Thoughts on burying my mother, brother and, of course, John

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 22, 1993 by Jeff Dietrich

We made a bizarre funeral procession as we pulled off the interstate -- no hearse, no limousines, no motorcycle police to clear the traffic; just a battered old pick-up with the coffin lashed to the back, followed by a handful of nondescript vehicles. In the rush, we forgot to bring the trap, so anyone could see we were transporting someone's earthly remains. A few days ago this was John Slowikowski.

Halfway up the mountain road, we lost sight of the pickup. Backtracking, we found it in a convenience store parking lot, everyone politely ignoring the coffin while John's brothers dashed in to purchase a couple cases of beer.

Death is the essential human experience, but as theologian William Stringfellow said: "Within American culture there is a strenuous reluctance to admit death even at funerals." This is part and parcel of a deeper pathology. Our desire to distance ourselves from the experience of death reflects an abiding faith in the cultural delusions of progress and utopia. If we for one minute stopped believing in the possibility of salvation through higher education, professionalism, financial investiment and career development, the entire social system might collapse.

As we bounced along the slush-clogged road bearing John's body deeper into the darkening winter forest, I reflected that so much of my life at the Catholic Workers has been a form of mourning. Our work of feeding and serving the poor brings us into unavoidable contact with the forces of death. "Our culture," says scripture scholar Walter Bruggemann, "is committed to numbness about death. The task of prophetic imagination is to cut through this numbness, to penetrate the self-deception so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord."

This process of numbness and self-deception finds its roots in the arts of the undertaker. The distancing and professionalization of that which should be intimate and personal is the first step in our denial of death. In my own case, I have always regretted never having said good-bye to my brother. But after his suicide, I was unable to bring myself face to face with the pain and guilt of his death. I just wanted him in the ground, thinking his burial would somehow end my pain. Of course the funeral industry was most obliging in helping me avoid any contact with the experience of my brother's death.

In simpler cultures, including our own not too distant past, when community and tradition still existed, people took care of their dead. They had neither the luxury nor the desire to pay another to do it. Death and grieving took place at home, not at a mortuary. Like most simpler arrangements, it was also a healthier and more integrated experience.

We learned this dramatic lesson in our own community with the death of one of our guests, little Maria. She had lived with us for two years, capturing everyone's heart, befor succumbing to cancer at age 5.

Due to our proverty anf perverseness, we decided to resist convention and do the funeral ourselves. A carpenter friend built her a coffin, and my sister bought Maria's laying-out dress. Because Maria had just missed making her first communion, her mother wanted a white communion dress. But Maria's cancer-ravaged body was so tiny, she had to wear a baptismal gown.

We drove our old Chevy van to the mortuary and picked up little Maria. We placed her at the end of the living room on our coffee table, in the midst of a beautiful arrangement of flowers. But now we had a dead body in the house, and we were not sure what to do next.

But 20 Latina women from the neighborhood, friends of Maria and her mother, who had com to vigil with us, prayed their rosaries, chanted litanies and sang about a hundred songs. They were familar with death and unafraid. They were from a poorer but simpler and healthier culture.

I am certain it was the experience with little Maria's death that gave me the courage four months later when my mother died to suggest that we have a home wake for her. But I might as well have been demanding a nude funeral, for all the enthusiasm this evoked.

I gained an amazing insight into the power of community from my mother's death. My mother had many friends in her parish. So, as soon as word went out that she had died, people began arriving with casseroles, cakes and such. At first I thought this was rather intrusive but gradually realized that as each new person arrived, wanting all the details, the pain of mother's death would diminish each time it was shared.

Soon the house was filed with friends and relatives. It seemed like a grand party as people ate and drink and told favorite stories about my mother. It made me wish we had the courage to break convention and have my mother at home.

Back to John. It was late morning when Catherine got the phone call from her sister, Eileen: "John is dead. You have to come now." We drove through the night, reaching Oregon before dawn the next day.

John had died at age 29, violently and tragically at the hands of another while on vacation in Mexico. The pain of that death was compounded by a lack of infromation. Due to the barriers of language and culture, there seemed to be no adequate answers to questions of why, how and who is responsible. In the meantime, his body was shipped back by air freight in just two days. I suggested that whatever else they did, they should consider bringing John back home tothe house where he had grown up, where they had lived together.