Convergence of Horrors
Several evenings ago I had to endure a lot of psychological discomfort.
It was caused by the 36th and 37th half-hour episodes of the HBO series about psychotherapy called "In Treatment." In those two segments far too many things came together that zeroed in on the two worst traumas of my life so exactly that it almost seemed to be intentional on the parts of the show's creators, or on the Powers That Be.
My discomfort was caused by Alex, one of the two characters that bothered me the most, though most people looking at him and then looking at me and being controlled by the likeness in pigmentation and gender, would assume that I would identify with him, or that in him I would see my son..
Alex had met a sudden death of, storywise, some as yet undisclosed cause. So the 36th segment took place in just the kind of circumstances that still so painfully scorch my mind from memories of my father's funeral, which next month will be 70 years ago, except that "In Treatment"s" treatment was on a much grander scale, because the Alex character was a bigtime Navy pilot in the year 2008, while my father had been a humble chauffeur in the year 1938.
But the fancy stuff didn't matter. What really mattered was that the episode showed all the mourners still standing around in the same stances that I remembered, immaculately dressed in their best black attire, looking solemn, and talking in hushed tones, and -- though I think I unconsicously but intentionally failed to notice, there had to have been a lot of flowers around, no doubt gladiolus. Of course I couldn't catch their scent either, but to this day the odor that I remember from those huge banks of gladiolus blossoms still terrifies me.
Finally, sinking my spirits even more, though I had been expecting it, the camera settled fondly, as every callous, unthinking, "creative" moviemaker on the planet feels he must have in his productions, the casket.
I am highly pained by the fact that I live in a culture that still can't get enough of the barbaric custom of having funerals at which the deceased are present, enclosed within those oblong, shiny, and always easily identifiable containers for the dead. One reason is that for me, the caskets might as well not be there, because I can easily look through the walls and see the bodies lying within, their hands crossed on their midsections, and all wearing filmy blue.
The dead do not make good attendees at those extravaganzas staged in their honor. This is because they have nothing to say, though, in regard to several burning questions that have engrossed humans through the ages, they alone are now in possession of the answers that the living are dying to hear.
The worst memory I have and one of the most vivid is, first seeing my absolutely still father lying in just such a box with his eyes closed, and then later seeing that container being slowly lowered into a rectangular hole lined with some sort of bright green material and bordered at its edge with a low bright brass railing -- a hole from which I was not too young to know he would never emerge.
I think that neither I nor my younger sister were well served by putting us through that, though of course that was in an era when the dangers of child trauma might not have been known.
If "In Treatment" is any indication, that awareness must still be zero, because Alex's two children are shown sitting there in the parlor taking everything in, just as my sister and I did, unaware of how we had been put in the process of shouldering a heavy burden that we would have to carry forward, not always successfully, for the rest of our lives.
In that episode the psychiatrist sits and talks with the young son just as he had been doing with the child's father. In my ear their words came across only as meaningless murmurs. No doubt I was thinking of how deeply sympathetic grown-ups must have sat down and talked with me in the same way, but their counsels probably never even reached my ear drums. What got through and never to leave were the visual things, and the smell of the flowers, and I keep hoping against hope that I will never be required to go through such a horror again.
A short, simple memorial service held next to a small, unpopulated, swiftly flowing river and attended by not that many people, all in clothing of any color that they want, is much to be preferred.
After unsuccessfully waiting for her to mention it, I finally brought up with my wife, Esther, the matter of my attending mother's ceremony. She answered that, knowing how things are for me, she hadn't even intended to bring it up.
Today my mother-in-law is to be laid to rest. As her only child, Esther will be at the center of that production. Because Julia was a teacher of generations and a pillar of the community, I expect that the event will be attended by a huge crowd of many persuasions, all looking their absolute best and impeccably clothed in various shades of black. It will be a beautiful spring day in Florida, and there will be eloquent eulogies and poems recited. There will also be lots of wonderful singing and colors galore, with enormous banks of deliciously scented flowers, including glads. I expect that the occasion will be all that Julia would have wanted and then some.
It has been so ordered, however, that meanwhile I will be here 900 miles away in the deep quietness of some woods in Virginia, with my only companion being one black cat. I will be trying to avoid certain thoughts, and for him that will be all well and good, except that he will much prefer that those reflections don't include the only topic of any real urgency: the contents of a small can.
It was caused by the 36th and 37th half-hour episodes of the HBO series about psychotherapy called "In Treatment." In those two segments far too many things came together that zeroed in on the two worst traumas of my life so exactly that it almost seemed to be intentional on the parts of the show's creators, or on the Powers That Be.
My discomfort was caused by Alex, one of the two characters that bothered me the most, though most people looking at him and then looking at me and being controlled by the likeness in pigmentation and gender, would assume that I would identify with him, or that in him I would see my son..
