Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Father's Funeral

Sometimes I've tried to imagine what a funeral in our family would be like, based on other funerals I've been to. It was impossible to imagine. Now that I have experienced one first hand I must say, it was nothing like other funerals and very typically Willwerth: chaotic, sad, joyfull, serious, irreverent, full of laughter, tears and love. When the funeral home people came, in their black suits and sober faces to take father away, we had them joking in the space of 5 minutes. When saying goodbye at the crematorium, the funeral director told us that she enjoyed working with us because our family showed so much respect for Father and for each other. She said that is not so common.
Some might think that having a wake in the home would be wierd. What would have been wierd would have been if the family had gathered and father would have been in a cooler somewhere. We felt the need to be near him and it felt good to go about our daily life in the kitchen and living room, knowing that father lay just behind the door in the sunroom and that one could go in to sit with him any time. It was the same room,in which he had lain for the last 2 weeks of his life and where he had died. People came quietly to read for him. Once the monks came and chanted and burned inscense. Another time a woman brought her 2 young children, maybe 7 and 9 years old. The little boy played the violine for father. Ilian who usually lives in Ithaca when she is in the area came out to live at the farm. Mother continued to sleep right outside the room where father lay, as she did when he was alive. It felt right to be near him.
The days leading up to the funeral were incredibly busy. Adam had made a list before going back to Maine to bring back his family, which we divided between us: Ilian organized the picnic (the Willwerths don't do receptions, they do picnics), I wrote the program, the notices for the papers and the inscription for the stone, and Roland laid it all out on the computer, made the web-site and helped mother get the bookkeeping organized. Together we wrote a biography of Father. People brought flowers and food. Thank goodness for the food. We sure didn't have time to cook! Sunday evening the choir director came by and we spent a great hour singing songs and hyms to each other and deciding what to sing at the funeral. We settled on the choir singing 2 and the congregation singing 3. Monday evening the Christian Community priest arrived from Detroit and had a pow-wow with the episcopalian/lutheran pastor of the church where my parents sing in the choir. She had offered the use of the church but was completely unfamiliar with the Christian Community. The meeting went well however and it was agreed that she would read the Scripture at the beginning and speak to the reading at the end.
At 10 am on the day of the funeral the family was gathered in the room where Father lay, for the first part of the funeral. I was serving and as I entered ahead of the priest, I found myself looking for Father in the crowd, before I realized that of course, he wasn't there. Afterwards the funeral people came and closed the coffin and took it to the church. Lots of flowers arrived. It was wonderful to see how many people remembered him and honored him with flowers and cards. It was a beautiful service. The organist played some of the hyms which we had sung at our meeting but not included in the program while people were coming in. Wildflowers were skattered over the coffin. The choir were at their best. Even though we had chosen songs of joy, the opening song "Morning has broken" made me want to cry. I was supposed to say a few words at the end, but it soon became apparent that both priests said almost everything I had to say. So I had to quickly change my speech. I cut out all the preachy stuff, talked about fathers love of music - he had a song for every occasion - and his reverence for the earth and love of animals. I ended by describing the cemetary plot that is waiting for his ashes. A lot of people came to the funeral, people from church, from the waldorf and bio-dynamic movement, people from the food bank, the union where father was a board member until he became ill a year ago, people from the tibetan buddhist monestery, puppet people and neighbors.
After the service we, the closest family accompanied the coffin to the crematorium. They let us come all the way in, let us watch how they put the casket into the incinerator and turned it on. We said the Lords Prayer a final time and then we went home. Again, it felt right to follow his body to the bitter end. Each step along the way was a little heart wrenching, took him a little further, starting with his actual death, then when he was put in the casket, then when he left the house, and finally when they put him in the oven and turned it on. That was as far as one can go, and it enabled us to let go of his body and turn our focus to his spirit, by celebrating his life, with a pot-luck picnic, music, and dancing. It was such a nice gathering, we remembered father, shared food and music and conversation with friends. It was just the sort of picnic that Father has been a part of for so many years!
Adam had to return to Maine the next day. The rest of us will be returning to our homes one by one - Sharon, at the end of the week, Ilian on thursday, I next weekend, and then Roland a week or so after that. Before we go our seperate ways we want to bury the ashes at a natural cemetary. Father's plot is next to a small white pine tree, at the edge of a field of goldenrod, overlooking the valley and hills beyond. The stone is a local field stone and is making the inscription with his name and dates and two lines of a verse in German about resting enclosed by the earth in the knowledge that it is a part of God.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Father has died

