me focus.  My mood was jangled to begin with.  It had become that way when I received a call from my parents telling me the eldest of my two younger sisters, Virginia, had died after a five year fight with cancer.  I had left work early, bought a bottle of wine, which I had consumed with my lunch, and lay on the couch feeling numb until I dozed off.  I had woken up just a few moments ago, thinking I should post something about my sister and ended up surfing my way to videos showing gray aliens sneaking around backyards or being interrogated by one government agency or another.  

“You said you didn’t see it, this ‘creature’?”  I knew the apartment she lived in was a studio.  One main room, with a small kitchen and bathroom.  Whatever it was would have to be on the small size to be there and go unseen.  

“I think I heard it.  But…  Can you help me?”  

“Sure.  Let me get on my shoes.”  

A few moments later, tennis shoes on, I was standing inside the threshold of her apartment.  She had walked further inside, toward the kitchen, explaining again how she came home to find the water running, when the comforter thrown across the bed started to move.  

“Oh my God!  There it is!  There it is!”  

A second later, a squirrel poked its furry head from under the blanket.  I had figured it that this is what it had to be.  The building I live in have vents to the roof, and if the screens covering their openings get loose, squirrels can crawl down into your apartment looking for whatever they come looking for.  It had happened to me once, which had created a very interesting afternoon for me and my cat, Tybalt.  

Before I could explain any of this, the squirrel darted across the bed and toward the kitchen.  This was in my neighbor’s direction as well, which started her screaming and jumping up and down.  

“Yeeeahh!  Yeeeahh!  Ohmygod!  Ohmygod!”  

She ran past me out the door.  The squirrel ran past her into the kitchen.  

“It’s Ok, it’s Ok…”  She was already out the door.  “I’ll see what I can do.  Just…  Stand there…  Hold the screen door open.  I’ll try to chase it out.”  

“Oh-kay…”  Something in her voice made it sound like she thought this was a dubious plan, but she complied. 

“Ok, Rocky…”  I called out to the squirrel as I headed into the kitchen.  “Let’s get you back in your tree.”  

The squirrel was up on the counter.  He was looking at me.  He didn’t look too afraid.  The squirrel in my apartment had rushed around hysterically, climbing up shelves, jumping from the couch, while my cat made confused and excited calls.  Maybe it was the lack of a cat, or that he’d lived in the area for a while and was used to humans being around, but he just looked at me at first, shifting back and forth on his paws.  

“This way…”  I grabbed a cutting board from off the counter.  “Back outside…”  

He didn’t listen.  He darted one way, then another, then jumped behind the stove in the corner.  

Great.  I pulled the stove out and could his tail sticking out from underneath it.  I pulled it out some more, to have him look up at me with a, “Hey, I was hiding there,” sort of look.  

I poked my head at my neighbor.  “Excuse me, uh…  What was your name?”

“Ani.”  

“Ani, do you have a broom or mop or something?”  I wanted something long to reach down and flush the squirrel from under the stove.  

“I’ve got a vacuum cleaner!”  

Before I could explain why I wanted the broom, Ani grabbed something out of her closet.  It was an industrial looking hand-held vacuum, with a clear catch tray.  Battery operated.  It had a long tube connected to it, making it look like it had a long snout, though it wasn’t long enough to reach down to the squirrel.  

But it did make a noise, as I found out when I pulled the trigger.  I adapted my plan and went back into the kitchen.  

It was about this time that I guess you could say I started waking up.  This was, while odd, somewhat fun.  And it was real.  A strange but real problem to have.  A squirrel stuck in an apartment.  Something that could be solved.  Fixed.  

When my Mom had called me earlier that day, saying, “Virginia died this morning,” my first thought was, “Who is that?”  Not my sister.  Someone else.  A family friend or acquaintance with the same name.  As my mother when through the details she had, I only slowly made the connection to my sister.  The person she had gone to North Carolina, along with my Dad, to be with and comfort as she entered her sixth, last-ditch, round of chemotherapy.  It wasn’t until I told someone at work that my sister had died, and I suddenly started crying, that a modicum of reality, the sense that it really had happened, hit me.  

It was like watching those alien videos, the feeling I’d been soaking in.  You saw it.  You heard what people said.  But, did you believe it?  I think that’s why I kept watching them after I got off the couch in my stupor.  They fit my frame of mind perfectly.  

Back in the kitchen, I looked behind the stove and spotted little Rocky.  I reached down with the handheld vacuum and pulled the trigger.  Rocky scurried under the stove.  I reached down further, though not too far.  The image of little Rocky getting sucked into the vacuum held me back.  I wanted him out, not harmed.  I pulled the trigger to make the vacuum growl again.  

Rocky ran out.  I stepped back, but too fast.  I blocked his way to the kitchen door.  He darted behind a standing set of shelves on wheels.  I reached back with vacuum.  It was probably like some big growling dog to his ears.  He knocked over a can of non-stick cooking spray.  He push out a box of breakfast cereal.  

Finally, he jumped out.  He got on his hind legs, front paws spread wide, and jumped up and down at me.  Was he threatening me?  Was he going to jump up my pants leg and climb up to my face to get me? 

In the end, I think it was his way of saying, “I surrender, I give up!”  I stopped pulling the vacuum’s trigger.  He stopped jumping up and down, turned and ran into the studio’s main room. 

“Yeeeahh!  Yeeeahh!  Ohmygod!  Ohmygod!”

“Just let him go!”  I envisioned her closing the screen to keep Rocky away from her, and thereby keeping him in and making me start all over again.  But she didn’t.  I entered the room in time to see Rocky running past her and the open screen door and down the upper floor walkway.  

“Thank you, thank you so much!”  

I told Ani it was no problem.  I handed her vacuum back to her.  I pushed her stove back into place.  I picked up the items Rocky had knocked off her shelf.  I suggested she call the landlord and ask them to check the screen on the vent’s opening on the roof.  I kept saying, “No problem” and “You’re welcome” to her continuing “Thank you’s.”  I headed back to my apartment.  

Before I went back inside, I noticed that I had fun doing that.  I also noticed my funk was gone.  The numbness had dissipated.  That I was thinking clearly.  

And I knew, with certainty, that my sister was gone.  And I became very sad.  Really sad.  But it was an honest sadness.  A tangible grief.  A feeling I could go through completely.  One I could deal with.

I went back into my apartment then.  To call my family.  Tell them I loved them.  Talk about my sister, and find out what we would be doing to remember her and celebrate her life.