For me, the end of a life is always announced with a phone
call:
“Hi John.”
“Amelie was killed.”
Just a few words to open shock, disbelief, sobbing. Amelie, my niece, was only 24 years old. She was riding her bike South of Market at
7:07 am, riding to make an early morning meeting at her
work, Voce Communications. A big rig
passed her on the left, and then cut to make a right turn. Amelie crashed into the truck and was run
over by its rear wheels. I saw a photo of her mangled, blue bike on the
Internet.
I rushed down to my sister Jessie’s home in Redwood City. We
embraced, sobbing. “My baby is gone. My
baby is gone,” she repeated. What to
say? What to do but sit with this giant grief.
Until these moments, I had never really believed in “life
after death.” It’s not that I disbelieved
it either. I just didn’t know. But I
said to my sister – and now believe – that she is very much present with us,
between us. I could actually feel her. Jessie
said, “Yes, I am closer to Amelie than I have ever been.”
What I want to say is this: joy and grief and love exist at
the same time.
Amelie’s brother, Charlie, aged 21, wandered in and out of
the rooms, crying, confused. Jessie would disappear and then re-emerge, saying,
“This can’t be true. I don’t believe
this.”
Over the next few days, Jessie’s friends arrived, a few at a
time, bringing food: lasagna, cheese, cookies, fruit. I think I would go to bed and not get up
again, but Jessie needed this flood of love and support. I told her of “Indra’s net,” the celestial
net in which the nodes are stars, are beings, and that we are all
interconnected. And that the net would
hold her and would not let her fall.
What I want to say is: Joy and grief and love exist at the
same time.
There were decisions that one thought one would never have
to make. Immediately. Cremation? Open
casket and then cremation? Going to Amelie’s
apartment to find clothes she could wear – to cover everything but her face. Scattering
of ashes? Where? Phone calls, phone
calls, phone calls.
Brad, my husband, was the anchor to all the plans, gently suggesting
to Jessie that her ex-husband, Amelie’s father, Denis, might want to see the
body. He was arriving from
Strasbourg. Amelie’s sister, Rose,
needed to be located. She was traveling
somewhere in Spain with her cell off.
Every grieving and confused and overwhelmed family needs someone like
Brad to guide them, love them, hold them.
It was decided that there would be a viewing of her body at
the funeral home before cremation. How
odd when the body is dead. The person is
gone, but, still, the body is there. So
sad – her beautiful eyes, her perfect mouth with the bright red lipstick she
always wore. Her hands utterly cold and
hard – with nail polish, carefully applied by someone we didn’t know.
I grieved for those who grieved. Her young friends came up to the casket. Some
stood at a distance, some kneeled, some sobbed.
I wondered if this was the first time they had seen a dead body, had
realized that death is indeed possible, even for them.
I could hear, across the folding screen, laughter. Jessie’s laughter! Others laughing as they shared Amelie
stories. She was a wild and loving and
crazy young woman. People would go back and forth: to spend a few moments with
Amelie, and then to go to the adjoining room to drink wine and share
stories. Brad and I remained with her
body. I wanted to keep vigil in some
way. I wanted to stay with her.
Later, above her casket, in the subdued golden light, there
was a slide show of her life. People
were laughing, because she was a very funny person. She loved to make faces in front of a
camera. Amelie lay motionless below her
life.
Her ashes were spread in the waters just beyond the Golden
Gate bridge. We threw flower petals to
follow her ashes. The fog was such that we were in a gray, cold place to say
good-bye, and then as we entered Sausalito, blue sky and then radiance of sun
on water.
What I want to say is this: joy and grief and love exist at
the same time in this very fragile and precarious life.
