Search

OK

Curiously, recently, casually in conversation - a dear friend of mine requested that I read her “journal" of sorts for a very specific and personal reason before she dies. She isn't imminently dying. But of course, she will one day. It's a request that flouts the standard practice of keeping whatever personal musings and secrets one has to oneself, hidden in a drawer somewhere.

Thinking about the request made me ponder; these diaries and journals that some of us deliberate over, filled with our most private stories and sentiments – for whom are these scribblings written? I would imagine most of them are abandoned and forgotten on into our twilight years only to be found behind the socks, for posterity and those left to read and reflect. Or perhaps they are written for us alone. Therapy. A way of working through. These posts I drop here are like that. As much for you, perhaps, as they are for me.

But the request humbled me while at the same time, made me proudly grateful that someone, no matter how close the relationship, would ask me to deliberately read their private thoughts. Why?

My friend, while jovial, led a solitary life despite her often very populated interactions through her professional work, in boardrooms, at Livingroom tables and her being “on display" in her successful profession to promote her brand. As a child, she grew up ostensibly alone and I would presume, somewhat lonely, feeling herself largely to be an outsider looking in. That might sound somewhat sad, but she would tell you that despite that sense of being solitary as a child, as she grew, she was in control of her life, she was good at what she did, and she moved forward through her days like most of us, traversing mountains of joy and valleys of despair.

That “solitary life" was a life shared with friends, on and off, but never a lifelong companion – and I think it was that companionship that she missed now in her later years; a sharing of sorts, a sense of belonging that might be most deeply felt through the bond of days spent together with someone one cares for; whether husband or wife or simply close confidant. Sharing. The good, the bad, the triumphs and the let-downs. But over the years she became very aware of herself in a different way from many of us. Not through the interactions in her lifetime, but through her sense of lack. She became hyper-aware of her end-of-life reflections. And through that, she focused on the fact of her secluded nature.

So, back to the “why?" Why would she ask me to read what she has spent years of her life writing? It's in this space right here; in the reflection of a lifetime where meaning must be found. And her journal has become, for her, the most intimate and immediate method of sharing her life and its meaning with someone she trusts. Tangible proof that she existed between a specific start and end point. The cry of a soul yearning to be known. If this practice isn't recognized daily, then it could conceivably come to a head in the end.
Jean-Paul Sartre in his most spoken about play “No Exit" has been famously quoted as saying “Hell is, other people." And while we all must find our ground to live with one another in harmony, I believe more exactly that hell is perhaps living a life that we personally feel to be without meaning when we reflect back upon it. And this is the great soul journey – to make, to find, to bestow meaning upon our lives. As we move closer to that end point, we become more amazed(?), anxious(?), astonished(?) that it is ourselves that have or have not given ourselves the grace of our own acceptance.

That desire that we have and that we have all too often hidden from ourselves through our constant outwardly search can and will, only be found inwardly. Whether a solitary life or one of great social interaction, whether a life of humble means or excess, secularism or faith – the meaning of us comes from the inside out. We are called to find first, our own acceptance, and then our “ok-ness" within the world we walk through. That sense can be fed from many sources, but the sources are not who we are. They don't define us. They do what anything external from us is meant to do – help us to see ourselves, alter ourselves, move ourselves from starting point to end point graciously, help us to know the I who is presently living and the I who will one day be dying.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

CHECKLIST FOR FUNERAL PLANNING

This information has been made available as a courtesy, from Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services; and as such, is information that applies to the Province of Ontario. It is meant to empower people with the information they may need in future or of which they are unaware, and to demystify issues concerning death and dying.

These are the standard questions asked when you have chosen a funeral provider. They will be used to fill out all the paperwork required to carry out any arrangement. It is wise to know the answers and/or have the answers in a file for the one who will need them. Likewise, it's as simple as calling a funeral home and having them on record. This is called a “pre-discussion."

1. What is the deceased's full and proper name? (And maiden name if applicable)

2. What is the deceased's full address?

3. What is the deceased's birthdate?

4. What is the deceased's birthplace?

5. What is the deceased's SIN # (Social Insurance Number)?

6. What is the deceased's health card number?

7. What is the deceased's father's name?

8. What is the deceased's father's birthplace

9. What is the deceased's mother's name (and maiden name)?

10. What is the deceased's mother's birthplace?

11. What was the deceased's occupation? In what field of work? (Please do not list “retired." It should be a job that they paid into CPP through an employer.)

12. What is the deceased's marital status?

13. What is the deceased spouse's or common-law partner's full and proper name? (Even if divorced or deceased) Also, maiden name (if applicable).

14. What is the deceased spouse's or common-law partner's SIN#? Date of birth? Place of birth? (IF LIVING)

15. Is there a will? (IF THE ANSWER IS “NO" - PLEASE GO TO QUESTION # 18

16. What is the full and proper name of the executor(s) of the will? (If there is more than one executor, please list all executors. What is their relationship to the deceased?
Note: Please do not list the people who WOULD be executors, if the executor is unwilling or unable. Please note, that people who are “Power of Attorney" are not necessarily the executor of the will.

