Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ No Tears for the Dead ❯ No Tears for the Dead ( One-Shot )

[ A - All Readers ]

By: cathyc

Disclaimer: All characters are original and are my own.

No Tears for the Dead

It was just a coincidence that the flag was flying at half mast. A former governor had passed away, and all flags across the state were lowered in his memory. They would remain that way until the day he was interred. It just happened to be at the same time a World War II veteran, husband, and father, was buried in the city cemetery, in the family plot.

The air was still and muggy, a reminder of the remnants of summer as Labor Day fast approached. At least rain did not threaten the graveside remembrances; the humidity only added to the combination of sadness and relief that filled the air. There would be no service at the funeral home, or at a church. At the age of eighty-two the deceased had few friends left, if any, that were sound in mind and body, and that would be able to attend. Many of his friends had been ravaged by the same disease that took him - Alzheimer's. It was sad that they could survive something like a quadruple bypass surgery, to live for another twenty years, only to find their minds eaten away.

I tried to remember back on happier times, times when he was active and healthy. I was a terrible golfer, but he would take me with him anyway, alternating between me and my younger brother. He did everything that way. He would take me fishing, and then my brother. He would take me hunting, and then my brother. The hunting trips eventually stopped, though. My brother liked shooting, and I did not. While I enjoyed fishing, and didn't even mind baiting my own hook, or removing it from the fish's mouth, I could not find pleasure in placing a shotgun to my shoulder and pulling the trigger. Fishing was quiet and peaceful; shooting was loud and hurt my ears. So, hunting became my brother's place at our father's side, and I was okay with that. It was those more tranquil times with him that I have fond memories of.

I tried not to think back on our differences or the fact that as I grew up, we didn't really get along. It was probably during my teenage years when I realized that he had wished for the first child to be a boy, and had me, instead. I tried so hard, and was quite a tomboy, but in the end, it wasn't enough. I was bitter when I left home, to be on my own. I moved away and tried to leave those depressing memories behind, to start again. It was years before I came to terms with the heated arguments, and the tears that had been shed back then. I was stubborn and independent, and needed room to be free. Eventually, my heart would heal, and I would come to realize that, sometimes, the best way to get along with someone is not to be around them too much. Two intelligent, obstinate, people in the same vicinity was a quarrel waiting to happen. I was often asked by my mother if I would want to move back closer to home. The answer was always a resounding, “No.”

I looked at my mother in the front seat, and then at my only sibling driving, as the car followed the hearse from the funeral home. There were more cars in the procession than expected. My brother still lived in the area, and many of his friends had come. I had no such offerings, since I now lived five hundred miles away. I had come home for the funeral in order to pay my last respects, and to be with my mother.

I was still amazed by my mother's strength through the entire ordeal. The Alzheimer's had eaten away at my father's brain, slowly at first. Mom took him to one specialist after another, each refusing to make the diagnosis, or to answer her questions. They just continued to refer him to another specialist in order to check for something else. Finally, in the end, after two years of testing and after the doctors had all ruled out every other possibility, they said the dreaded “A” word. There was little that could be done.

Mom kept him in his own home for as long as she could, even while her friends who had a husband that had developed the hideous disease immediately put their long-time spouse into a nursing home with a special lock-down Alzheimer's unit. Mom knew when she married a man ten years older than she that eventually, she would have to take care of him. She just didn't expect for it to be in the form of cleaning up after him when he forgot where the bathroom was, or being threatened with violence when he woke in the middle of the night and did not know who she was. She cared for him until the disease had progressed so far that she could not handle him any more and eventually had to admit defeat. It was with great sadness that she finally placed her husband of more than forty years in the custody of a nursing home. However, at that point, he needed twenty-four hour attention, and it was more than she could do all alone. Several times every week, Mom drove the twenty-five miles each way to the VA home to visit him - even when it was clear he no longer knew who she was.

While sad at his death, we were all somewhat relieved. There were few, if any, tears. Daddy had been such a healthy, active man: hunting, fishing, playing golf. He was always doing something. Just sitting around did not come easily to him. I couldn't help but to smile as I remembered when he first retired. I thought he would drive Mom absolutely crazy. He cleaned out all of the cabinets and put ceiling fans in every room. He did everything he could think of around the house to stay busy. Finally, he discovered that a bunch of his retired buddies got together for coffee nearly every morning. At last, he was out of the house for at least a few hours. Mom wouldn't come home from work to find everything rearranged from when she'd left that morning. Once again, she was able to keep some semblance of order in the house.

As the car followed the hearse that was slowly moving through the city streets, I remembered how tranquil Daddy looked in the open coffin the previous night during visitation. I saw him a few days before he passed away, in the hospital, his body ravaged by a disease no one really understood. In death, he looked more as I had remembered him in life. At least now, he looked at peace, like he was simply taking a very long nap. He was wearing the last suit he had purchased, a suit he needed to wear to the funeral of one of his good friends. He had lost so much weight that he could no longer fit into his older ones, so a new one had been purchased for Jimmy's funeral. Who knew then that he would be wearing it to his own. At least this vision of him, in death, was more pleasant that the last one I had of him while he was still alive. My father no longer knew who any of us were by that time, and did not even realize that we were in the room with him. He was curled into a ball, cold and shivering, and thinking he was all alone. The doctor said then that it was a matter of days before his entire body shut down. All any of us could do was wait.

After that saddening visit, I had returned to my home, and waited for the dreaded phone call. It came in the middle of the day, while I was at work. My mother called, and her only words were, “He's gone.” My co-workers already knew and understood that I had to go.

I had eight hours to think about things as I made the long drive back to my childhood home. After seeing him that last time, I knew that my mother was right, and that it was really a blessing that he had finally passed on. My father wasn't just active, he was intelligent. Losing his mind had to have been one of his worst nightmares. Finally, it was over.

We and those gathered around us said our final goodbyes as the casket was lowered into the ground. This was it; there would be no more chances. I was suddenly grateful that I had started to make the trip home a little more often when his health started to decline. I was able to remember him from when he was still fairly active, and remembered our names. I said goodbye to the father I remembered: the one that took me golfing, the one that taught me how to cast a reel, the father that was at my high-school, and then college graduation. I smiled when I remembered the time he gave me a hundred dollar bill for the casino, because he knew I wouldn't squander my own money. Sometimes, he surprised me like that. Those were the times I would remember and come to cherish.

More people had come to the graveside service than were expected. It turned out, in spite of the fact that Mom hadn't been active socially for a while, that she still had a lot of friends, too. They all came to support her. And in the end, I discovered that I had more friends than I realized. Cards and flowers poured in from around the country. I was touched as people I barely knew reached out to me, and said they were sorry for my loss. I have saved every card as a reminder that there were others that cared about me, and as a commemoration of how things can abruptly change, or end. They also serve as a reminder of how the smallest gesture of kindness can offer hope, and comfort.

The circle of life ends in death, and then it begins again. With my father's passing, I also said hello to my mother again. Mom had not participated in very many of the activities she had loved for several years. Now, she was free to live again. My mother had lived for my father, but once again it was time to live for herself. Life goes on, never ending, always turning. I found comfort in the thought that he has gone on to a better place, and I have come to accept that sometimes it's okay that there are no tears for the dead.