On friday evening at 7:30 my father passed away. Both my brothers were with him during his last days. He died at home which is what he wanted. When I said Goodbye on Sunday it would be the last time I saw my father alive.
I think he had a beautifull death, all things considered. Many things happened during the last week of his life to facilitate his crossing over. On Monday a priest from the Christian Community came to give him communion and the last annointing. On tuesday the monks from the tibetan buddhist monastery in Ithaca came to pray with Father, and on Thursday the Lutheran/Episcopalean church choir came to sing for him. Though he slept most of the time, we had the distinct impression that he participated inwardly in all of these events - in fact he even hummed along with the choir!
When my brother Adam called me on thursday evening to say that the end was near, it was too late to get a flight on friday. I was able to book a flight for Saturday morning and had just gotten up at 2 am to get ready to go to the airport when Adam called again to say that Father had just died. I wish I could have been there for his passing, but even if I had been able to leave on friday morning, I still wouldn't have made it. The trip took 24 hrs.

When I arrived in Cortland, Tormod, was at the busstop to pick me up. It was so good to see him! Beren was also there. On the way out to the farm we had a distressing experience. Tormod was stopped by the police who had been following us for a little while. They took all our ID, and ran a check on it, asked if we had drugs or had been drinking, if we had knives or shotguns or anything in the car. Asked me who the boys were to me etc. We told them where we were going and why but they continued their questions and search. When they were satisfied and had returned our papers Tormod asked the officer for his name. The officer took back Tormod's licence and registration and left us sitting in the car for another 15 minutes. When he came back, he gave Tormod a ticket for having a dealer frame around his licence plate which he claimed was illegal in New York State, in spite of the fact that 8 out of 10 cars have them. So now Tormod has to show up in court on september 11, or pay a fine. I was shocked by this blatent abuse of power. Though I have heard of it, I have never before experienced harrassment at the hands of an officer of the law, and I found it deeply disturbing.

When we got to the farm everyone was there: Adam and Roland, Ilian, who had just arrived from California herself, and Joe, Mother, and the lady who had been present at Fathers death. I asked her to tell us about the moment of death. Mother and my brothers had gone to the theater (to see the Pirates of Penzanze, one of Father's favorite shows) and this family friend, Ann was sitting with Father while they were gone. Mother had said goodbye and even gotten a kiss from Father. Ann said that father was lying with half open eyes, breathing heavilly with that noise in his throat when phlegm gathers there. She had just moistened his mouth, when he opened his eyes wide though looking far away, and stopped breathing. When he started breathing again the quality of his breathing had changed. After she called my brother's cell phone, he stopped breathing again and she sat and held his hand. She could feel his puls gradually fade away. I was so gratefull that she could relate this experience in such detail and feel that she was truly privilaged to have been there.
Father is now lying on dry ice in a casket in the sun room. People can come and read to him or just sit with him. Mother is still sleeping in the next room as she did when he was on his death bed in there. It feels very right to be in the same house with him. Not wierd at all. In fact it would feel alot more wierd knowing his body was in a cooler somewhere.
We have been busy preparing for the funeral which will be on tuesday. Adam has returned home to fetch his family. Roland has made a web site with information: https://sites.google.com/site/lynwillwerth/

On the plane on my way over I read in a little book with quotes about death (by Rudolf Steiner).
He says that when somebody dies it is as thought they have traveled to a far away country to which we can only follow at a later time.
About the attitude with which we think of the dead he says that it is ok to be sad and heartbroken, but that if we wish for the person to come back we make it difficult for them to move on. It is more helpfull if we can accept that the spiritual world has called the person, because there are new taskes for him.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Failing fast

I returned from the US yesterday. We were on vacation in California, and hearing that Father was failing fast we spent the last few days with him and Mother in Cortland. As you know, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in february last year. After numerous complications he seemed to respond to treatment and from July to May had 10 good months. In May he began to experience episodes of weakness and testing showed the myeloma had invaded the central nervous system. This is a very rare complication and the prognosis is bad. Since then he has been getting progressively weaker. He has experienced a rapid decline in the last 2 weeks. From still going upstairs to bed 1 1/2 weeks ago to not being unable to bear weight more than a few seconds with support on thursday. He hardly speaks anymore, though we think he hears and listens. He mostly lies with his eyes shut. Must be fed and otherwise cared for in bed. The worst is that he seems to have a good bit of pain. It was a huge shock to see him like this. Mother is trying her best with the help of hospice. I was there for a few days and my brother Roland has returned from California to stay until the end.
We don't think he will live more than a few more weeks, and we all agree that we will try to make it possible for him to die at home. It is what he wants. Hospice sends an aide 2 hrs a day, and have helped with equipment, physical therapy consults and a nurse is on call 24/7. The church and the waldorf community are ralleying to help mother by bringing food and sitting with Father so that she can get away to swim and do errands.
I have returned to Norway, but will go back on short notice when they say the end is near. I wish I could have stayed on. There is so much I could have done to help!