Unveiling

Yesterday we had the unveiling of Kevin's headstone at Calverton National Cemetery, where Kevin chose to be buried. It's a Jewish tradition for very intimate friends and family to visit the grave for the first time within the first year of mourning — typically close to the end of that period — to hear scripture read, to pray together and to share words of remembrance about the loved one.

Kevin's family was not able to make the trip nor were my parents, but they were there in spirit, and members of our spiritual family were there.

I told how Kevin thought about an epithet, and then chose not to have one. Kevin wrote beautifully, especially in this blog, but he needed lots of processing time to access his thoughts and feelings and put them into words. And sometimes, after lots of processing words failed him still. In the eleven months and eleven days since Kevin died, I have come to appreciate how some things take lots of time to process, and how still, some feelings are too deep for expression and some experiences and relationships too complex for summation. It's why I haven't kept up this blog the way I thought I would.

But we who were there did try to put some of how we felt about and thought of Kevin into words. We remembered Kevin's relationships with us. We spoke of the his consistency of his character, the heroic way he fought his battle with cancer, and the peace and grace he showed in his last days. We remembered how he made us laugh. I recalled how he loved war movies and was moved by the way a true soldier faces death — with a combination of acceptance and defiance. He became what he admired, and then he surpassed it. The three of us with him in that room when he took his last breath had the same feeling of not so much watching someone die, but watching someone leave joyously — though coupled with the pain of leaving us behind — for the ultimate adventure. We felt G-d's presence in that room, and yesterday, we remembered that, too.

For me, yesterday was a significant part of the very difficult process of saying, "goodbye" — wrestling with the letting go and holding on that is part of mourning... By going to the place where is body lies in the ground, I tried to get my brain and my heart to comprehend what is still at times unfathomable — he is no longer here. In this lifetime, I will never again converse with him, touch him, see him — only in my memories. And I'll never again make new memories with him. My heart continues to break over that. But also in that peaceful, orderly setting, we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that Kevin is now at peace. For him, all now makes sense, all questions are answered, chaos, turmoil, pain and anguish are forgotten.

After the graveside ceremony, we gathered at my home and shared more memories. Feeling the need to remember how alive Kevin's spirit now is, I read a written exchange between me and Adrian, Kevin's best mate from Australia, that occurred on 12/19/2010, nine days after Kevin's passing. I'd like to share now with all of you.

To me, from Adrian: Something I wanted to share with you was that on the day of Kevin's passing, I was at work when a butterfly flew around my [ground moving] machine and up and down the door as if trying to tell me something. I guess at the time I was thinking about Kevin a lot and for some reason when I sighted the butterfly, I became a bit emotional thinking about the Indians and the birds that they see when someone passes.

Next day we learn of Kevin's passing and I share my story to Marg about the butterfly and lo and behold another arrives at our door doing exactly the same thing. This brought us both to tears and the next day at church we shared the story and yet another arrives at the door of the church doing the same thing!

Now thinking I'm going a bit mad the other day after breakfast, I went outside to put my boots on and another came and landed on my hand and just stared at me.

Did Kevin have an affiliation with the butterfly clan of the world or am I really going mad?...

My reply: Thank you for sharing this, Adrian.

Though Kevin had no more connection to butterflies than he did to other beautiful things in nature, I do think there is REAL significance to your "visitations."

As Kevin's body began to succumb more and more to the ravages of the disease, he began to become more and more curious about how his resurrected body would look, feel and operate. We talked about it extensively during a day when he rallied physically, just a week before he died. If you listen to the song he chose for the funeral, you'll know he was really looking forward to shedding his old body.

I think that the message [of the butterflies] is one of comfort for us. Not only is his new body free from pain and suffering, it is as changed as a butterfly's is from a caterpillar's. He is experiencing a new existence that is unfathomably light and free compared to his earthly body.

When I called my mom on Friday morning to tell her that Kevin had gone home, she told me that she had had a dream that morning in which Kevin was telling me he had invented a new greeting card with a video embedded in it. He said that what was unique about it was the content of the video — him kicking his heels up and dancing like crazy — something no one had ever seen before. (That's for sure!) My mom woke from her dream and looked at the clock; it was 5:03 a.m. Kevin breathed his last breath at 5:00 a.m.

