One Weekend
A funeral on Saturday, a birthday on Sunday
Frederick Buechner: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”
Hi friends,
We buried someone on Saturday and sang happy birthday to someone else on Sunday. Same weekend, all kinds of emotions.
On Saturday afternoon in the Hudson Valley, we said goodbye to my uncle Mitchell’s wife, Gayer. They were married for almost 35 years. Since she died in mid-May, he has been doing the hardest thing there is, which is continuing even when you might feel like there’s no reason to. He spent her final stretch of life caring for her every single day. Now the days are long for him.
Gayer was not young, and no one would call her passing a tragedy in the way the word is used. But sad is sad, and sad does not check the calendar first. She was ill, very ill, and I almost could not believe how fast the illness took so much from her life, including the ability to drive, shop, and think clearly. And I think of how much my uncle did for her, every single day, without ever framing it as a sacrifice or burden.
At the celebration of life, I said a few words. I did not get through them without stopping to wipe away tears. Here is what I said:
Thank you Nick (Gayer’s son) for the sweet reading of Winnie the Pooh and beautiful songs in memory of your mother…
Just a few words about Gayer, and I want to start with what she did for Mitchell. When they met, Mitch had already been through so much…. He’d lost his first wife Lynn and his father, both to cancer in the same year, in the early 1990s. And Gayer made sure he never felt alone ... She gave him a second life…. Companionship, laughter, a reason to look forward…a purpose.
Rosalynn Carter, President Carter’s wife, said there are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are caregivers now, those who will be, and those who will need one. Mitch and Gayer were all four to each other.
When she got sick, Mitch showed up for her every single day, in ways we won’t really get to fully know. It was devotion and love. It was a man returning a gift to his love. At some point over the years, when the illness worsensed, caring for Gayer became more than a duty. It became his life purpose.
She carried him through his darkest chapter, and he carried her through hers. That’s what they had together.
Mitch, you’re not alone. Not then and not now. We love you
My voice broke, and I only remember part of the speech. It was an emotionally taxing day after nearly two months of grief for Mitchell and, by extension, his sister (my mom) and me.
Then, on Sunday, we celebrated a beautiful 80th birthday for our friend, Jim Casey.
Jim was my dad’s old high school basketball coach in the Bronx. At the party, he was surrounded by people who had known him for decades, including former players of his from the 1970s. His big, beautiful Irish family was there for him, too. Kids were in the pool. Footballs flew across the yard. Old teammates hugged and caught up like no time had passed. There was also food and cake and laughing and old stories that everyone had probably heard a hundred times and wanted to hear again. Nobody was performing, and everybody was glad to be there.
Same weekend, twenty-four hours apart.
It would be easy to write something tidy here about balance, about how life gives and takes, but I don’t think that’s quite it. I don’t think Saturday and Sunday were opposites. I think they were the same thing wearing different clothes. Both days were about people gathering because someone mattered to them. One gathering was heavier than the other, but the ingredient underneath was identical.
This has been a hard year. The sad days and the sweet days are not two separate lives, though — they’re one life. You don’t get one without the other.
Celebrate your people,
Matthew