One of the cruelest outcomes of the “put it all behind you” and “move on with your life,” philosophy of managing loss is that we miss out on the gifts and life lessons that come through remembering. In a couple of recent events, I have been reminded of some of those gifts.
I moved away from Detroit Michigan more than 50 years ago, but through the years, I’ve stayed in touch with one of my dance teachers and mentors, Harriet Berg. Last week I was blessed to attend an online celebration of Harriet’s 100th Birthday. Her son and daughter-in-law did the arranging and with her help, the invitations.
We celebrants were former students, performers in her productions, or children of her close friends, now deceased. We traded stories of how she had influenced our lives, reliving some of those experiences as we described them. “You’re all over our house,” I told Harriet as my husband and I had pulled framed posters and photos from the walls to offer a “show and tell” about my life with Harriet. in those years when I was the choreographers’ assistant and founding member of Festival Dancers, her dance company out of the Jewish Community Center, she was a central figure in my life. “Here we are, Harriet, costumed to perform Charles Widman’s, ‘All About Women,’ that Widman himself taught us when you brought him to the Detroit area in the early 70’s.”
After the event was over, and we spoke of doing it again if that turns out to be possible, I realized that what we celebrants had created was a kind of memorial. As we sharing our memories with one another and with Harriet, we were creating a “living memorial,” sometimes called a “living funeral.” Such an event is done in the presence of a person who realizes that they are living in their final days. However, her final days did not seem imminent, at least to her as she reminded us that her father made it to 103. ‘I’m just trying to catch up with him,” she said.
Today is the one-year anniversary of my youngest sister Maureen’s unexpected death at 69. Tonight is a regular online gathering of members of The Wing & a Prayer Pittsburgh Players, my InterPlay performance troupe. Since these are the people who have companioned me on the long road that became The Art of Grieving, I’ve asked them to think of a particular loved one, now deceased and bring stories of that person to our meeting. We’ll use the dancing, singing, storytelling forms of InterPlay to celebrate these important people in your lives as we celebrate my sister Maureen. I’m especially interested in what situations or times in our present lives are we reminded of our special persons? How and when do they come to us now?
