Fin

Tuesday 19 June morning

Lara's calvary is finally over.

This morning was a bright and sunny one in Brussels. I welcomed it, for I would have detested driving through a down pour to a funeral; it is not only cliche, it is also depressing.

Three beautiful longstemmed roses were lying on the back seat, ready for deployment. Of course, I left much too early, showed up at the cemetary at 9:15AM, and parked leisurely. The young attendant who had done Lara's maquillage on 13 June, appeared and offered his condolances in just the right tone. He walked me over to the crematorium and a waiting room large enough for sixty people. I signed a power of attorney for the undertaker to take possession of Lara's ashes. Also I discussed what music I would like to have played. Haydn, I said, a symphony, any symphony, but very softly for I want to make a speech, too. I patiently spelled the name of the composer. First name Joseph.

Once left alone, I felt tears pressing behind my eyes, deep ones. I drew a few quick short breaths to regain my composure. I told Lara that if I lost it already in the waiting room, I would not be able to vouch for myself inside the parlor.

Close to 9:30, the attendant came up to me and said they were set to go if I was. Give me two minutes, I said flustered. Thirty seconds was actually enough. Strange: if the hour of ten o'clock has been a marker for such a ponderous moment in your life, how unsettling it is if they up the ante all of a sudden.

The parlor was ideal. The attendant quickly left me alone in a room that was designed to hold some forty people. Lara's coffin was standing at one end of it, on an elevated platform in front of two little doors. It received daylight from a window in the ceiling above it. Flowers from Helene and Jacqueline, and a red rose from Andreina were lying on top.

I lost it right then and there, while I kept telling myself I was going to do this no matter what. A big fat tear drop fell down from my cheek on the front of the coffin and ran down, off the incline of the lid.

I told Lara I was aware she was in the room with me at that very moment, probably standing off to the right of her own coffin, where the floor was less cluttered than on the left of it. I imagined her, I said, in something green, making her eyes light up in just the right shade, but lamenting the fact that I could not see her. It didn't seem fair to me somehow. Still I could see her smile like she would only smile at me, slightly demure and with true love in her face, as when saying "I could eat you up!" Despite her presence, I said, I was going to go through wih the little ceremony I had rehearsed. I added that she wanted a funeral as sober as possible, and with the cheapest coffin and a one-person attendance at her exit, I felt I had faithfully executed her wishes.

Regaining my balance, I read 1 Corinthians 13, the story about faith, hope and love. "But the greatest of these is love." The irony was rather thick that I should choose to read a passage from the New Testament to a devout atheist. As a precaution I didn't mention its source, while chuckling at the thought that I was not going to fool anybody at this point, certainly not Lara watching me do this from beyond the chasm. I took my time reading it slowly, noticing how the cadence of the text made me sound like Churchill in a radio address.

At the end of it, I placed the three red roses, one by one, on the coffin, repeating "faith, hope and love". As I was trying to disentangle the first rose from the bunch, the rose representing love drove a thorn in my left hand somewhere, and a drop of blood lodged itself onto the coffin, as I would notice later. "Nice going, van Dongen, I said, messing up her coffin as you did."

I waited out the rest of the allotted fifteen minutes, talking to Lara softly, my hand on her coffin, listening to the music from her favorite composer. Quietly the attendant came back in, as he'd said he would, and within a few moments, the two little doors behind Lara's head opened and the coffin slid up and away, stopping on the inside. I waved at her, uttering one last greeting, highly inappropriate in view of Lara's beliefs: "A dieu!"

The little doors closed on Lara. The attendant walked me back to my car. It was 9:45AM. Home was half an hour away.

As I washed my hands, I took off my wedding ring and put it in the same little jewellery box holding Lara's ring after she'd given it back to me, more than a week ago. Ironically, the same box contained the two wedding rings of my first marriage as well; they had been in there for close to twenty years. I pondered about the fact I had seen the end of two marriages at this point in my life, and repeated: "Nice going, van Dongen."

Janis Dolnick offered the following poem by Pablo Neruda, which gave me great release of sorrow:

Absence and Presence

If I should die, survive me with such sheer force

that you waken the furies of the pallid and the cold,

from south to south lift your indelible eyes,

from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.

I don’t want your laughter or your steps to waver,

I don’t want my heritage of joy to die.

Don’t call up my person.  I am absent.

Live in my absence as if in a house.

Absence is a house so vast

that inside you will pass through the walls

and hang pictures on the air.

Absence is a house so transparent

that I, lifeless, will see you, living,

and if you suffer, my love, I will die again.

