The Dead are Closer Than the Door

I hesitated to put this up on here because its a sacred account of my emotions and my family and my religion. But I just want to share it with whoever is reading this as another part of the process. I only wish I could write as much about my Grandma and my Grandpa and my uncle Paul, all of whom I love very much and have stories like this inside of me about. Maybe someday I will be able to record those stories. But this one represents the love for all of my family members who have passed away.

The Dead are Closer Than the Door

I was met with warmth and a friendly Irish brogue this afternoon at the office of Father Diarmuid Hogan. I arrived a few too many minutes after noon, late as usual. The difference in Ireland, though, is that I’m not the only one and they don’t hold it against me when I’m late. The youthful priest with a few gray hairs was in a meeting and I sat in the waiting room and read Irish tabloids until he was ready (it happened yesterday, too, when I was late for a meeting with the overseas advisor and ended up waiting 10 minutes anyways because she was at the dentist). I immediately knew I could talk to this guy. His hair was curly and wispy and his sweater hung loose from his wide contours. He sat in blue jeans and spoke with a sparkle in his seablue eyes as he inquired as to why I was here to see him. I told him my uncle had died on Friday, and he immediately summoned the words of his Christian God and channeled them through his humorous, amiable attitude. One of those attitudes that open you up like an old book and blow off your dusty thoughts and feelings, polishing your conscience and soul and mindset. He asked me to tell him about my uncle. I started saying, “In the last few years, I didn’t see him as much”, but Fr. Diamuid cut me off sternly.
“Start from the beginning, David”.

So I told him about my childhood, seeing Uncle Pete at Christmas and Easter and at sporting events, professional and personal. We would talk sports, basketball, baseball, Minnesota Vikings. He helped me start a coin collection, then one with stamps, both of which I was interested in for years. The words followed my memories through my head and out its faucet. My mouth was recalling my uncle’s love for me and my brother and our cousins, revealing most of the memories that came to me. Others, like a Halloween party when I was very small, stayed inside, clouded by time and the awareness that I had known this Catholic priest for five minutes, not very well, and that I was letting everything out. He pointed out the importance in starting from the beginning, and then telling the story of my uncle. “Sometimes”, he said, “the end is the beginning. But you must start at the beginning and finish at the end”. Well put.
I told him I felt some regret and some guilt. My mom had sent me an email reminding me of my uncle Peter’s birthday. She sent it on Thursday, I got it late Friday and never acted on it. His birthday was Friday. He also died Friday. I never sent the email or a card or gave him a call. I keep telling myself not to feel guilty, that I know that it cannot logically be my fault and that I shouldn’t feel bad. I am 20 years old, not always so responsible, and none of us ever expected a tragedy like this to happen. But it happened. Fr. Diarmuid assured me that this was logical of me, that it wasn’t completely stupid for me to know I shouldn’t blame myself but still feel some guilt. Fr. Hogan came up with an idea, though.
He said I should write a letter to my uncle. Not an email, because computer screens are used for “mechanically sending technical messages. Only on a sheet of paper can you really show your emotion and make it sacred and personal. Light a candle, too, to make it truly sacred”. I plan on doing this soon. As Fr. Hogan said, “It will complete the circle. It will fill the void. It can be your tombstone, your funeral for your uncle”. He told me that although I’m missing the funeral, such an event is just a public rite. It is a public event for socializing and comforting the family of whoever has died. If it is done respectfully and properly, it is a beautiful and sacred event. His point was that I don’t need to be there to show my respect and honor my uncle’s life. Instead, he told me a story. During his ordination into priesthood, his best friend was in Haiti. The friend decided he was unable to make it to the ordination. But he called Diarmuid the night before and told him these words that will stick with me forever; "Everyone will be there tomorrow, I’ll be there always". I had told him about my sorrow and sympathy for my mom, that I just wanted her to be ok and that I wished I could be there to console her. He told me “everyone will be there for your mom tomorrow, you need to always be there for her”, placing a rolling, Gaelic-sounding accentuaiton on Always. That’s compassion, I was advised. What a word from the wise.
In Ireland, Catholics and Protestants and Celtics and Pagans have all been thrown in the stew together and boiled up over the years. The divisions still remain strong, but I learned from Fr. Diarmuid Hogan that even Irish Catholic priests have some remnants from Celtic pagans and their belief systems. He told me he believed the dead can know and understand our world- and that we can communicate with them.
“Not any kind of ‘whoooo’", he said with a witching motion of his large hands, "and not by hocus pocus or trickery or nonsense. You don’t need a séance to talk with the dead, because they are not so distant. We believe they are close in proximity and can be communicated with. As the Irish say, the dead are closer than the door. That means to say they are not outside this room. They are not beyond that door there. They are here and we can talk to them and we can know each other”, his accent introduced his pointer finger, beginning a list, “understand each other, believe in each other, and finally” he said before he put his pinky finger up between our connecting souls, “have compassion for each other”.
We walked together to the chapel on campus, talking about the raging debates waged between the left and right wing politics in ever-developing Ireland and in the US. We got to the chapel via the humming dripping drizzle that hovers over Ireland all winter. I was introduced to Sister Avril, who would be saying this mass for my uncle, Peter Meade. He shook my hand once more and told me to bring him my letter when I finish it. I thanked him for the 999th time. The mass was quiet and humble and simply touched my heart and memories, especially when a woman approached me after and told me with a kind smile that she was sorry about my uncle. I saw my uncle standing off to the side, giving me the grin I’ve known for 20 years. I winced, then smiled as my tear ducts released a drop of joyous grief. The first reading: David and Goliath. By coincedence or some act of God or ironical selection by Sr. Avril. But as Thoreau said about traveling, “My giant goes wherever I go”. In this case, my Goliath is my guilt, my blunders in communication, my sins, my regret, my bad habits, my selfishness, my guilt. My guilt is slayed, beheaded by the me, the shepherd who writes Psalms and plays the lyre. My mind my sling, my pen the rock that cracked the cyclops’ eye. We defeat the Philistines, God and Fr. Diarmuid and Sr. Avril and my family and my girlfriend and friends and I.
"It was just part of the story, said Fr. Hogan. "To intellectualize it, it wouldn’t have mattered if he lived that you didn’t send Uncle Pete an email on his birthday. It’s the fact that he died that makes that email, or lack of it, important. It wasn’t right that you didn’t email him. It also wasn’t right that the fire started or that he died. He didn’t email anyone to tell them he was going to die".
It’s all a part of the chaos of the world, the huge elaborate puzzle that is a mess and that is confusing but that we must accept. Doing so is the only way to sort through things in the middle of that chaos.
I learned this with the help of Father Diarmuid Hogan and Sister Avril. Thanks, Uncle Pete. You were a great uncle and I’m sorry. I hope you know how much you are loved. If you truly are closer than the door right now, you know that by now.