PASSING

Is there another word in English that has so many meanings, all depending on context? I’ve been thinking about this word passing quite a lot in the past two days. Two friends died, or they “passed away” as many of us might say. I occasionally say it myself, but it always seems strange to me.

When my Father died, we were sitting around the table, my brothers, sisters and my Mother. My older brother said something about Dad passing, and my Mother spoke up very quickly, and with no hesitation. “ He didn’t pass. He died.” Very matter of fact, my Mother. She could be so very warm and kind, but she could also shut down the room with a remark. She had studied Elisabeth Kubler Ross, all the stages of mourning and death, and she volunteered for years at local hospices. She thought “passing” was a weak phrase that people used when they were not ready to admit the truth, which was that someone had died. Someone was dead. They were no longer alive. They were no more. Gone.

My Mother also thought that children should not go to funerals. Personally, I don’t think that was such a good idea. I think that a funeral, or celebration of life, as we call them today, is a needed event for people to properly mourn. My Father’s funeral was delayed for a number of months, which seemed strange while the delays were happening. But when the actual event happened, it was very nice, with lots of great stories, songs and memories.

My poor Mother, who I don’t think cared for these events, never had a funeral. A few of us, the youngest children of my mother, got together at Second Beach one day, and we put some of her ashes in the ocean, near where we had put my Dad’s ashes before her. They were on their final journey to Hawaii. They were together in the sea.

Both of my parents were in the Navy in the War. The Big War, WWII. That was where they met, in Halifax, during wartime. Their favourite song, I know this because I asked once to make them a mix tape for their 50th wedding anniversary, was I’ll Walk Alone.

I'll Walk Alone -Dinah Shore

It is a very sad song, as most of the songs they liked were. My parents were married 61 years, until my Father’s death. Then my Mother did walk alone. Later with the dementia, she was further alone. But in the end, my sisters were with her. Or rather they were with her, and then stepped away for a brief moment to consult with a nurse, and at that moment, my Mother died. She passed away, crossed over. She was no more. Except she is with me every time I think of her, which is often.

Often at funerals, people will say things. Revealing secrets that were never told during the person’s lifetime. It can be quite shocking to be there when someone breaks the unsaid barriers, and says something that those gathered didn’t know, or maybe didn’t need to know. But that is the power of the living. That is history in action, as the living always get to tell the story.

I think that is why legacy and ancestry and history is so important. To learn something about someone, even the barest of facts, that they were born, and they lived, and they died. Then there is all that cream in the middle of the cookie. Oh, to be the fly on the wall, waiting to land on that cream.

I’m sure that this is not the last time I will write of death. But I have to go now, drive home. You won’t catch me speeding to pass. Not today.