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The Mower

I saw this on Twitter and the poem really hit me today:

The Mower
by Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Day of Remembering

Nine years ago today, I was at work when I got a call that I feared would come. My father had died after years of battling cancer. I sat in a meeting room and cried until a friend helped me get in motion, we called my wife to pick me up as I wasn't in any state to drive, and I took the next few days off to mourn and grieve and process.

The truth is I've never been a stranger to death. I lost my best friend when I was ten years old to a heart malformation, and now that I am nearly forty, death is becoming a more regular occurrence among people I know.

I've made today the Day of Remembering for me. Holiday is too strong a word; it's just a day for me to sit and remember those who I've lost during my life. Refresh their memories, keep them alive inside me. Nothing ornate and complicated, I just think back over my life and reconnect with those that are gone.

Each year that list of people grows a bit longer, but that only makes it more important that I do this for myself, and for them.

Some can opt for 'Terramation' rather than being cremated or buried in a casket

Came across this with news that Vermont became the fourth state to allow this post-death treatment (along with Washington, Oregon, and Colorado.) The website and company are based in Washington (not too far from me in fact.)

Essentially rather than being incinerated for cremation, they lay you in a plot and let your body decompose for 60 days. It reminds me about 'sky burial' practices. There is something very charming about the idea of having your body literally returned to the earth in this way rather than held forever in a casket.

The site is heavily slanted towards getting people to try and be activists about allowing this practice given how it is still heavily limited in where it can be done. I did find it interesting that they call out that they will refuse some individuals, largely relating to death by disease. Presumably out of caution as they cannot be certain the illness would not be carried forward in the soil after death.

Day of Remembrance

This is my friend Mike. Mike and I were a tandem duo when we started at Wizards. He was the editor and I was the content manager / wrangler.

This photo was taken 7 years ago and I am so incredibly thankful my friend Aideen took it. I don't have many photos of Mike and I, he was very camera shy, almost always opting to be in the background when given the choice.

Mike died a few years ago. He was due back to work but never showed up. This was a notable event such that on the drive home, while carpooling with another friend, I swung by his house to see if he was there. When he wasn't, I knew something had gone wrong but had no idea what and I never thought he was actually gone.

After dropping my carpool buddy off at his house, I was actually heading back to the office. I was going to go out to dinner with my new boss, but on my drive there Mike's ex-wife called me and asked me to pull over. She let me know Mike had died in a car crash. I was broken. I called my wife and she told me to call our friend who I had just dropped off rather than try to drive home. He and his wife picked me up and drove my car back to the house. We ended up with a dozen people coming over and sharing a bit of a wake and working through our feelings. I remember it all very vividly.

Remembering it, and my times with Mike, are extremely important to me. In fact, remembering the lives and relationships of all the people close to me who have died is important to me. And, as I get older, as is the nature of this thing we call life, it gets harder and harder.

I've long thought that I need a day, a defined day of the year, that I treat as my own day of remembrance. For Mike. For my parents. For my grandparents. For my brothers-in-law. For my childhood friend.

I know of some cultural holidays which are similar, but I don't want to just take them as my own. They aren't mine or my culture. Maybe it's also that, honestly, I want to own what this day is. I don't want to work in the confines or framing of an existing cultural holiday, but this is a day for me and my memories.

I've had this idea for a while but have never been able to settle on a date for it. I don't know what day is the right day. I could pick the day someone close to me died and use that as an anchor, but then it feels to me like it's too much about that person. And if I pick a day that is just a random one on the calendar, it feels like it doesn't have enough meaning.

As I write this though, I realize that today makes a good choice for a day. It isn't the day of Mike's passing. It's a day remembering him because of a hike I, he, and some of our friends, took.

Today will be my annual Day of Remembrance. A day for me to take time, and sit back, and remember the good times I had with so many.