Time lost and sad ironies

9/23/08
Dad and I went to the cemetery today to see where Mom was buried last Saturday. We had not been before, as Dad did not want a procession or graveside service to drag out an already difficult experience.

The cemetery is in Clarendon Hills. Not close to them. Not close to me. We found the unmarked spot, obvious with its dark black soil mound and flowers not yet dried. It's a nice location, for whomever that matters. A beautiful, tall, wide-reaching tree stands guard and offers shade. (Next time I'll have to make note of the type of tree.)

And not ten feet away, in a grave not all that much older as these things go, lies my aunt, my mother's sister Arlene. This irony cannot be lost on anyone who really knew these two women.

Arlene was eight years older than my mother, Lois. I don't know why that was the case, but I wouldn't recommend it to any prospective parents who have a choice in the matter. It's hard enough to be sisters in a disfunctionally cool and unemotional German/Czech home in the 1930s and 40s. Separate them by what feels like an eternity to them both, and you're setting them up for sibling relationship issues.

In the interest of honest reporting and to honor the departed, I'm going to leave out everything between then and the beginning of this year. No one can say what happened between these two women over 70+ years, save they themselves and their God. On January 23, 2008, Arlene passed away. The sisters had not spoken in some 10 years or more.

Lois had, up until then, held her own health wise in spite of serious and complicated health problems. But something was changing at the end of 2007 and early 2008. By March 17, Lois was to begin her final journey with the first of many trips to the ER, hospital, nursing home, rehabilitation centers, Marianjoy, etc. Just short of eight months from Arlene's passing, on September 17, Lois died.

So now their bodies rest in eternal peace within not much more than an arm's length of each other.

Now, too, their spirits are at peace. And I like to think there is more. I like to picture a young girl waiting at that gate for her little sister. Her sister runs to her arms, they embrace, cry with joy, and look at each other as if for the first time. And for Lois, there is a piano and a puppy and "a new bod," just as she had always wanted.

I like to believe there is now happiness and joy and love for these two sisters who accomplished in death what they could not in life...the reuniting of their two families.

I am grateful for their unintentional gift.