Grammar

Monday 18 June later

My son, Bouke, wisely remarked the other day that he had known Lara longer than he had not known her in his lifetime. Now aged 33, and a father himself, Bouke must have been 14 when Lara came onto the scene. When we got married, he was 16. Lot was 20. They both were severely conflicted - not surprising when the nuclear family falls apart. For the longest time, relations stayed constricted, with Lara and also with me. They couldn't forget their father had walked away from a marriage; they saw Lara as the marriage breaker (which she was not, by the way); and they were staunchly loyal and protective vis-a-vis their mom (as I would expect them to be).

It took long years of perseverance and patience from the two of us to clear up the air. We were cold-shouldered many times. Lara never claimed (or aspired) to take the place of their mother or to play the role of a surrogate mom. She was 'Lara' to the children. Nor did she ever give cause for the kids to think she was keeping their father away from them. On the contrary: Lara was coaxing me in their direction as a matter of course. "Call your kids!"

As they grew into adults, however, my children began to realize that Lara was actually making their father a happier man, and a more balanced person. They began to understand that she therefore couldn't be all bad, despite the unsettling start of our marriage. Also, both of my children chose partners who themselves happened to come from broken up families, changing their perspectives of separation. I believe these two considerations together made room for acceptance (one step up from condoning), growing with time and leading to appreciation, and ultimately affection. On the rebound, Lara began to speak of 'our children' instead of  'Toine's children' or simply 'the children'. And certainly she called herself 'oma' (for grandmother) to 'our' two granddaughters, Yasmin and Madelief.

What clinched the paradigm shift was that Lara went through hell over the past year and a half, coupled with the prospect that their father some day might find himself left behind. It brought home to them that health is precious and that fortune is fickle. I couldn't have wished for warmer and more supportive kids. Nor could Lara have. 

I guess that losing a spouse of long standing (twenty years as a couple, 17 years of wedded life) comes with a range of paradigms that shift. One of them is grammar. It occurred to me over the weekend that I still tend to speak of Lara in the present tense. Clearly, when you talk about her mortal remains, that is a plausible thing to do. She still exists as such. But when you speak of her as about a living person, then that would be less plausible as from last Wednesday. I have decided to apply the past tense to Lara as from tomorrow Tuesday, the moment of her cremation.

Similarly, what do you do with possessive nouns? Does 'our car' suddenly become 'my car'? And 'our apartment' 'my apartment'? What about the 'bedroom', or more to the point: 'the bed'? In other words, does your grammar stay inclusive, without moving from the plural to the singular? Or does it become exclusive, where even the children and grandchildren become 'mine' again instead of 'ours'? This is not purely a grammatical matter, of course,  where only rational answers fit; it is also a matter of syntax and context. The choice of terms is intertwined with loyalty, respect and love for a dead spouse. And perhaps with insecurity over where all this has left you.

Enigma

Monday 18 June afternoon

Ilona, our domestic help, and I started to clean away some of Lara's bathroom items. Now, I thought this was going to be easy, and to a certain extent of course it is. After all, everything that is used or beyond the expiration date you just throw in a garbage bag. Other items which are sort of neutral, I keep or give away, for Ilona to take home.

But at another level, it feels like you're taking away a veil from over secrets that Lara has kept all this years as a woman. I come across items or beauty products I wasn't even aware she used, or even now have no idea why she used them, or how. It feels like prying, even to me or perhaps especially to me. If she wanted to look her best - as she did all the time - it was in part, perhaps principally, for me, I being the object of her desire - or so I would like to think. And I - especially as her husband - was not supposed to know how she managed to beguile me; the ultimate women's enigma. Perusing her bathroom - where I was not even allowed to tread unless invited - was like unravelling that enigma, retroactively. The feeling of upsetting the old order between us was very intense. "Stay out of my bathroom!"

Take her bathrobe, black and thick, a Xmas present once from Connie and Ed - what, twelve years ago? The image of her wearing it at weekend breakfasts is so etched in my mind that it almost hurts. It evokes memories like in a chain reaction. The robe, after long service, is now pretty motley but she refused to get rid of it as it was part of her comfort zone. Throw or keep?

But what do you do with small items such as hairpins, bands or clasps, which she used so often to keep her unwieldy mop of hair (her own words) in place? In and of themselves they are worthless items, and you cannot even give them to anyone else. But they were part of her whole Gestalt, and I recognize all of them, some from way back. I see them on photos as she wears them, part of an outfit where they have a place. Now you find them heaped together in a little grungy bag. They are so Lara, but somehow they appear out of sync as I find them. Throw them away? Never. It would feel like throwing part of Lara away. Keep them? Maybe for the moment.

And on it goes.

Presence

Monday 18 June morning

Lara has now spent three days in a cooling unit, which fortunately she had almost to herself - a comforting thought somehow. This morning she was transferred to a "collection point", where various Brussels undertakers take the mortal remains of those scheduled for cremation the next day, such as Lara's. 

