Funeral Weather

I don't want to talk about death, but it's on my mind.  Three people in my directing class have suffered the loss of a loved one in the last five months.  One boyfriend, one mother, one father.  One fire, one heart attack, one fell ill and just died.  All unexpected.  All tragic.  I've thought about what it would be like if I suddenly lost a member of my family and I can barely comprehend how people get on with their lives.

Over break, my little brother's church choir director lost her husband.  This is the story as I understand it.  This man, who had chronic health issues ever since he had come back from Afghanistan several years before, had been in and out of the hospital often due to tiny tiny bits of shrapnel embedded in his body.  His health had been declining when suddenly, he was on the mend and out of the hospital.  He died suddenly soon after.  They had been married for only a few years.  She was trying to get pregnant.  I had met her twice and helped sing in the children's choir on Christmas Eve mass.  We didn't go to the funeral, but expressed our condolences at the wake.  I was amazed that she remembered my name.  Her composure made my lose the grasp on my own.  I could barely mumble out my "words of comfort" and I felt like the hug we shared was one in which she comforted me instead of vice versa.

It was only 5:30 when we left, but already the half-hearted light of day had faded to black.  There were no stars.  The grey and miserable wind from an hour before made me wonder if it would be better for the weather to match your mood or contrast it on funeral days.  In the movies, it's somehow always picturesque.  Raining.  Streaming sunshine.  Or even a peaceful and pristine blanket of snow.  The bleak weather on that particular day felt appropriate from the outside but when I thought of a casket being lowered into the frozen ground and the wind whipping at coats and scarves, forcing people to withdraw into themselves, I just wanted to stop thinking about it.  Very few people actually decide when to die.  I would want the people at my funeral to be comfortable and know that it doesn't matter if I'm comfortable or not because I'm dead.  It's so easy for me to think like that.  But when I'm at someone else's funeral in my head, I just want to rip open the caskets and shake them until they're alive again.  This is a really awkward train of thought so I'm going to stop.

Midsummer auditions are today and tomorrow.  Classes were delayed due to ice.  Designer run through for opera tonight.  Need to memorize Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.  Currently working on an acting resume and reading an Obama's book Dreams from My Father.  Legs are sore from stilts.  Hoping that "stilting" is a word.  Ready to go conquer the world.  Or the day at the very least.  Cheers.