A cross is carved into my Grandfather’s headstone, but I have a hard time understanding why.

My grandfather lived to the age of 90, and was many things in his life; he worked at the Cleveland Zoo as a teenager and tended to Balto, the sled dog of Idiarod fame; he sailed on the great lakes as a mate on ore boats; he served his country during World War II with the US Army Mineplanters; he was a scaleman and ran his own business for decades; he was a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather. However, I would not say that he was a religious man, either outwardly or inwardly.

The faith and beliefs of my grandfather are difficult to understand. Looking at it now from a perspective of his entire life, I would have to call him a “stealth secularist” or maybe a “hidden humanist”. This conclusion is largely drawn piecemeal from observing his actions, from listening to things that he would say, and from talking to other relatives both during and after his life.

Anytime my sisters and I would visit my grandparents when we were children we were always bundled off to church on Sundays - but my grandfather always stayed at home. If we asked why Grandpa didn’t have to go, Grandma would succinctly note that it was his choice if he wanted to go to hell, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument. That trend continued for as long as I knew him - the only time I would see him in church was for a wedding or funeral.

In general, nearly anyone could see that grandfather had a fairly jaded view towards religion. Off color religious jokes were the norm - when you called him on Easter, you invariably were told, “Sorry, I’m a bit tired today - I had to roll aside a big rock to get up this morning.” When you asked him about his school years, he would complain about how the “son of the bishop” always beat him out of the scholarships or awards. When my grandmother would yell at him about being blasphemous, he would act in a pious manner and very sarcastically bow his head over folded hands with a wink and a subtle grin in my direction.

My sisters and I arrived at the hospital minutes after my grandfather passed away, joining my parents and the rest of the family. For a few minutes we all sat alone with our grief; then my aunt raised the question of a church service. She was polling everyone to see what their thoughts were - namely, church service or no church service. I gave my considered opinion; namely, that he really wouldn’t care either way - after all, funerals are for the living. No one else in the room amongst my family or aunts and uncles seemed to have a strong opinion either way. Surprisingly, my father - who has always echoed my grandfather’s particular blend of “stealth secularism” was the one who indicated that yes, we would have a service.

So a church service it was, held in a building that my grandfather had never - at least to my knowledge - stepped into his entire life The service was conducted by a priest - a man whom my grandfather had never met. This man did not know my grandfather, but that didn’t stop him adopting an air of familiarity with him. We listened as my grandfather’s love of fishing was twisted and mingled with Christian imagery, as he told us how my grandfather was receiving his long sought heavenly reward. This was despite the fact that I had never seen evidence of him seeking this reward.

About the only thing regarding the service that meant anything to me was having the opportunity to recite a poem - reading Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night at the request of my father. To me, this poem was the antithesis of everything the priest had just spoken of, yet perfectly described my grandfather at the end of his life. According to the priest, my grandfather needed to let go of his earthly life. I never saw that in him - to paraphrase Thomas, I saw him rage and struggle against his mortality, just wanting to hold on for one more football season, one more book, one more visit from his family. The poem is all the more poignant to me, because for years my grandfather had suffered from numerous ailments - muscular arthritis, which kept him constantly in pain; macular degeneration, which made it hard for him to see; joint problems which made it painful to move. Even when the pain was at it’s most terrible, my grandfather still fought on, still tried to move, still tried to live his life the way he wanted to. Watching his struggle taught me more than any religious service, homily, or scripture ever could.

I’m not religious and neither are my wife or children, nor do we believe in a god or gods. Although both of our families are Catholic, neither of our two youngest children was baptised, and our oldest owes her baptism to the fact that my wife was a young mother at the time who hadn’t fully worked out her beliefs. The rest of my family evinces varying degrees of faith and belief, but (except a few aunts and uncles on my mother’s side of the family) nothing that I would consider intense. In my family and extended family, asking about religion and faith is something that is just not done - religion and belief are just accepted as “the way things are”. Even at that, there were plenty of areas to question when growing up - for example, my Dad would stay home from church on Sundays, but that was something that we just didn’t talk about. We didn’t eat meat on Fridays in Lent, but it was OK for Dad or Grandpa to do so. Despite church teachings, members of my family would swear or act in decidedly “unchristian” ways to others - yet this seemed to be OK as well. It’s almost as if religion were off in its own little compartment and pulled out on Sundays - only to be shoved back in its box Monday morning.

My grandfather never made his funeral wishes clear, most likely because he didn’t care. In all the years I knew him, religion was never part of his life. I find part of me wishing that I had talked to him about this issue. We were close, and I know he would have answered me. However, a bigger part of me can picture him smiling and waving his hand as if to brush off a fly telling me that I should do “whatever everyone else wants - just make ‘em happy.”

I know it comforts my extended family that my grandfather had his mass of christian burial. The thought of grandpa “up in heaven” is comforting, and the mass was just one of the items on the checklist to get there. If that helps people get through the grief, then so be it. On the other hand, to me and my family, grandpa lives on as well - not “up in heaven” but in our memories.

Note: This piece was originally submitted to Free Inquiry last year as a response to a call for submissions on the subject of death and dying. Since the relevant issue has hit the newsstands (and since I haven’t heard from them), I’m guessing I didn’t make the cut. Which means I get to post this here - but I still recommend picking up the October/November issue to read some excellent pieces on the topic of death and dying.

