the dead

The other night I caught just a couple of minutes of a feature on Thomas Lynch, an undertaker and author from Milford, Michigan. I was riveted, and turned it off reluctantly. It was much more interesting than anything about undertaking or Milford could ever be expected to be. The part that I saw was mostly him reading his work; he has a voice, both spoken and written, whose soft precision lightens its otherwise mortal gravity.

Through the miracle of the internets, I'll get to watch the whole thing online.

If you doubt you'll actually forgo all the other things vying for your attention to go watch an I-don't-know-how-long video about an undertaker from Milford, at least read Tract, his "direction" to those that will arrange his funeral.

On the subject of the dead, a couple of weeks ago we went to my family's annual apple picking and picnic. I haven't actually picked apples in years, though I remember trying to keep up with my now-slow uncles as they climbed trees and dodged thrown apples. This year, we didn't even bother with the orchard which has grown depressing, commercial, tacky, and vastly overpriced. There were fewer people when we arrived late at the picnic, as there have been every year since my Nana died; she was the sun we all spun around, the important thing that kept us a family in spite of animosity and disdain. When she died I felt like my heart and been ripped out, and three years later I still avoid thinking too deeply about her in public. She appears sometimes in dreams and I'm so relieved to have her back I hate waking up.

So there I was next to a slide my daughter was playing on, trading niceties with a cousin I've always gotten along with though we have nothing in common but blood. Nana's arm slipped around my waist and her white hair appeared in my peripheral vision and I put my arm around her shoulders and felt happy she was next to me and I looked down and of course it wasn't her. It was one of her daughters that I avoid putting an arm around and reality slammed silently shut around me and I had to keep smiling for another minute before I could walk away, awash in both that perfect recollection and its absence. I'd really like to sit down and talk to Lynch about this, as I think he would be one of the few people that could say something other than a well-meaning platitude in response.