south of the loop

Disbelief. It doesn’t seem possible to even move beyond that. My friend and former colleague Leon passed away the day after Valentine’s Day, and I don’t think I’ll ever really believe it. I am grateful to have visited him while he was in the hospital, even though I think I’ll always be haunted by the memory of him lying there,  intubated and hooked up to God knows how many other machines, unable to do any more than open his eyes or furrow his brow.

I was asked to write the obituary for him—I was so touched and so honored and so terrified. I wrote an obituary for the newspaper and also a tribute that will be read at his memorial service next week.  So for the past few days, I’ve just been shouldering through, focusing on the obituaries but not the event that necessitated them, and today, after receiving a few pictures of Leon, was the first time I mouthed the words, “he’s gone.” My perspective is different now that I no longer work at the museum with him, so I don’t have to deal with the pangs of emptiness that are borne of the expectation of seeing Leon at his desk or walking down the halls.  I’ve never dealt with death particularly well, and I’m usually that person at funerals, the one who is choking with tears. (See: my paternal grandmother’s funeral. I was 12, and one of my aunts had to coax me out of the restroom at the funeral home, because I was doubled over on a chair, blotchy-faced and inconsolable. I have learned only a little grace and maturity since then, I’m afraid). Maybe being three hours away and at a different job will allow me to perpetually ignore it, or maybe it will string my disbelief out even longer. I don’t know. I suspect that everything will hit me at the memorial service next week, which is, I suppose, why we have them. I’ll be there, box of Kleenex in hand.

Posted 21 February 2007

Filed under: life in general, writing by admin2

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