Alex had met a sudden death of, storywise, some as yet undisclosed cause. So the 36th segment took place in just the kind of circumstances that still so painfully scorch my mind from memories of my father's funeral, which next month will be 70 years ago, except that "In Treatment"s" treatment was on a much grander scale, because the Alex character was a bigtime Navy pilot in the year 2008, while my father had been a humble chauffeur in the year 1938.
But the fancy stuff didn't matter. What really mattered was that the episode showed all the mourners still standing around in the same stances that I remembered, immaculately dressed in their best black attire, looking solemn, and talking in hushed tones, and -- though I think I unconsicously but intentionally failed to notice, there had to have been a lot of flowers around, no doubt gladiolus. Of course I couldn't catch their scent either, but to this day the odor that I remember from those huge banks of gladiolus blossoms still terrifies me.
Finally, sinking my spirits even more, though I had been expecting it, the camera settled fondly, as every callous, unthinking, "creative" moviemaker on the planet feels he must have in his productions, the casket.
I am highly pained by the fact that I live in a culture that still can't get enough of the barbaric custom of having funerals at which the deceased are present, enclosed within those oblong, shiny, and always easily identifiable containers for the dead. One reason is that for me, the caskets might as well not be there, because I can easily look through the walls and see the bodies lying within, their hands crossed on their midsections, and all wearing filmy blue.
The dead do not make good attendees at those extravaganzas staged in their honor. This is because they have nothing to say, though, in regard to several burning questions that have engrossed humans through the ages, they alone are now in possession of the answers that the living are dying to hear.
The worst memory I have and one of the most vivid is, first seeing my absolutely still father lying in just such a box with his eyes closed, and then later seeing that container being slowly lowered into a rectangular hole lined with some sort of bright green material and bordered at its edge with a low bright brass railing -- a hole from which I was not too young to know he would never emerge.
I think that neither I nor my younger sister were well served by putting us through that, though of course that was in an era when the dangers of child trauma might not have been known.
If "In Treatment" is any indication, that awareness must still be zero, because Alex's two children are shown sitting there in the parlor taking everything in, just as my sister and I did, unaware of how we had been put in the process of shouldering a heavy burden that we would have to carry forward, not always successfully, for the rest of our lives.
In that episode the psychiatrist sits and talks with the young son just as he had been doing with the child's father. In my ear their words came across only as meaningless murmurs. No doubt I was thinking of how deeply sympathetic grown-ups must have sat down and talked with me in the same way, but their counsels probably never even reached my ear drums. What got through and never to leave were the visual things, and the smell of the flowers, and I keep hoping against hope that I will never be required to go through such a horror again.
A short, simple memorial service held next to a small, unpopulated, swiftly flowing river and attended by not that many people, all in clothing of any color that they want, is much to be preferred.
After unsuccessfully waiting for her to mention it, I finally brought up with my wife, Esther, the matter of my attending mother's ceremony. She answered that, knowing how things are for me, she hadn't even intended to bring it up.
Today my mother-in-law is to be laid to rest. As her only child, Esther will be at the center of that production. Because Julia was a teacher of generations and a pillar of the community, I expect that the event will be attended by a huge crowd of many persuasions, all looking their absolute best and impeccably clothed in various shades of black. It will be a beautiful spring day in Florida, and there will be eloquent eulogies and poems recited. There will also be lots of wonderful singing and colors galore, with enormous banks of deliciously scented flowers, including glads. I expect that the occasion will be all that Julia would have wanted and then some.
It has been so ordered, however, that meanwhile I will be here 900 miles away in the deep quietness of some woods in Virginia, with my only companion being one black cat. I will be trying to avoid certain thoughts, and for him that will be all well and good, except that he will much prefer that those reflections don't include the only topic of any real urgency: the contents of a small can.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 9:25 AM
1 Comments:
Sometimes, the simple immediacy of a cat's demands can bring one back to the here-and-now as few other things can do.
Stella experienced three deaths in the family this year, so both of us have had a lot of practice attending funerals.
One was her younger sister... yes, younger. The service was in the sister's church, which (to my mind) is a bit on the fringe; those of us who are not Christian, as I am not, as one of Stella's best friends is not, were a bit discomfited by the everyone-else-is-going-to-Hell approach. (For the record, my religion is emphatic that there is no such thing as Hell.) The graveside event was much less problematic: family members and their partners, all adults, buried some of the sister's ashes as they planted a tree. There was nothing the least bit grim about it, and under a tree seems to me a good place to rest.
Another death was that of an in-law's very elderly mother. She was one of the founders of a very conservative church several decades ago. The service was 2-1/2 hours long. The graveside service was another hour or so, and was much like the one you, Carl, describe that traumatized you as a child. I urged Stella to send me off in about 20 minutes when my time comes, so that no one's feet or seat would ache from the experience. And no young children are to be present; you are absolutely right about that.
My very best wishes to you, Carl (a cool Black cat yourself, in the old jazz sense of the term), and to your companion black cat. My sympathies to your wife, and to you, as you await her return. Please take good care of yourself until normalcy returns.
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