17. What is/are the executor's full address(es), email(s) and phone number(s).

18. What is the NEXT OF KIN'S contact information? (name/phone/email)

19. What is the Next of Kin's relationship to the deceased.

20. Who will be signing the necessary paperwork to carry out the arrangements and what is their relationship to the deceased.

21. Are there children of the deceased who are under 25 years of age and attending school full-time?

Make sure that you and others know where the will is kept, (if there is a copy), and with which lawyer. You should have the lawyer's contact information. While a will is not necessary, it is always easier with government paperwork when there is one. Power of Attorney is NOT a will. Power of Attorney ends as soon as someone dies. You need to know exactly who the executor(s) of the estate is/are.

If you are a son or daughter or family member taking care of an ailing family member, it makes things easier if you are on the bank account of your ailing family member, as an account holder. Obviously, this would be a relationship of trust.

Make sure others know where the marriage certificate is. If you are married, the funeral home will make a copy as there is a spousal support/children's benefit to be applied for.

Make sure others know if you have a pre-arrangement, (either prepaid or just pre-discussed), with a specific funeral home or know which funeral provider you would like to use.

Make sure people know your wishes. Burial? Cremation? Aquamation? Service? No service? Public? Private? Funeral Home? Church? Other venue? Burial in a cemetery or scattering?... etc. Do NOT trust that your wishes will be read in a will alone. Tell someone, write it down, or you may get the information to a funeral home to place in a file. If MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) is an option that you want to consider, it is legal in Canada, and should be discussed and/or prepared for. Rutherford Funeral Home has detailed information on this if you wish to have it emailed.

Make sure the cemetery information is up to date if you are to be buried in a plot, whether full body burial or burial of cremated remains. Taking care of “ownership" issues of a plot of land is important, especially if the owner is already buried there. Update the cemetery file as needed.

If there are personal items in the house, a safety deposit box or elsewhere; letters, money, certificates, etc., convey that information to the individual handling your affairs.

It's a great advantage to have a checklist of items written out for your executor. Things on the list might be: 1. Companies you've worked for in which a pension or benefit is received. 2. Bank account numbers and holdings. 3. Insurance products. 4. Addresses and important telephone numbers of family and friends that should be notified of your death. A personal checklist is a gift to make the executor's job easier and more efficient.

If you have specific wishes regarding donations to a charity, specify that.

You may want to write personal letters to those you love before you go. That would be a gift of unique and enduring value.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

BLINK OF AN EYE

It happened around 1982 for the first time. Then again, in 2009. Only twice in my lifetime. Maybe there will be more. The events stayed with me and so I remember them well. Both times, grace filled. I remember the cavernous silence between words, the echo of them in my head, unsure if they were mine. Yes, only mine – but as if thrown from the throat of some distant expanse I felt growing in the room. Thought... silence... words... silence. An immense sky of memory lifting itself up into the sheltering stillness above the bed.

And I didn't think of time or place or the events of the day. I was emptied and filled at once, over and over and over again with the moments in front of me; time expanding out then slingshot back to the breathing. Always the breathing. I watched for the chest, rising and falling. I watched for it, taught and constricted. I held my own breath between the in and the out of the movement, aghast at the gap of motionless air. How long? How long between the holding... the letting go. Holding... letting go.

There are three things adjusting your awareness at a time of someone's dying. Three things present in the bubble of the room. Memory, presence and words. It's the words that ground you whether spoken in a whisper or heard through the mind's great voice. Presence floats and focuses on the rising and the falling of the blanket, the pattern of the carpet, the light filtered through the curtain, the freckle perhaps, at the base of the chin that you never noticed before. And memory, that squeezes under the closed door of the room and into that presence, taking you away momentarily, from the waiting.

An entire lifetime can be lived out in the room. And when you enter that space, you want to enter clean. But you never do. You bring in the threads of your own life to the occasion. The costume of who you are in the world, that the one in the bed is in the process of leaving behind; the clothes they have shed lying at your feet. You can't help it. It's not your fault. There are far too many roles you are still playing, far too much clothing to drape yourself in. But at some point in the proceedings, you wish, you pray, you long to be naked. You hope for clarity. Please, let them know who I am and how I have loved them. Let the reality of what matters wash over me, at least a little; their reality - so that when I walk back out through the door, I walk out more alive, more grateful, more aware of the frail and removable skin.

I know the sanctity of the room. Holier than a church. Limitless sky and black earth. Fragile firmament and rich soil. No real walls to speak of in the mind. No rules. And maybe even the sound of trumpets, albeit only in the head, that proclaim to the new ground, the new frontier, that he/she is dying. Prepare to receive them! While time is a ball that bounces in and out of questionable moments of now?... now?... now? The blink of an eye where the past is present, the present has passed, and the future is forever coming.

