Saying Good-Bye

I traveled to Wisconsin this past weekend to attend Andy G's funeral. I took Marissa with me so as to not leave Wayne at home with two kids, and because I think the trip would've been harder had I been separated from both my kids.

I have never been to a funeral of someone I did not care deeply for. I hadn't known Andy terribly well but his family means the world to me, and it was important to me to be there for them.

There is something about going to funerals that makes people go deep, in every sense of the word. I remember after their other son Paul had died 16 years ago coming out of the church the day of his funeral and seeing people driving down the street, kids riding their bikes through the crunching fall leaves, and being almost offended at the fact that life had gone on for them while mine had stopped. How dare they have errands to run! Don't they know what's just happened?

It was a similar feeling when I came home from the hospital with my first-born. I remember sitting in the living room with a newborn on my lap wondering what the hell I was doing, watching neighborhood kids walk by and cars driving past. "Oh yeah, that's right, life kept on for them," I thought, because mine had changed forever.

I do not know from what well of strength his family draws from (I have an idea I know its source, though). It was incredible to me to see Andy's sisters comfort others as they came through the family line. For the family they've had some time to become familiar with the fact that Andy is gone; for some arriving at the church they had only found out the day before and it was THEY who needed the comforting.

The day after the funeral I stopped by their home to visit; in typical generous fashion, they fed Marissa and I lunch before we hit the road. They've made lots of changes to their home and Veronica was giving me a little tour of all the updating they've done. She showed me Paul's old room, now with new carpet and paint, and then Andy's room, in its disarray of possessions being sorted through. I remember her having to go through that miserable chore years before, and it doesn't seem right for a mother to have to sort through her dead son's belongings...twice.

That was one thing that Roland said gave them hope through Andy's illness: God had already taken one of their sons; surely He would not take another. After his death they found out more information about his illness that made them realize how bleak his outlook had been -- only 8 in a million people are struck by amyloidosis, a disorder that's barely understood with no proven treatment. They treated it as you would leukemia, because that's all that doctors know how to do. Even if he had survived the treatment his prognosis was that he would only live perhaps five more years, and they would be difficult years. The family had more hope than the doctors, not knowing what they were facing.

Now it will be difficult going back to my "normal" world, knowing how very much their world has been turned upside down. I'll be thinking of the Gilles more often in the days, weeks and months ahead, as they begin the healing process. Again.