"Funeral" restaurants, and other reflections on death
I’ll be honest: I haven’t spent a lot of time contemplating death.
I’ve encountered death, with trepidation at best, a little black dress, and a side of anxiety when reconnecting with people I haven’t seen in awhile.
When death has confronted my family in the past, we’ve confronted it right back, with a lunch at a local Italian spot called Angelina’s. Most of the funerals and deaths I’ve experienced were in my younger days, with three out of four of my grandparents passing before I was eleven.
What I’ve held onto the most is the tradition of visiting Angelina’s with family, or as we’ve lovingly called it, “the funeral restaurant.”
After every funeral, one thing was for sure: the promise of Angelina’s family-style Italian awaited. In the face of death, bread baskets, penne alla vodka pasta, and later, copious amounts of red wine, became a consistent comfort to our family.
There’s this whole industry that surrounds death: the funeral homes, the tombstones, the flower shops; and in this case, the restaurants. Though, I’m sure, many have visited Angelina’s in different circumstances. I imagine they don’t market themselves as the “funeral restaurant.”
Anyway, I suppose death started seeping into my brain this week because I decided to go to Palm Sunday mass, something I haven’t done in probably ten years. I walked into the church, haphazardly grabbed a piece of yellow-green palm, and wished that’d I’d learned how to style it into a cross, as I’d seen so many Catholic kids of my youth do. You know, the ones who were altar kids, waiting the vast majority of the mass for their moment of stardom: ringing the bell at the Eucharist.
I took my seat in the pew, said a prayer, and found my eyes glued to a therapy dog sitting almost directly across from me. He had a collar on that donned “US Marines” with pride. He looked haggard as he slipped back into a fully body stretch, and I wondered how familiar he was with death.
He sat steadfast next to his owner, who I imagined had contemplated death more than me, judging by his experience in the US Marines and walker that forged his path, while his support dog, what looked to be a yellow lab, kept him company from the side.
I forgot how long the Palm Sunday mass is. Bad Catholic, I know. The guilt runs high. I made the mistake of picking up the hymnal, which holds the songs, instead of the missal, which holds the readings.
The songs came later than I expected, as the Palm Sunday reflection lasted a minimum of ten minutes, maybe twenty. I wasn’t sure.
I found myself lost, drifting in and out of engagement, immediately regretting my decision to focus on the hymnal instead of the missal, which would’ve allowed me to follow along with the reading.
The reading tells the tale of Jesus approaching Jerusalem, leading up to his crucifixion and death on Good Friday.
It prompted me to reflect on the theme of death, one that impacts all of us, but is rarely discussed with the same amount of air time that we give to life.
Death is a certainty. And, as humans, we crave certainty. Somehow, though, we avoid talking about death. It sneaks out the backdoor, making an Irish exit, before we even notice.
Death is a mystery. There’s so much we don’t know about what death means, or what happens after life. Many of us have a belief in what happens after, but that is based on trust and faith and intuition, not proof of knowing.
Death may often be forgotten, but it patiently stays with us, like a loyal therapy dog.
My former colleague and friend shared a book with me this week. She shared on our call, face brimming with glee, that she’d been reading a lot of books about death. That they helped her cultivate a different perspective.
And I had to admit, I was intrigued.
I thought back to coaching conversations, where I’d brought death in as a way to shift perspective toward values.
For example, pondering questions like:
If you died tomorrow, how would you want to spend today?
If you knew you would die in six months, how would you spend them?
What do you want your legacy to be?
What do you want your tombstone to stay?
How do you want to be remembered?
In the spirit of Easter, death, crucifixion, and, eventual resurrection… I wonder, too:
What parts of yourself do you want to die?
Where might death to self serve you?
How might death of those parts serve others?
What parts of yourself do you want to resurrect?
Death is a letting go and a surrender. I have died to myself so many times. And the part of myself that I want to resurrect, is often the most childlike parts. The parts that are truest to me.
The girl that loves to sing.
The girl that loves to be outside with nature.
The girl that loves to laugh.
The girl that feels deeply.
I suppose the parts that I’d want to die, are the parts of me that have gotten too wise. Too protective. Too guarded.
I’d want to resurrect myself anew, a girl who is all of those things, and a woman who lives in wonder.
Who is the woman of your dreams? And what parts of you need to die, in order to resurrect and become her?
I’d love to hear. As always, if I can support in anyway, comment below or connect with me at the link below.
In loving support of you,
Grace