It's that room that informs me of my freedom. The amount of love possible. The hopefulness of human beings to change the décor of the spaces they find themselves in, change the helplessness of despair. It's the room I walk out of that allows me to walk into the world fresh. It's the ghosts in the rooms I've left behind, the loved one's spectres, free and flying; and my own, still bound – that opens fissures of possibility to make the world I walk through here on this earth, more welcoming.

Hundreds of thousands of rooms and ghosts; and I have been in and with two of them. And how many, I wonder, who were torn from the fabric, have never set foot in one of them? The sanctity of their personal passages needing to be entreated to love alone without a physical presence watching over them. Just a sense of love. Deep, yet incomplete.

And anyway - this love that exists in the ephemeral span of a lifetime, how long should it last? It's never undone. Never completed, even upon departure. That is what is to be understood; there's always some left behind to pay forward to those just like us – namely those who will die; namely, everyone. And for those we cannot know, in faraway lands, in all the neighbouring houses, all of us out on the street - those who will, despite all coverings, also shed their clothes.... it is for their sake and ours too, that we must care enough to imagine each other's lives.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.

We are thrilled to announce that the James A. Rutherford Funeral Home / Rutherford Cremation & Funeral Services, has been selected as an official nominee for the Stratford Chamber of Commerce 2023 Business Excellence Awards "Professional Award."

This recognition is a testament to our commitment in providing compassionate and professional services to the community we love. We are grateful for this honour and look forward to continuing to serve our families with excellence. A most heartfelt thank you to all for trusting us in the care of those you care for.

LIVE WELL.

WE GRIEVE

Magnificently, I recently came across the very subtle wavering line that floats between blindness, which knows nothing of itself, and ignorance which most often knows there is a lack. Blindness: which is a lack of perception or awareness. Ignorance: a lack of knowledge or information. I think the greatest discrepancy between them is our recognition of those “lacks." It's for that reason that I write this today, eyes opened.

The blindness I speak of, for me, came from my own childlike assumption, my own comfort perhaps; my own assurance that my personal life growing up and my working life as an adult, has led me to a place where I am unafraid of difference or what I don't fully understand. That is quite true.

And so, when I was having a coffee chat with Carrie Batt who is the founder of SEOL CARE (www.seolcare.ca) which offers disability competent end-of-life and grief support care, for people with a disability and their families - my eyes were opened more fully when I realized that through my work in funeral service in particular, a comfort with difference is at times simply not enough.

Carrie has an extensive personal and professional experience with disabilities and not merely regarding those with which she carries out her work. In our conversation I was struck by a most profound “lack" of my own and I would venture to guess – a hazy area of understanding for many regarding what we immediately consider helping someone with a disability can look like. For many professionals, through no fault of their own necessarily, aiding those with disabilities most often means there is an access ramp for a wheelchair. Certainly, that is the case with many funeral homes. My own awareness of “disability" is relatively wide and encompasses both the physical and the mental conditions that limit a human being. What was narrower however, in my own understanding (my blindness), is that often those folks with a developmental and/or physical disability are pandered to in a demeaning manner or cannot easily attend funerals without aid, and so are unable to properly grieve someone of significance to them who has died.

In any culture and in any tradition, there is grieving. What is different perhaps is the way it's manifested. Grieving's four main aspects in death and dying are always: accepting its reality, experiencing the reality of it, adjusting to the new reality and redirecting energy spent in the old reality, into this new one you find yourself in. Easier said than done sometimes.

Most cultures have rituals and traditions to make these transitions less painful. But for many in the disability community, the chance to even participate is minimized or not provided at all. That responsibility lies with the caregivers and organizations and family members that provide support and allow themselves to bring those with a disability to a service. But it also lies with the funeral home to educate itself in best practices when considering what a disability at a funeral might mean. It would also take a greater understanding, a greater comfort level from the public at large in their acceptance of not only physical, but developmental challenges that might arise at a funeral: “unusual" movements, sounds, gestures, words; that might feel “out of place" to the public, but not within the control of the one experiencing the disability during their own grieving process.

To that end and in full recognition that we all grieve, it becomes incumbent on the funeral home and the family or caregiver to come together and exchange information regarding options for whatever actions or mannerisms an invited guest might manifest due to their disability; so that they may feel as welcome and worthy of being there and sharing in the grieving process as the rest of us.

The fact of the matter is that grief and sadness make some people uncomfortable. Society can cruelly minimize grief and subsequently diminish love, by not recognizing the relationship between the deceased and the survivor, the severity of the loss, or the need to be a griever; let alone leaving the disability community to remain largely unacknowledged through a lack of informed grief support.

The other clear and present fact of course, is that everyone hurts, and hurt erupts from the inside. And the holes we cannot see within can only be filled with love and community from without.

UNTIL SOON. LIVE WELL.