Marketing and the Business of Death

I don't find it caring or kind to receive a one year condolence card from the funeral parlor that buried my mother. These are the folks who called me every 20 minutes on the day of Linda's funeral to tell me that if I didn't get there faster they were not going to bury my mother. There was nothing that I could do about the flooding and that the NY State Thruway was limited to one lane in both directions.

I have to get off their mailing list or for the rest of my life I may receive condolence cards.

It doesn't feel good. It is a manipulative marketing plan. I keep thinking about the letter they sent six months ago asking if I would like them to "set doves free" in my mother's name. Kathy's response was perfect, "What will they do otherwise, hold them hostage?"

This is fake caring. If this kind of card is meaningful for some people, then I truly believe that we, as a society, are failing to mourn for our dead in a meaningful way. Enough.


With regards,
Bob's Daughter

My Father's Tie

Bob wore this tie.

I found it on Etsy.com and memories started coming back.
The yellow table is a jarring background for me, but this is the sort of internet connection that interests me. Someone who states that she is from "Emerald City, United States" likes the same tie my father liked.  I am therefore able to remember a part of Bob and visualize, with great accuracy, events that have no names, only senses.

My father dressed in a suit and tie every morning for breakfast. We sat at the formal dining table. The one he designed and had built. I don't need to tell the woman who lives in the Emerald City about my desire to touch the tie. I remember it's soft feel. I remember his smell and learning that gender wasn't defined by who wore flowers.

For all this I am grateful.

~ Bob's Daughter

Red Bag and Santa

Linda's red bag is on the move. 
Our daughters wanted something from the closet and the bag - escaped. 

I never mean to move the bag. 

I don't really want to look at it, but it fascinates me. 

She specifically told me, "My whole life is in that bag." 

Now, I can't open it because I don't yet want to know what she considered her "whole life" and yes,

she spoke with an emphasis, 

as if music played in the background. 

I am reminded of Grand-Katie, Linda's mother,

(my Grandmother - along with Jay, Lee, and Peter's Grandmother, in case you are trying to keep track).

At Christmas, after Grandpa- Joe died, one of Kate's gifts was a helium balloon with Santa's face on it.

(We always celebrated Christmas with Kate and Joe and my mom grew up with a big Christmas tree. I was told that Reformed - German - Jews celebrated Christmas, but since my father grew up Orthodox and then Conservative, and his family was from Russia, now called Latvia, we could not have a tree and there was no Christmas in our family house. Christmas at Kate and Joe's tasted like Thanksgiving, but there was ham and jello with marshmallows in it.)

Kate loved the Santa balloon. 

When we returned to visit in March, Santa was still floating around the house, bumping off the furniture and up and down the stairs. I was shocked to see it. I asked, "How come the balloon is still full???"

I thought that this must be the most incredible, long lasting helium balloon EVER.

Grand- Katie casually said, "I have it refilled. It reminds me of Joe. It's like he's still here."

Then she went into the kitchen. 

Mom didn't say anything.

I had the distinct feeling that I was living in a Beckett play and Godot really was never going to show up.

I hope one day that I will have the courage to open Mom's red bag...and that I don't wait too long.

Until then, I will keep moving it around. 

I think I will document these actions.

For now, the bag is between the laundry basket and the diaper genie. I am sure it deserves better.

With regards,

Bob's Daughter

Sorting

For .95 cents PeopleFinders.com will give me Robert A. Caigan's phone number. It is sooooo tempting, but there is a sanity line that I do not want to cross. My logic may be creative, but paying for a phone number that I know is not possible? It can't be healthy.

I received a letter in the mail from my cousin Jay.

There was a note on it in my mother's handwriting.

"Please take care of this yearly...Thanks Dear"

and the date 6/15/91.

It is a flower bill for our great-grandparents burial plot in Montreal.

While my mother's post-it-note is a bit curt, I did not receive instructions and it came with a forwarded condolence letter about Linda's death.

I called Jay.

E: Hi, I'm just wondering about the letter I received?

J: Well, your mom sent it to me and I thought I'd send it to you. 

 
(I am silent)

J: I wouldn't worry about it. I haven't paid it in a few years, but if you want to, you can. I don't think it mattered that much to your mother.

(I can hear him smiling - he knows that this is somewhere between mean, teasing, and funny.)

E: Oh, okay, thanks, I just needed an explanation.

(We are both eldest children and I know how to play this game - no response is the only way to win.)

J: The letter's from someone who knew your mom.

E: Thanks, yes, I read it. It was very nice.

blah, blah, blah...good to speak with you - best to the family...

I hate him, love him, have wanted his approval for way too long, it shouldn't matter and he's the only person Linda wanted by her side before she died - maybe my brother as well. I know, I'm bitter, she was always "protecting" me. The problem is, that never worked. The silences have always been quite full - Linda taught me that.

Flowers for Rae Wilansky and Max Wilansky.

Unimportant flowers...

I google, that is how I find out about my dead relatives.

I laugh out loud.

Kehal Israel Memorial Park (click)

There is another site that provides a phone number and states:

"Emily Caigan Be the first of your friends to recommend this". Then provided me with a Facebook link.

Seriously, I could not make this stuff up.

What the sites do not say is that Max and Rae came from somewhere in Russia and changed their names to Wilansky because that is the set of passports they could get and he was called "Count Wilansky", because that is what the passport said. This may of course all be false and might have been made up, but that depends how much you trust a man on the run who ends up starting and managing a "card club" in Montreal and importing illegal furs. But he did it - he got himself and his wife out of Russia and his grand-daughter Linda went to Cornell University and then Columbia University for graduate school.

I was told that his real name was Schumacher.

I think about such things. I will find them. I need to make sure that this really is where they are buried. I'll decide about the flowers later.

 

I told Beth, Jay's sister-in law, married to Lee, Jay's brother, that I now know where Rea and Max are most likely buried. She said, "Oh, that would make a nice trip. We should go visit."

xoxoxo,

Bob's Daughter