No Right Way

On bicycle rides or road trips, Bryan would get really irritated by roadside memorials. These are often in the form of crosses with a collection of plastic flowers and whatever items are meaningful to the folks who place them. Friends and family of Bryan’s recall some of those conversations while riding around the valley or on the lengthy Seattle to Portland ride. And Bryan rarely hesitated or held back when sharing his opinions. I don’t remember exactly where we were when I first heard him express his clear distaste for this particular form of public grief, but once he did, I never doubted exactly what he thought.

I remember trying to persuade him to consider an alternative viewpoint. People have very different needs when they grieve and they are as unique as each person’s personality, so too are the ways folks express sorrow and process grief. I think we came to a place where he acknowledged that perhaps some folks needed to do that in order to move forward in their healing and grief-processing. For Bryan, these would always be distasteful and not something he would have ever wished for.

There are pieces to the discussion that I don’t think we really had the chance to delve into together. There’s the need of those left behind. There’s the consideration of the preferences and tastes of the deceased. And then there’s the shared nature of those who grieve together (be it in shared space and time, or separately/privately for the same person).

When my Mom was in Hospice care at her cousin’s home, my sister asked our Mom if she would like us to set up a scholarship at her alma mater and she enthusiastically supported that. So we did and have done yearly fundraisers to keep it growing. She said she wanted music at her service. So we made sure she had a concert. When my Dad passed, with the help of our Aunt Daisy, we put together a service that told stories of our Dad while also being cheekily irreverent, very much in his style. [Ask me about “Bridge Over Troubled Water” someday over coffee.] And good food was a cornerstone of that event, too. At Todd’s service, I believe it was his eldest son who called on folks to do a hot pepper toast. (I declined because I grew those hot peppers and knew what they were capable of.) But those who loved and knew Todd GOT that he had a particular penchant for things piquant. Many of the dishes after Todd’s service were hot and spicy, too.

I like pop culture references. I probably make too many of them, but here I go again. The series Parks and Recreation is a favorite for a lot of reasons, but there’s one particular scene that sticks out when I think about this topic. Leslie Knope, the main character, is pranking her colleague and boss, the crusty libertarian working for city government, Ron Swanson, about his birthday. She hints that she’s going to throw him a loud, obnoxious, surprise party with lots of bells and whistles like she just had done for her bestie, Ann. This increases his anxiety the more he believes she’s going to deliver on it. Instead, she gets him a takeout steak dinner from his favorite restaurant, some Lagavulin whisky (his favorite), and an opportunity to view Bridge on the River Kwai (a favorite film) all by himself while enjoying the steak dinner and whisky in a comfy chair. In his confused delight and relief, Leslie explains to him “Why would I throw Ron Swanson an Ann Perkins party?”

There’s no right way to do this. For me, for anyone. But I don’t want to throw Ron Swanson an Ann Perkins party.