Live Life Like a Funeral

I forgive myself the trespass of missing yesterday's Morning Pages. It was a day, after all, for the living to mourn the dead, to be present in a way those being mourned cannot.

So I tried to spend yesterday in the moment, not with my mind or heart elsewhere, or thumbing the keys of my Blackberry. Being in that place, knowing Judy's body was there in that casket, but not Judy, made me want to make each person I spoke with feel listened to by me. In that moment of condolence, I wanted each to feel appreciated.

Why not live my life in this way? Why not live life like a funeral?

The thing about funerals that's kind of nice is that you get to see people you haven't seen in a long time. I saw my relatives, of course -- my sister Jess, brother-in-law Tony and nephew Levi. Matt, Michael and Donna Karnes, my "step-siblings," as my brother Mike called them in his eulogy.

There were Judy's aging sister Betty and her son Ricky who flew in from Arizona. And there were the old classmates from Valhalla High School, Rob McCrain, Walter McAlpin and his wife Gretchen Ehrhardt, and James Pruner, none of whom I'd seen in at least the past 35 years. Jim made a touching gesture by encouraging me to attend their 30th reunion next month.

Jim and I had -- along with many others -- just shoveled soil onto Judy's casket, scooped up with the back side of the spade, to symbolize a reluctance to do this one last act, a particularly emotional moment of the ritual, in my mind.

And there we all stood, listening to more ancient words being recited -- the "Kaddish" this time -- the syncopated song of the Jewish dead. Judy was laid to rest right where she had talked about wanting to be, beside my father under the headstone reading "FUCHS."

My way of returning my focus to living and life was to call Jeanette last night and tell her how much I love her and our boys. I then took a bike ride with Hannah, asking her to show me around the neighborhood, but really just wanting some time with my niece, at the end of what must have been a difficult day for her. I told her to try and write three pages a day in her journal. I informed her that it's good for the mind.

This morning I rode my bike around Mike's beautiful neighborhood, before sitting down with my own journal and doing just that.