The Exit Season

Notes on grief, grace, and growing old

Holding fast to faith, love, and the hands still here. Photo by author.

I don’t want to be known as the woman who writes about death. I’d rather make soda shoot from your nose with a self-deprecating line

But —

Lately, my to-do list is funerals, sympathy cards, and condolence calls — as common as mopping the kitchen floor.

So I ask: have people been dropping like flies all along? If so, why didn’t I notice?

Death rarely visited my childhood, thank You, God. I remember the funeral of my great-grandmother, yet no details on the whys. I do recall shock as we drove away from the cemetery, realizing the men in overalls were waiting for us to turn the bend — their signal to lower the casket into the ground. It was one of those moments when something you knew became something you know.

The next death I recall was a man I barely knew. I met Andrew and his wife, Lily, while working as a Candy Striper for the local hospital. Candy Stripers were teenage hospital volunteers in the 1960s. We lifted spirits, delivered flowers, sat and read, or just visited. Patients loved me. I looked oh-so-very innocent.

When Andrew handed me a book of matches, asking me to light his cigarette (yes, smoking in the hospital was the norm back then), I didn’t want to disappoint. I fumbled, acting clumsy…