It really chaps my ass that the simple English phrase "in memory" would look ignorant or foolish if I had used it instead of Latin. Who among you grew up speaking Latin? Raise your hands.
My father-in-law passed away to-day at 1:45 PM Eastern time. Technically, he was my ex-father in law, but he always maintained that I would be cursed with being his number one son in law whether I liked it or not. That was fine with me--we always got on well--and strangely it was fine with my girlfriend, who became his favourite redhead. They were both great talkers, too, which meant that she certainly ended up knowing him better than I did.
He was diagnosed with stomach cancer and lung cancer in December. The doctors declared that both were inoperable, and that he had six months to live. I had thought that was pretty optimistic, but I was glad he would at least see another spring. Maybe even Midsummer. It turns out that that estimate was too optimistic, and as with all other diagnoses like his, he lost ground fast.
We got the phone call this morning that if we wished to say goodbye, we had better make it to the VA hospital. He wasn't even really there, but his body was, saturated with morphine to control the pain, which must have been considerable as he coughed up vast quantities of blood. I've heard of people coughing up blood, I always thought of it as coughing accompanied by a sanguine drop or two. I was wrong--and unprepared.
In many indigenous traditions there are parts of the soul which remain near the body while it still draws breath. Thereare yet other parts which remain with the body for weeks or even years, and some among the wise have maintained that in this fashion the body can be a link to that conscious part of a person's soul which resides elsewhere.
I don't know whether my father-in-law was aware, physically, that we were there with him when we said our farewells. But I'd like to think that on a spiritual level, from afar, he knew that we had come to say goodbye. I like to think of him in the halls of his forebears, raising his hand in acknowledgment and perhaps trying to assure everyone here that all is well.
But he will still be missed.
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