I had to really try not to think too often of her circumstances over the past weekend. Strange how you don't want to forget about them altogether, for that would show lack of sympathy. Yet on the other hand I have thought about her so much, these past days, that I don't have to feel in the least bit guilty about not picturing my loved one in the confines of a shroud, inside a coffin, locked in a dark refrigeration room inside a deserted building without character.

I decided I needed to break out of the house, get away from too many memory triggers. Saturday, around noon, I set out for Rotterdam, where I plannend to stay overnight with my old friend Gert-Jan. The two hour drive made it easy to muse and ponder about my loss, and I would explode into sobs from time to time. My vision blurred by tears, I had to try and keep my place on the road, and that sort of thing quickly brings you back to the here and now.

Passing time with my old buddy and Ellen, his partner, was positively soothing, mostly because we stayed home all of the time, without constraints or protocol, listening to music, watching TV, ordering in a meal and lots of talking in between. We talked about Lara, too, and even that felt good.

I was back in the early evening, Sunday. On the way back, sobbing spells were less than on the way over, but I was positively desolate at the prospect of not finding her at home, as I would arrive. Not temporarily absent (for that had been the case before, even over longer spells, such as when she was stationed in Bosnia or posted in New York). No, structurally absent, for ever and ever; not coming back, ever. It is more than saddening; it is inconceivable.

Right now being in the apartment is excruciating, for everything here serves as a memory aid, triggering countless recollections: from her bathroom to her wardrobe, from her office to the kitchen. This morning, for breakfast, I polished off some chopped apple the nurses had prepared for her last week. In the freezer I detected a small cannister of soup Lara had prepared for me before she turned into the hospital, in March. I look left and see her hospital bed still standing there waiting to be picked up later this morning. I look straight ahead as I write and I see candles she personally used to pick out with care, in time with the occasion and the season. Lara took great pride in a presentable home. The whole interior breathes her presence - without her being there. I walk from room to room and I see her everywhere - but I find her not.

I am not going to turn this house into a museum, much less a mausoleum, even though I feel honor-bound to maintain a style and taste she brought to our home twenty years ago. But I will take my time to weed out her stuff, no rush. It would be easy to summon twenty big garbage bags and put everything inside for further disposition. But what to do with her wardrobe? Not the kind of clothes suitable for doling out to Brussels' needy. Besides, many many pieces bring back memories of events or periods in our twenty years together, and I wish to relive them as part of grieving.

Countless messages (to which I still have to reply) have reached me in response to Lara's demise and the announcement that was sent around. They helped a great deal to alleviate the pain. They made clear that I was not the only one grieving, including people who had barely known Lara but had gotten to know her through this writing.

What really touched me deeply over the past days and weeks, however, were comments from close friends of Lara's, or siblings, saying how Lara had been a unhappy person before she got to know me and over the past fifteen years had grown into a happy one. I never saw it in her, for my own happiness kept apace with hers. And how Lara had been a person low on trust before we ever met; and how she'd had complete trust in her husband. Greater soulagement I could not ask for. Even as I write these words I cannot contain myself.

St. Gilles

Friday 15 June midday

This past night was the last one Lara spent at home, with me. I feel completely at peace with her being there. I kept on soft lighting and music for most of the evening before I went to sleep myself. I try and enjoy her presence because I know the next morning people will come and take her away.

At a quarter to nine, the funeral parlor calls to say their men are already in position and could they come in a little early? I am ready, I tell them.

I retreat into my office and a few minutes later they call me over, after they have placed Lara's body in her coffin. Lara's coffin, as per her instructions, is as simple as they come, a light wood construction, simple lining, no embellishments, a makeshift handwritten sticker on the foot-end, bearing her name: Lara Gabriel van Dongen. (She is still part of me even in death.) Flowers brought by friends the day before have been placed upon her body. Only her face and chest are visible, the rest of her body being covered by a shroud (gaine). I take a few pictures for relatives in California who are far away from all of this. Then I go out again while the two men close the shroud and put a lace cover over it all.

At their signal, I walk up to the coffin again. The men retreat discretely. This is really the hardest moment, since I can no longer see her, just the lace cover. I allow myself some sincere sobs, pacing around the coffin. Then I take a bottle of Chanel No. 19 standing at the ready; it is the perfume that really defines Lara, and people recognize her scent from opening her wardrobes. I spray a few whiffs onto the lace cover, realizing full well how futile the gesture and how irrational the motive. But Lara would appreciate it - and that is what matters ultimately.

Then I watch as the two undertakers place the wooden lid onto the coffin, and secure it with ten long Parker screws, turned in place by a power tool, and each capped with a little ornamental rosette. Still all very frugal. Then they cover the coffin with a protective quilt.

