Wakes, viewings, visitations or whatever

A favorite indoor sport in this part of the country seems to be going to wakes or viewings or whatever one calls them.  It doesn't seem to matter much if you truly knew the deceased but, heck, you never know who you might see at the funeral home.  Everyone signs the guest book and then murmurs condolences to perfect strangers, goes up to the coffin and says, "Doesn't he/she look nice"?  There seems to be no way out of this.  But I want to go on record as finding all of this a bit barbaric.  I don't see how it is the least bit helpful to the bereaved.  There are better places to catch up with friends from high school or cousins you haven't seen since childhood.  I don't want anyone staring down on me in my coffin saying, "Didn't Phillip do a nice job"?  And the flowers - don't get me started on the flowers.  What a waste of money!  So when I die, I want to be quietly cremated.  Send out a little card in a few weeks letting people know if you want.  Then get my ashes, borrow a boat and and scatter my ashes into the Atlantic ocean.

A Good-bye to the Breastfeeding Nazi

Wendy was the breast feeding Nazi of Family Beginnings, although we did not call her this to her face.   When I first started working there she was the lactation consultant and the maker of the work schedule (good to be her friend).  As lactation consultant, she was always admonishing the rest of us not to succumb to the cries of hungry babies and pleas from exhausted moms for more sleep.  If we gave a breast baby even a little water during the night, it could be considered assault.  I never knew her in her younger, more agile days.  By the time I met her, she was already disabled to some extent by severe rheumatoid arthritis.  She had had numerous joint replacements.  Her hands were twisted and gnarled.   But she worked full time and kept her family together.  She had a mischievous sense of humor and a smile for everyone.
The beginning of the end, I think, was surgery on her right hand.  The wound got infected and she spent months with a drain and on antibiotics.  She worked mostly from home, writing with her left hand.  Then there was a fall and another fall.  Every time she seemed to be on the road to recovery, something would happen.  One day, several vertebrae collapsed and she could no longer stand, let alone walk.  Weeks in the hospital were followed by nursing home placement.  She developed a horrible bedsore while in the nursing home and was unable to sit.  Another drain, more antibiotics, weekly trips to the wound care center, lots of pain.  I would visit her from time to time, not often enough.  She never groused or complained.  she never lamented the state she was in.  She was ever hopeful that she would walk again or, at least, be able to stand and pivot so she could go home.  Yesterday she died.  She was 53 years old.