On Grieving and Celebrating the Deceased

Aunt Jane died.  She was 95.  Aunt Jane was the lady who taught me how to play jacks and cats’ cradle in 1969 when I was six-years-old.  She fed me salmon patties, which I grew to like.  She took me on daily walks by the duck pond. When we all got older, it was my brothers and I who entertained Aunt Jane.  We took her to lunch at the steak house or stopped at a burger joint and picked up food and took it to her apartment, where we laughed and joked and marveled at our aunt, born in 1921.  Jane still called the refrigerator the “ice box.” I was particularly close to Jane because she was so kind to my autistic son.  She proudly displayed his school pictures and told everyone nice things about him such as how he could imitate anyone–from Donald Trump to Donald Duck. I loved Aunt Jane.  We all loved Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane liked to drink beer.  Blatz.  And she liked to smoke cigarettes.  She didn’t shy away from a blue joke.  She was fun. Her death did not come as a shock to as because she’d been very sick for months.  Sepsis.  On April 2, 2017, my mother called me and said two words, “Renee called.”  Renee was Jane’s daughter.  I knew instantly why Renee had called.  Jane was dead. But what was surprising was that Jane to informed Renee that she did not want there to be any funeral, wake, party, anything in her honor.  It was Jane’s wish to pass quietly from one world to the next. “Aunt Jane didn’t want any fuss made about her death,”...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Family Grief and Loss Personal Self-Help death grieving honoring memorializing Source Type: blogs