Lara had asked me to promise time and again I would make absolutely sure that she was positively dead before closing the coffin, for she didn't care having any adventures knocking on the inside of the lid - so great was her fear of suffocation. Moreover, for a claustrophobic like Lara, being in a coffin must be the ultimate nightmare. Houdini would have had trouble getting out of this one. I figured that with two doctors pronouncing her dead and giving her over 48 hours to resurrect herself, my promise to her had been duly honored.

I didn't want to look at how they put the coffin upright in the elevator - the only way to get her downstairs - but waited on the groundfloor. The coffin was slid into the waiting hearse (a Mercedes) and we proceeded to the cemetary of St. Gilles, with traffic and rain a little under half an hour away. I felt at peace being in the company of Lara on her last journey.

In the funerarium I requested to be shown where they would keep Lara for the next four days and nights, thus fulfilling yet another promise she had me make: make sure that I don't end up in one of these giant drawers you see on television. Normally, clients are not shown the technical rooms but I insisted. The room measures about 4x4 meters, is light and modern and I suppose sufficiently refrigerated. There was only one coffin in there at the time.

They explained to me that cremation (incineration) is scheduled for Tuesday morning 19 June at 10:00AM in the adjoining public crematorium. On that day, I will be ushered into a salle d'attente at 9:45AM and be left alone with Lara and her coffin, while at my request some Haydn symphonies will softly envelop the moment. I will place three red long-stemmed roses on the coffin and use up the alotted 15 minutes, until they will come and wheel her away to les installations.

Incineration takes two hours, and I have decided to not wait up for it. I would hate biding my time in the cafetaria while peering out the window at the crematorium's smoke stack and wonder what I am looking at. The undertaker will hand-deliver the ashes the next day at our apartment. I will place the metal cannister in the unused fireplace in our living room, until further disposition.

Transcendental

Thursday 14 June evening

I have been sitting in the living room all day, curtains closed, keeping Lara company, working on my laptop. I had to be home if I wanted to catch the city coroner (le medecin-legiste) who was scheduled to pass by at an unspecified hour to do a 15 second survey verifying that Lara was truly dead and that the funeral parlor had observed all the legal rules for the handling of corpses. The visit produces a document and without that document Lara cannot be transported to Uccle tomorrow morning. That in turn would mean two impossible options: either having her stay over the weekend in a non-A/C apartment; or moving her to the city morgue and make her share the company of traffic victims, drug addicts and sundry dead criminals. So it was crucial that I stayed put and waited.

Afterwards I really need a break and I go run a few errands. It turns out I was not the only one who needed a break. Lara was apparently fed up with lying on her catafalque all day as well and decided to do some out of bodywork. 

What happened?

My son and his wife (Bouke and Merel) live in my hometown, Breda, about 100 kilometers North of Brussels. They are parents to our granddaughter Madelief (Daisy), who, at fourteen months, happens to be an early speaker. At about 6:30 PM today, Merel is changing diapers on her daughter, and as babies do, madelief looks left right and center, lolling her head. Then all of a sudden, the baby stops and clearly focuses on something or someone behind Merel, to the side of her. The baby keeps her gaze fixed on it. So the mother, without turning her head asks what her daughter is looking at? To her astonishment, Madeliefje says: "Lara".

Maybe that was the sign Lara wanted to give after her safe arrival 'on the other side'?

Visitors

Wednesday 13 June afternoon and evening

The living room, over the past six weeks, has developed into a veritable eyesore. There is a hospitalbed in the midle of it, a Baxter with two pumps and bags of liquid, a chaise percee, a little table doubling as a hospital side car (Lara's cubby hole), and there are endless supplies of medical equipment and medication on the window sill, on the floor and on the dining room table. Three big bottles of oxygen (4200 liters each) stand in the corner, and on the other side a big noisy oxygenator a haute debit.

This morning, whoever was at hand was co-opted into a massive cleaning out job, removing from the living room all possible vestiges remaining of six weeks of medical activity. After a few hours, only the bed remained, put in the highest position, where Lara is resting in horizontal position.

At around 2:30PM the kids came with their spouses and their off-spring. Entering with reverence and nervousness, their voices at a discreet whisper, they created in no-time at all a level of alacrity that - had Lara still been alive - would have been snuffed out by her husband just as fast. Under the present circumstances, once the gawking at the deceased was over, there was hardly any need to keep a lid on it, so a great time was had by all for about two hours straight. Activities included digging into Lara's fair stock of women's accessories, such as bags, scarfs, belts and other apparel. The bodypickers in action, goaded by the quarter master.

Twenty minutes after they left again, my mother came with my older sister and her husband and the same pattern erupted, aided and abetted by sherry, port and scotch. I took them to dinner at a decent Italian restaurant, La Bufala, bien arrose with a bottle of primitivo. We finally had fits of laughter again. Very healthy.