On the Roof

Terrill Laura, front on the right. My mother, Jerry Roberta, front on left, Beryl Verdeen on the left in the back row and Dale Lemuel on the right, back row.

Our aunty died Sunday. I received a text message to call home, using the emergency code. Sadness enveloped the extended family, first in ripples starting before 5 am, and then in waves as each part of the planet woke up. Each and everyone of us sobbed, "Not Teri!" My vacation was over as I hopped a greyhound home.

At four am Sunday morning my aunt moaned and said to my uncle, "Oh Jim, I hurt so much," and then she died in his arms in their little beach house on the banks of the Necanicum River in Seaside. She was 66 years old, the longest living kidney transplant recipient in Oregon. My mother gave her one of her kidneys in 1980.

We just recently found out that the kidney my mother gave was beginning to fail, but no one expected her to die just yet. She had an appointment to see her doctor about when she would have to start dialysis. They think she died of an aneurysm or blood clot in her heart.

My mother drew the short straw to call my uncle in the DR. She called the only phone number in El Llano de las Pinas that she had. A neighbor's by the name of Mercedes, who ran joyfully down the street to tell Dale he had a phone call from the Americanos. My mother heard a houseful of joyful people calling to one another that Roberta, the Americano, was on the phone. My uncle came on, laughing and asking what was so important that my mother couldn't just email him "Its Terrill Laurel, she's gone, Dale, sister's gone." He wailed. My little uncle who thinks tears are silly, living in the land of hystrionics, wailed and all around him the Dominicans joined in as he told them in Spanglish why he grieved.

How we envy him. We, who sit here in the northern clime and let the tears run down our cheeks and silently brush them away. My mother said it was good to hear them howl and wail, they who hardly knew her sister but knew the sorrow of losing loved ones know how to grieve with all their heart. We let it out in little spurts and ask to be excused for our tears. "Pardon me, I've just lost a loved one" as tears stream down our face for no apparent reason as we stand in the grocery line. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you just said, someone that I love has just died" we mumble, as we look blankly at the checker who is waiting expectantly for the debit card to be slid through the machine.

We press our lips tightly together, shake our heads and squeeze our eyes shut. We pat arms and tell one another that it will be alright. Why can't we be like the Dominicans? Why can't we be more Irish? We can't we just wail and wail and wail until all of our breath is gone? Just all sit down all together, all at once and let out a long howl? The waves continued, my sister calling a brother in Japan and another sister in Hawaii, my uncle called his son on a fishing boat out at sea. Calls inland as far as Indiana.

This was the aunty that encouraged us to skinny dip. She liked hinneys and taught us funny songs. She was the aunty that you called when you just needed to vent, but you never, ever, swore in front of. If she didn't like what you were doing she would tell you about it, but only you, she never, ever gossiped about you or anyone else. She was the peacemaker. If you ever called to complain to her she would listen but she would always ask that you look at it from the other person's point of view. She hated conflict, especially in the family. I think we all broke her heart at one time or another but she never held a grudge that I knew about.

She gave me a ring with a peridot in it for my high school graduation. I used that ring for a wedding ring the first time around and one day I looked down and the stone was gone. Shortly after that I knew my marriage was over. She also let me borrow her set of pearls which #4 stole from my jewelry box. Somehow or another aunty found out that I had lost them and #4 had them and #4 ended up with a pearl necklace out of the deal and aunty got her pearls back. I ended up with egg on my face! I am sure #4 will correct this version of the story :).

Aunty had two sons who she was very proud of and four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Each of her sons knew they were her favorite just as each of us neices and nephews secretly knows, in our heart of hearts, that we were her favorite. She did that to us. You knew you mattered to her, that you were very special to her. You knew she missed you when you didn't call and not in that naggy way that you "owe" her a phone call but in that real missed way, like because she hasn't heard from you a little piece of her day/week/month wasn't quite complete because she loved you that much. Where she got that kind of energy I will never know.

Aunty and uncle were supposed to have gone over to visit with their friends, Jim and Diana, on Sunday and uncle had to call and cancel that appointment. He told Jim to find a way to break it to Diana gently. Jim hollered to Diana that Terrill had died and Diana began to wail. Uncle says it was actually the first time he got to chuckle because he thought, "Will, hell, I could have broke it to her like that!" But that is how each of us reacted to the news. With a wail, "Not Terrill, not Teri, not aunty!"

And this grand lady wants no services! She saw the costs that went out for her parents' funerals and she was appalled. She saw the grief of the funerals and thought by avoiding the funeral she could avoid the grief for us. She asked to be cremated and placed in the same plot as her mother-in-law with the absolute minimum expense. And we all wailed, again. This thoughtful, caring, kind and considerate person forgot one thing, this isn't really about her it is about us and how can we go on without stopping a moment to say good-bye? Without giving her due regard and a royal send off?

In Hood River she is known to hundreds of people as the hair stylist of the stars. She did the hair of many windsurfers as well as pro ball players and a few other well-knowns. Yet, she would treat one of the gals brought in from the local senior citizen centers as if they were from Hollywood. Many a person used her chair as a psychiatrist couch and some as a confessional. All of their secrets she kept and literally took to the grave with her. She loved her job because she loved people and her clientele reflected it. Hood River not give their prized hair dresser a send off? She had better think again!

Should we cry for days, weeks and months seperately and alone, trying to ignore our pain? Or, do we come together and give it one good cry with as many good memories shared that our pain naturally dissolves, tears of sadness mingling with tears of laughter? Although our aunty was right so often I think in this matter she was wrong. In her humbleness she probably had no idea what an impact she had on so many lives. She never retired, her drugs that she had to take to keep her kidney going cost so much money she had to keep working, as did my uncle. Her doctor told her that he wouldn't retire until she did and when my uncle called him on Sunday to tell him he could finally retire he wept. For Teri, he would have gladly worked for another twenty years.

To Aunty Bubbles, Aunty Teri, Terrill Laura, Trinket, Trinky our peacemaker, our cheerleader, the holder of the family silver and crystal punch bowl, our etiquett guide and moral compass, we salute you and will try to be proper when the situation calls for it and skinny dip when the opportunity affords it. We promise to sit down together at dinners as a family, and we know that whenever we buckle up in the car and start our round of car songs you will be with us, singing out loud and strong the silliest of car songs:

Oh, I wish I were a bottle of pop, bottle of pop. Oh, I wish I were a bottle of pop, bottle of pop. I'd go down with a slurp and come up with a burp oh I wish I were a bottle of pop, bottle of pop!
Oh, I wish I were a bar of soap, bar of soap. Oh, I wish I were a bar of soap, bar of soap. I'd go slipp'in and a slid'in down everyone's hinney oh I wish I were a bar of soap, bar of soap!
Oh, I wish I were a fishy in the brook, in the brook. Oh I wish I were a fishy in the brook, in the brook. I'd go swimming in my nudie without my bathing suity oh I wish I were a fishy in the brook, in the brook!

She joins her parents Roy & Beatrice Woods.