Sienna and the Wake

Elaine’s maternal grandmother passed away a few days ago after long battles with congestive heart failure, cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc. She was 94 years old.

While emotionally wrenching for Elaine and her family, Sienna’s been a bright spot. Each day before the wake and burial (there was no official funeral) Elaine would come home only wanting to hold her daughter. Thus we decided to bring Sienna to the wake this past Sunday to help Elaine, her mother and I get through the day (we didn’t bring her to the burial figuring she’d probably want to jump in the hole).

I’ve only been to a couple of wakes and I find them eerie and uncomfortable; the Jewish custom is to have a closed casket. I also don’t do well with death. I find it unbearable to feel or hear my own heartbeat and can’t understand why singers describe listening to their lovers’ heartbeats as romantic. If I’m in a position where I hear or feel Elaine’s, I have to move because it just reminds me that she’s going to die one day and that’s something I can’t take.

I bring this up because of what happened at the wake. Sienna was the perfect antidote, of course. Elaine’s mother was thrilled to see her and showed her off to everyone who came to pay their respects with Sienna smiling, saying “Hi!”and waving to all of these strangers. Elaine clutched her daughter when she needed to as did I since everyone was speaking Spanish and despite taking 7+ years of it in school, I have difficulty following rapid-fire conversation. Sienna was her happy, energetic self, climbing up and down stairs and running in circles, but eventually she got bored and I had to improvise. Inside the funeral parlor were two huge fishtanks, so I brought her in to look at the fishies. She was fascinated and commanded me to put her down. Immediately she climbed up a bunch of boxes to get a closer look at the fish. That’s when I noticed the boxes were labeled with names. That’s when I realized Sienna was climbing on top of people’s remains! I snatched her up and brought her back into the lobby and told Elaine what happened. I’m not sure how we felt about it. Hilariously creepy? Disturbingly funny? It even gave Elaine’s mom a laugh and my parents thought it was hysterical, though also weird.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it was the juxtaposition of life and death. Here you have this little girl.the embodiment of innocence, someone wholly unaware of time passing, of finality, happily climbing a stack of boxes containing people’s remains just to get a glimpse of some fish. For those of us who know the world, it’s both funny and strange because it’s so difficult for us to comprehend death, and, since we know of the world’s dangers and our own mortality, it’s just as hard for many of us to understand the purity of life.

In the past, because of my depression, this would have had me seeping into a pit of despair. But for some reason I’ve been able to know in my heart and gut and mind that I need to treasure this time in Sienna’s life. We all need to venerate this time in our children’s lives because it’s so very short.

Excuse me while I go hug and tickle my daughter.