velvet dresses and wide brown eyes

     Marcel had a hard time admitting he was dying. Looking through some papers a few years afterwards, I found a brochure from the American Cancer Society. Someone in one of the many doctor's offices we visited had given it to us. I leafed through the booklet. One spread listed cancer survival rates. The 6-month survival rate for the type of cancer Marcel had was very low; 20% or less.
     I was shocked to read that after the fact. It wasn't something we ever talked about. Marcel lived with his cancer for about 2-1/2 years after his diagnosis.
     I planned his funeral alone, when he was in hospice, and I felt like a traitor for doing so. We never talked about what kind of service he would have wanted.

     A lot of the funeral itself is a blur to me. It was within a day of Thanksgiving, and within a day of our youngest son's 1st birthday. I remember feeling like I didn't know what to do--play hostess? All of these people had come and I should thank them. I'd only been to two funerals--my grandmothers--one when I was 10, one when I was 18. My father had died a year before Marcel, but his funeral was on my due date for my 3rd son, and I could not make the trip to attend it.

     Marcel had worked at the Lawrence Interdenominational Soup Kitchen for some time. Many people he knew from there attended his funeral, including Mary, a woman who used to eat at the soup kitchen. I stood around all day blinking, blankly wondering what exactly it was that I was supposed to be doing. It came to the part of the service where people formed a line and greeted me. Mary was one of the last, and she told me serenely and very loudly that she hoped it would bring me comfort that all through the services, she had noticed a blue light hovering above my left shoulder. That seemed to have tremendous significance to Mary. While a lot of people looked on, I stammered something about appreciating her telling me. Weeks later, my friend Julie commented on it. She told me that life is way more surreal than we ever expect it to be. But that my life in particular seems to have "spikes of surrealism."

     The funeral home offered a support group for grieving families. We met once a week for about 8 weeks. I met a couple in the group, B. & R., who had lost their college-aged daughter--an honor student and talented musician--in a car wreck. This couple became very good friends for me and my sons. I love them. B & R told me about a native american belief:  a deceased person is actually still alive when there is someone here on earth, telling stories about them. A person is alive until the last person who knew them dies.

     B& R have often invited us to their home for the holidays, along with their extended family. On one such Christmas, we joined them for dinner. My sons were probably about 5, 7 and 9. B. & R.'s house was full of relatives. There was a little niece there, close to two years old, with sparkly blue eyes and a red velvet dress. Her feet never touched the ground--she was happily handed from one relative to the other the entire night. She looked so relaxed and loved. We had a wonderful time there. I gave B. & R. a funny book for Christmas, and some of us sat in a circle and took turns reading it aloud. More than one person laughed so hard, they cried.

     It wasn't always the holidays themselves back then that were so difficult. It was the going home. Alone. To my house where there was not another adult to shoulder the responsibility. Where there was not someone else to talk to at midnight. When the Mocking, Mean Voice slipped in behind me before I could close the door. And in time to my heart beat, it would chant:   "A-Lone. A-Lone. You. Are. A-Lone."

     By the time we arrived home from B & R's house that Christmas, I was nearly in tears. I thought about the niece, with extended family nearby to cherish her at every holiday. My sons had never had that experience--not like that. We were alone, a-lone, a-lone. Not wanting the boys to know I was upset, we came inside and I told them I was going to lie down for a little bit.

   Moms can't lie down without little boys needing something. One of them was at my bedroom door. "Mom? Are you crying?"  They found me out. They all filed into my room and assessed the situation. My oldest son, Frank, remembered that Calvin and Hobbes often made me laugh. He began, calmly and with great comedic timing, acting out a cartoon scene that we'd laughed over together. Freeman left to get kleenex. When he returned, Freeman stationed himself at my left eye. Frederick manned my right eye.

     They had a job to do. They positioned their heads, one on each side of me, their wide brown eyes one inch from mine. "Ah-ha! Kleenex please!" they'd say, when they saw liquid about to spill from my eye duct. And they'd dab it up. "Franklin, more Kleenex, please--stat!"

     I stopped crying, and burst out laughing.

     We never really were alone.