Yep, butterflies are free, and so is Kevin. The two pictures I now have of him — dancing freely and flying with a lightness of being — do ease the pain of loss. I hope they do the same for you....

No, Kevin is no longer here with me. His body rests at Calverton, but he is not there either. He went off on the ultimate adventure where he is no longer encumbered in any way. He is freer than he ever imagined he could be. Reminding me of her dream, my mother sent me this poem the other day:

When we are healthy, we walk

When we are decrepit, we shuffle

But when we are beyond ourselves with vitality,

We dance!

— Eugene Peterson

A Eulogy After All

It’s been six months and 9 days since Kevin’s passing. During that time I’ve thought often about reaching out through this blog. There are so many things to say, and I kept getting hung up on which things to say first and how to say them.

When I thought about writing a eulogy for Kevin’s funeral, I found myself unable to. I found it impossible to sum up a person who was to me in many ways enigmatic and full of surprises, even after so many years together. And I still don’t know how to really convey his “Keviness.” One only had to know him just a little while to see the best of his character: his courage; his faith; his absolute honesty; his good humor – to the very end of his life he delighted in laughing and making others laugh; his sense of duty in being a responsible citizen of his congregation -- taking seriously the preservation of sound religious doctrine, and his country -- arguing for a the conservative government he believed to be best; his boyish playfulness; his love for me and commitment to our marriage and my well-being; his love for his friends and family. But he was more than all of that. Even now after six months of processing, trying to describe Kevin seems to diminish him somehow. And talking about him in the past tense is more difficult than I can convey. He was Kevin, and I loved him, and I miss him terribly.

But there are stories about his journey that should be told and that those of you who have followed his blog deserve to hear, and so I’m going to try my best to finally tell them in a way that will do the man and the experiences justice.  

I wish that somehow all of you could have viewed him in his final weeks. Throughout the years we were together, Kevin struggled with emotional aloofness, admitting freely to me that he related to the Paul Simon lyrics, “I am a rock, I am an island.” Retreating alone to “his cave” was his go-to defense mechanism when things got emotionally difficult or confusing. It was something he worked hard to overcome during our marriage and especially the last few years of his life. Sharing his journey on this blog became one place – a very important one -- where he learned vulnerability. In sharing his inner struggle with cancer, he discovered that what came back to him were levels of love, support and friendship, and the joy of helping others, that he hadn’t known when keeping his cards so close to the vest. In the last few weeks of his life, as he grew weaker, he became more and more vulnerable and open. The best way I know how to describe it is that his remaining emotional guardedness melted completely away, and we saw Kevin become “freer and freer” and softer and softer as he drew nearer to the end of his life.

He hated that he could no longer do things for himself such as walking alone to the bathroom or washing himself, yet he graciously allowed those of us who cared for him to express our love by doing for him. He said “thank you” for every little thing, and his eyes just shone with love and gratitude. What happens to the body in the end stages of cancer is frankly degrading. Kevin chose to face it with an acceptance and humility that somehow took away its power to be humiliating. I still marvel at that.

On the Friday morning one week before he died, Kevin rallied. He brought the chair out of reclining position, sat up straight, and gained back the breath he needed to speak. He asked me to bring his jewelry box from the bedroom. The wedding ring we’d bought a few years ago when the original one could no longer be re-sized as he gained weight was now too loose to stay on, and he wanted to put on the smaller one. And he wanted to wear the diamond stud earring I’d given him as a wedding present. Then he began to take me one-by-one through the things in his box that meant something to him: his sergeant’s stripes and military bars; the kippa he bought on his first trip to Israel, which his father now has; the pictures of me and his mother that were in his wallet… He talked about what things he wanted to leave to certain people. We reminisced about our life together: the wonderful travel adventures; the marriage lessons we wish we would have learned sooner; how grateful we both were that we’d found each other; how sad we both were that he had to go. I promised him again that I would be okay, that I’d learn to take care of myself in the areas where he’d taken care of me and that I’d ask for help when I needed it. (Mac experts should anticipate an occasional call.) We sat side-by-side holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes and smiling as we spoke. After a couple of hours he tired and the shortness of breath returned, taking his voice away. He sat back in the chair and reclined while I read to him from the book of Psalms, and he smiled to hear the familiar words that had instructed and comforted him throughout his lifelong walk with God.

