We became friends because she saw the announcement in the newspaper saying I had graduated from college (hello, small town) and she called me to say something about it. I knew her from church and I remember it well because I was bewildered by the invitation. She said,
"Congratulations. Now come on over."
It was really beautiful to know someone like her. She asked about other people all of the time, and had interesting things to say, and kept up on the news in the world, and prayed for everyone. She was a great hostess and her husband, Virgil, was a great host. Instead of saying, "How's it going?" she'd say, "What's the score?" and when you talked, she really listened.
It's so nice to have people in life like that to depend on. And it was hard to hear that she had died. Tonight I came across a new quote about death. And it was to me something completely perfect about the process of continuing to try and understand it.
"Death is not extinguishing the light. It is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come."
I began to really know her as a friend during the year that I subbed. I would go over to their house after a day of teaching 3rd grade, 11th grade, orchestra (fill in the blank with a teaching position...I was making myself branch out and it was horribly uncomfortable) and of course they listened to me talk about everything.
We ate cake and drank juice, a veritable tea party every time. Yes, I was pretty much having meaningful tea parties with two wonderful people a few times a week. Kind of a fun part of my life.
Sometimes Virgil and Ordell would give me advice about my life and other times they would tell me that I was smart and let me figure things out on my own. I learned about her life as a teacher back in the 40s too, and all of her closest friends and what it was like to be old and what good things were happening to her. I learned her story, and it was a good one.
One time she prayed for my whole entire life, and it was super humbling and beyond the short-term and eye opening to hear what she said because I knew that very soon she wouldn't be there to see the rest of it and it really was a prayer for another generation.
My young friend's funeral last year was really horrific...I've said it before, but I'm saying it again. It still feels like it was something surreal to live through and manage later. When I was sitting at the funeral this weekend with my dad I did feel very aware of how things were similar and yet not the same at all. Death is always a shock. And funerals are for the living to remember and share about a person, and be grateful to have known someone. I know this logically, but it's still hard.
At Ordell's visitation, I looked at her diploma from Northfield High School in 1939, and thought about my diploma sitting somewhere in a box from 2003. We got an education in a same place, 64 years apart. I saw her 7th grade report card and the teacher's name scrawled across the top of it and compared it to our digital age and the way my students see their work assessed by me. It was hard to picture her being 12, though I know she was....in 1933.
I saw pictures of her as a person my age, pictures of her babies, what she looked like standing next to Virgil when they didn't have snowy white hair. The very alive part of her that made Ordell who she was could be seen in the pictures, but as time went on, the look of it changed. It made me think about how aging is a strange thing. And 90 years is a long time to live.
When I saw Virgil he held my hand and told me that she was his greatest loss. I tried to continue breathing and not to lose it completely and say something that would measure at all to the idea of a 60 year marriage ending on Christmas Day this year.
Again I wonder...why is it that the people who most seem to need the comfort do most of the comforting? I still have not figured out funeral visitations. I have a beef with them. They annoy me, and I feel protective of people who have to go through them and receive the good wishes. People have told me that it's a comfort, but I find I still don't believe them.
Despite all of these details now, I have I found that I have not wanted to share this with many people in conversation. I think it's because I was able to talk with her about death before she died. I already talked about her death. With HER, which made the funeral weird. I don't mean that I talked to her in any dramatic deathbed moments, but in casual conversation, a very long time ago. When you're looking at an 87 year old, it's something that comes up.
Dying was always very natural to her. I remember once saying to her, "I don't WANT you to die" and out of nowhere I meant it very desperately, even though I knew the logic of this world. Her response being something like, "Well, I'm going to". Not a completely peaceful answer, but a succinct one. And she did die, and I see again that having conversations like that is helpful, but also weird.
I miss the sincerity of Ordell's life and friendship. But I am grateful to have been able to know and love her. And it is a very beautiful thing to know that for Ordell, the dawn has come.
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