Musings on Ritual

I haven’t been around much lately. On top of the busyness I was expecting: finding an apartment, moving, preparing for David’s visit, my grandma was sick, and then she died. And now we’re in the aftermath.

I should clarify. My grandma wasn’t really sick. She had surgery two and a half years ago, and since then had become old. She choked, though, a couple weeks ago. Choked and my mom was there and she called 911 and my grandpa did the Heimlich, and then CPR, and then let the paramedics put a tube down my grandma’s throat.

For all intents and purposes, Grandma died that day, but we still had a week in the hospital–a week where sometimes she seemed to get better but mostly she didn’t improve and then got worse. This culminated in a visit with a neurologist and a test that looked so uncomfortable that we all cried. Except my grandma. We cried because she did not respond, her head lolled, she still did not resist the tube down her throat. I continued to watch what seemed to be nearly torture because it seemed only fair. If it was remotely possible any of her was aware of the indignities of what was happening, well, I could at least watch. That seemed the least I could do.

I don’t want to make it seem like the doctor was a torturer. He talked to her like she was there, carefully at first, a little more rotely as he became convinced she wasn’t. He explained things. “I’m sorry, Nancy,” he said, “This is going to hurt.”

In the middle of all of this, certain things happened that I knew would happen, even though I’ve never been in this position before–night long shifts at the hospital, day long shifts, watching, waiting, my entire body torn in half: should I hope, should I accept the outcome I expect from 83 years old, ventilated. These things, these rituals, were anchors to real life, a marking of our family’s place in the community, to hold our place and remind us where it is until we can occupy it again.

It starts with the visits, and the visits are accompanied by food. Sometimes we feed some visitors with the food from other visitors. You can tell who the adopted family is: they come too often and so only bring food the first time. They don’t need excuses for their presence, and their value to us is not only in helping us get through one more day.

The cards come, and the flowers, although since Grandma was in the ICU, that part was a little questionable; the absence of that part of the ritual seemed to derail some people–without sending flowers it was unclear what the next ritual should be.

The calls started with us. Mom and Grandpa and I called college friends, old friends, neighbors, cousins of cousins. I cried. They thanked me for calling, told me they were honored to be on Grandpa’s list of mandatory calls. It was a welcome distraction. Ritual binding us, giving us direction again.

The calls continued. One of my grandmother’s oldest friends called every morning until the day after she died, telling stories. There was a lot of telling stories. Some of the stories we told back to my grandmother, when we talked to her. Another thing that became ritual, especially as it became more and more clear she’d never answer us back.

We created our own rituals for her death: blessing her, telling her it was okay for her to leave us, tears streaming down our faces, telling her we’d be okay, we’d take care of each other. It was okay. She could leave.

We did the burial, rituals guiding us so we don’t have to think too much about what needs to be done. We sprinkled those with rituals from our family, from other good-byes.

Now we’re waiting for the memorial, more ritualized leave-taking, more stories, more everything.

And then the rituals that tell us how to thank people for their support. Thank you notes and dishes returned with cookies.

When the ritual ends, we are left, untethered in our grieving. But we hope the ritual will have brought us in to a place where we can navigate ourselves home.