I read Ps. 19, which had always been his favorite. When I read verse 9, “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” I couldn’t help but wonder how those words sounded to him now that he was on his deathbed, despite praying fervently to be healed, as he had been 7 years before. How did God’s judgments seem to him now? I looked at him and asked simply, “Is this still your favorite Psalm?” He smiled and beamed as he nodded “yes.” And I could tell that somehow the words had taken on an even deeper meaning for him. In his eulogy, Rabbi Bruce spoke of Kevin’s love for the military and his soldier’s sense of duty to follow a commander into harm’s way, no questions asked, as long as the cause just and the commander trustworthy. And that combination of devoted duty and trust was what I witnessed when Kevin, knowing his death was approaching, affirmed his whole-hearted agreement with the words “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether”. The joy and certainty of his affirmation astounded me. It was a holy moment, and it told me everything I needed to know about where Kevin was headed for eternity and the peace, and yes, even eager anticipation, he had in preparing to meet such a King face-to-face.

Many who were in our home in those last weeks and days – including seasoned hospice workers -- remarked that they never saw anyone face death with such peace and courage. Kevin was not a “preacher,” but he who shared so intimately throughout his journey would want others to know that death can be faced that way. Psalm 19 ends,

“Who can understand his errors?

         Cleanse me from secret faults.

 Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;

         Let them not have dominion over me.

         Then I shall be blameless,

         And I shall be innocent of great transgression.

 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

         Be acceptable in Your sight,

         O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”

Kevin wasn’t perfect. He was human. He did, and neglected the doing of, things he regretted. The words of his mouth and the mediation of his heart were not always acceptable in God’s sight. He wrestled with God and worked through some anger with him for sure. But I know that those above verses expressed the never-ending underlying prayer of Kevin’s heart. And in the end, it was evident to everyone around that God was Kevin’s strength, and Kevin knew he was redeemed.

I think that what made the manor in which Kevin faced death so extraordinary was the fact that Kevin arrived at the place of ultimate testing having done his homework. Kevin could never comprehend why people never took the time in life to ask the hard questions about God and faith and life in order to get to a bedrock foundation that goes beyond “feeling” or “sensing” or just “taking it on faith” or, “well I just think…” He knew that wasn’t good enough. Our bookcase contains a wide selection of books on comparative religion, and includes not just bibles, and books on traditional and Messianic Judaism, but a copy of the Koran and the Book of Mormon – Kevin read them all. He considered “all paths lead to God” a copout, and studied to know what was true, and what wasn’t. His favorite book was one he purchased in his early 20s entitled In Understanding Be Men. It’s a book that takes the reader through the central teachings of Two-Testament faith, challenging the reader to ask the hard questions about them. One does not emerge from that type of study with a casual faith. Kevin knew with a certainty what he believed about God and His Messiah, and why.

When it came to faith, and most things for that matter, Kevin was always more comfortable with facts and precepts than subjective feelings and experiences, but even though Kevin was all about objective truth and testing spiritual experiences, his “homework” went beyond intellectual searching. He invited God to lead and guide him, always praying for God to change his heart, reveal his will and give him the strength to obey it. As things became more emotionally and spiritually challenging for us, our prayer became simpler, “God, meet us where we are.” And God did. (Those stories in another post.) My point is that it was clear to me that Kevin faced eternity with such peace, not only because of what he believed about God, but because of his relationship with God -- he knew, loved and trusted him.

I can think of no better way to honor Kevin’s memory and legacy than to suggest you read Psalm 19 and ask God, even if you’re not sure if there is one, to reveal to you how a life can be lived in agreement with those words in a way that produces joy, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Asking the hard questions, and searching out the answers that might upset one’s comfortable worldview is not a challenge for the faint of heart, but I think Kevin would double-dog dare you. I think he would want you to face the final test having done your homework.

Well, this started out as just telling a story, but I guess it turned out to be a eulogy of sorts after all. There are more beautiful stories yet to tell, but this post is long enough, and I need to dry my tears, get back to the present, and take care of myself as I promised Kevin I would. But I won’t let six months go by before I post again.

Thank you to those who took the time to read this, and who continue to hold Kevin in your hearts.

Roni