Finally saying Good-bye.

On Saturday, after more than two months, the family finally got together for our version of a memorial for my sister Cat. It was weighing on me. There is meaning behind whatever rituals we construct around death, but while alive (in passing, as neither of us thought we could actually die) my sister said repeatedly that she didn’t want a memorial service of any kind. This is akin to my fear around letting the company throw a retirement party for me. It is based on a fear that no one will come.

Well, we all came, of course, along with her very best friend, Stephanie. We gathered for a family farewell at Cat’s favorite restaurant, The Old Spaghetti Factory down on the Willamette River. Me, my husband, my girls and their families, my brother and his family, and of course my nephew and his girlfriend–we all came. One of my daughters had arranged with the restaurant to set up a table for us in the rotunda on the second floor. We had privacy and a devoted server who kept our party of 16 well taken care of, running up and down a flight of stairs to do so. 

My nephew and his girlfriend had made photo buttons of my sis through the years. We pinned them on, so everywhere we looked we saw her smile. And some of us had the Italian sodas with the trolley car glass you get to take home. I made a toast to my wonderful, maddening, beautiful sister, and those glasses were lifted. And there was dip, and bread, and much discussion of what my sis liked to order (what used to be called “Homer’s Special,” and is now called “Mizithra Cheese and Browned Butter”).

We made much of a new soup offering because nothing really ever changes at The Old Spaghetti Factory, so when something does, it’s kind of a big deal. A new entree name, a new soup, square croutons instead of the old circular flat croutons–I’m telling you, these are radical changes at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

And we all got our entrees. We all dug in. The kids ate their various noodles and cheesy breads and clambered around and under the table. They went to the windows and watched the boats on the river.

Did I mention that the weather was spectacular? And we had this area all to ourselves? And all the time in the world to eat and laugh and be together? The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have my sister there. But maybe she was, I don’t believe in the woo-woo but hell, who knows, maybe she was.

And then it was time to leave.

My daughter-in-law rounded up the three grandkids and took them off to a Lego dinosaur exhibit at OMSI. The rest of us disbanded to our cars to meet up at the Southeast Goodwill at 6th and Mill. This was truly my sister’s happy place, where she found the majority of the vast amount of possessions she had so carefully amassed and curated and displayed in her little downtown studio apartment. They knew her by name and by face at this Goodwill.

So we all went in on a mission to find and buy something in honor of Cat, whose smile we had pinned over our hearts. I love to thrift, but I’m usually just with my husband. Imagine how fun it was to keep encountering the people I love in the aisles, to experience that burst of heartfelt delight at seeing this face, then that face.

Of course, we kept showing each other what we were considering. I was also pointing out things that reminded me of my sister. A redware cat figurine from Mexico. An ironwood ibex from Africa. A tall wooden Buddha from Bali. I’d have bought her every single one, if only she could have been there with us. But hell. Who knows…

I carried around an ironwood hippo for a while. It was something she would have wanted, and I kept thinking of how charmed she would have been by its tiny size. But then I saw something better.

I have a stack of blue Swedish plates for “Jul” and “Mors Dag.” Mom liked them. Mom was difficult to buy for, so I found her a few over the course of her life, and they came to me when she died. I’ve since added a few of my own. They sit in a stack in my hutch, waiting for the day when I figure out how to display them. I’m picky about buying them secondhand because there are so very many available. But there on the shelf was a cat on a windowsill, looking at a “Christmas Star” plant.

Since her nickname was Cat, and her birthday was Dec 23rd, it felt perfect. 

Perfect.

On the way home, Stephanie pronounced the whole day “perfect.” “It was perfect. She would have loved it. It was perfect.” I’ll take perfect. There’s not much perfect around lately. But this day, with the sunshine and sharing and love, it really was perfect.

Something else that was perfect – my middle daughter stepping up to organize us all to find a workable date, make the reservation and arrangements, and quietly pick up the entire dinner tab (my brother and I were planning to split it). There is something to be said for passing the torch, but there is also something to be said for children who are old enough to understand that I have been so very stunned by this particular grief that the work of arrangements was beyond me. All three of my girls have gently helped me along, as has my husband. I am fortunate.

Driving I5 n the way home, I quietly told my husband I want my service at Nordia House. He said that’s just what he’d have done, and I said, “Because you pay attention.” And then I told him if he went first I’d have it at the Tualatin Heritage Center, and he said, “And that’s because you pay attention.” And we held hands in the sunshine.

Mortality is all around me these days. But so is love. One is bearable because of the other.