One More Story

I didn’t go to Mr. Fitzgibbons’ wake, I stayed home with my kids and Dad. Truth be told, I just didn’t want to see him like that. I wanted my last memory to be of him happily eating corned beef and cabbage. Plus, I’m more of a funeral person myself. I don’t go to church at all anymore but I have really enjoyed the three funerals I have attended these past couple of months. There is something comforting in the rituals, the songs, the kneeling, the standing, the way light filters through those stained glass windows, the smell of the incense they burn over the casket, the sound of rain on the roof as the eulogy is perfectly delivered. I like going to the gravesite, seeing the final resting place, and absorbing the quiet beauty of mourning in nature. You could say I’m a bit like Maude from Harold & Maude. No, I don’t go to random funerals but I can’t say I wouldn’t enjoy them if I did. I just really admire the way we honor life; it is one of the most beautiful things we humans do.

Two years ago, when the pandemic began and all of those with elders in their lives panicked, I remember Eileen warning her Dad (Mr. Fitzgibbons aka Toothpick Tommy) to be careful because if he kicked the bucket at that time, there would be no big Irish funeral party for his send off. He joked about death all the time as well he should have. He beat a broken heart, cancer, and a broken neck. He was ready to see his beloved Marg again, she had left him far too soon. “Tell your Mom and Dad I’ll see them at Fern Hill!” Mr. Fitz told me two years ago, almost to the day. Fern Hill, the local cemetery. “What a way to go!” he laughed as he ate up his corned beef and sipped his Guiness. I’m so very glad he postponed his trip to his final stop until we all could be there with him.

For the Fitzgibbons family, aka “F Troop” as Mr. Fitz called them, this past week was undoubtedly hectic fraught with making preparations, figuring out what to dress the man in for his final party, welcoming cousins from Ireland, printing pictures and Tommy’s most famous quotes (he should have been given a mic, the man was a natural comic), prepping bedrooms for guests, and quietly stewing over things that could not be because of silly rules. In the end, it was the perfect Irish send off that Tom most definitely would have approved of. A soft warm rain fell as my brother beautifully sang Danny Boy at Fern Hill; a chorus of Candian Geese and Spring Peepers filled the air as we silently watched his flag get ceremoniously and lovingly folded and then presented to Susan, the eldest of the Fitzgibbons crew. As we milled about after the internment, Tina (Mr. Fitz’ beloved home health caregiver) wiped tears away from her perfectly smooth brown skin as she poured a final shot of Crown Royal into the grave. It was joyful and sad, bitter and sweet. In other words, it was funeral perfection. Did anyone think that Toothpick Tommy would go out any other way?

The “party” at the local Hitching Post after was a blast. I looked around the room and saw faces I hadn’t seen in years, perhaps decades. There were former neighbors who did paper routes with my brother and people who recognized me from when I used to go to church back in the day when I had no choice. My sister worked at pumping people for ancestry information (this is her white whale right now), a grandson gave a toast, Mom talked to Mary whom she has known since her pre-Hanson days, my brother sang a nice acoustic version of My Way with a less than stellar audio system. Strangely, I also saw the guy I met with last week at H&R Block when I dropped off my taxes (Paul somebody I think??). Although Tom wasn’t there physically, I could feel his heart and soul beating on in the laughter and joy of all who were there, particularly in the faces of the grandchildren who look like younger versions of their parents, aunts, and uncles.

Later that night, I sat with Mom and Dad at dinner and we chatted about god knows what. Mom has taken these past few months very hard, she and Mr. Fitzgibbons shared the gift of the gab and this loss stung. “What’s next? Who’s next?” Mom wondered last night as tears continued to fall. “What’s next” I said “is Dad’s 90th birthday, Maire’s 9th birthday, and Easter before all that. Plus we’ll have nightly crazy dinners here, grandkids fighting, grandkids laughing, and grandkids imitating you and Dad to a T.” I have become a bit of a reframer in my house, reminding both the old and the young that the simple stuff is where it’s at and that there will always be joy around every corner. “Why are we living so long? What’s the point?” Mom asked. “Well, what’s the point in any of this? The point is we get two guarantees once we’re born—we get to live and we get to die. All the other stuff is up to us.” I think I convinced her at least for another day that our seemingly meaningless lives are not all for naught. We live to love and share in both joy and pain so that nothing ever goes unnoticed, unfelt. Though the Fitzgibbons are not blood, our deep roots have also migrated sideways to join together in that sharing. What a way to go, Tom. Sláinte.