The Sacred Body

This entry is really not for the squeamish or sensitive.



Today at work, The Queen Bee was talking on the phone about the elderly woman she advocates for. The topic was a "DNR" or "Do Not Resuscitate" order.

When you reach a certain age or a certain point in your health at which dying would be preferred over extreme measures to keep you alive, you can post a DNR by your door. That way rescuers will know not to go to extraordinary lengths to revive you.

When my grandmother died, she had one of these orders posted by her front door... but she didn't die at home.

My grandmother was on a field trip with teenage school children. They were cleaning a cemetery and my grandmother was there to tell the kids about the people in the cemetery.

Her DNR was not with her when she confessed to the teacher that she was not feeling well, laid her head on the teacher's shoulder and left us.

The people who came tried everything to bring her back... because that is their job; to maintain life.

For a while, we didn't know what happened to her. My father and I drove to her house in St. Cloud, Florida as soon as we heard.

We understood one thing when we got there: She didn't die there. Paramedics don't clean up after themselves. Everything was as it should be.

As the Queen Bee answered a second call about the DNR, I felt myself getting sick to the gut. I went outside for some air.



When my mother died, my father and I were completely bereft. Although we had had time to prepare, though a day hadn't passed in many months when we wondered if this was the moment, we still had our hearts ripped out.

A woman from Hospice came to declare my mother's death.
She asked us if we wanted her wedding and engagement rings.
My father said "No," and I agreed, but my sister said "Yes." I numbly remarked that her hands were swollen and they would be difficult to remove.

The woman said she could do it and went to the room while we stood around, too shocked to do much of anything.

Then I heard a most incredibly heart-sickening pop. The woman returned with the rings and handed them to one of us. I don't know who.

It is the single most horrific event of my life experience to date.

I know that there are many things in the world that are far worse, but to me... a saint was desecrated. The greatest love of my life was defiled and profaned.

My mother didn't feel it, but my heart snapped with the joint on her delicate finger.

Before my mother was even good and cold in the hearse, my sister was manically plowing through my mother's jewelry. The words that came to mind then (and now) were "acting like a freak."

I don't know how to end this entry.
I've lost other family and friends but nothing has ever impacted me with more despair and grief than the destruction of her sublime peace for the depraved avarice of my sister.