Well, I just jumped on the Wordpress 2.3 bandwagon. After waiting forever to get up to version 2.2 I waited a mere 23 days to go to this revision. Of course, this has less to do with me trying to stay on top of things and more with me trying to find something else to do while I bang my head against the wall working on a fairly convoluted, involved, and rather messed up (to get all technical) program here at work.

Seriously though, as always this upgrade was mostly painless - the only issue I had was with my content directories, and the only reason I had that particular problem was due to the fact that I inadvertently overwrote the directories when I was uploading the new version. No worries, though. I quick restore of a few directories from backup and life is good once again.

Kudos and thanks once again to the folks at Wordpress.org for putting out such an excellent program.

We had to have China put to sleep the other day. After 16 years, she just couldn’t keep going on - she was at the point where she couldn’t make it up the stairs, and in the last few days was having a hard time standing. I think that everyone knew that her time had come. Life just didn’t seem to be fun for China anymore.

It’s not easy to let a pet go - whether you realize it or not, you pour a great deal of yourself into them. China has been a fixture at my parents house for almost half of my life - she was around longer than Alex has been alive and even predates Beth and I dating. Having her around for so long, it was easy to take her for granted, something which I think we all were guilty of at times. She may not have been the perfect dog, but she was a good girl. She was part of the family, and in a family you take the good with the bad. Even in the case where bad occasionally equates to a mess on the basement floor.

China was named after China Garden, the local Chinese Restaurant/Bar that Mom and Dad used to frequent back in the early 90’s. One of their friends were trying to find homes for a litter of dogs and managed to convince Dad (I’m not sure Mom was so convinced) to take one of the puppies home. Shannon had just “graduated” from 8th grade (gotta love those Catholic schools - the public school kids always got a good laugh about the whole “graduating from 8th grade” bit), so that was Dad’s angle. Graduation Present! Here you go, Shannon! It’s a girl!

Taking China to the animal hospital was incredibly difficult. I carried her into the room and put her on the examination table. With the exception of Dad (who was watching my nephew), we were all there - Mom, Shannon, Corey, Jamie, and I. When the vet arrived (A Dr. Quinn. As in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. What are the chances?), she talked to us about China and the procedure. Tears glistened in her eyes as she talked about going through this with her dog a few months earlier. I just stood there and scratched the dog’s ears; she wagged her bizarre little tail.

China went peacefully in the end, with her family with her. One by one we filed out of the little exam room and off to the car for the ride home. I walked out, then stopped and went back in the room. I knelt down, scratched her ears one last time and said goodbye to our good girl.

These things always start innocuously enough, don’t they? It was a slow Monday afternoon at work - I had spent most of the afternoon working on a machine out in the warehouse, and was just getting back to my office. As I sat down I noticed that I had a new message on my mobile phone - I saw it was from a 216 area code, and figured it was just a recruiter (Once you’re on those lists, you are stuck for eternity it seems, but I digress….). The next thing I saw was an instant message from Durfee flashing on my screen.

“did you hear about dave?”

Five little words that caused the bottom to drop out of my stomach and my breath to catch. My mind raced as I checked my voice mail - car accident? accident at work? illness?

None of the above - the voice mail that I had assumed was a recruiter was from his sister Rose. It was a heart attack. At age 35 - and after riding 100+ miles in the MS150 with Durfee and I weeks earlier - Dave had a heart attack that dropped him at work. We found out later that night that had it not been for the quick action of his co-workers in performing CPR we probably would have lost Dave.

I never really know what to do in emotionally charged situations like this - situations that, unfortunately, have been way too common of late. The rest of that day - in fact, most of that week - was a blur. I called close friends and family; I sent out an email to a WJHS alumni list; and James, Durfee, and I drove up to the Clinic to see Dave.

Lindsay - Dave’s girlfriend - and a small subset of his family (Dave has 10 brothers and sisters) were there at the hospital. I’ve said it a number of times to anyone who will listen, but I’ll put it in writing here. Lindsay was a rock through this whole ordeal. If I ever have the bad fortune to be in this type of situation I’ll be ecstatic if I can handle myself half as well as she did.

Nothing prepares you for the shock of seeing one of your best friends strapped to a bed with tubes and wires protruding from his body. Nothing prepares you mechanical hisses and rasps of the machine breathing for him. That night, the three of us were able to spend about 5 minutes with Dave and Lindsay. I can’t remember much of that night - I’m pretty sure we all held his hand and talked with him. I pretty sure we all tried to make some sense of things. I know that we all had tears in our eyes as we left.

I was up in Cleveland the next day for a trade show, so I broke away early and stopped in to see Dave again. I spoke with his bother Matt in the waiting room, and he told me that things were going well, the doctors were pleased with his progress. Even better, Dave was coming off some of the various medications he was on and was experiencing moments of lucidity. Cardiac ICU has some fairly strict visitation rules - strict enough that, to be honest, I wasn’t even planning on seeing Dave that day - but someone - it may have been Matt or one of Dave’s other siblings - sent me back to see Dave.

He looked better than he did the night before - well, as good as someone can look from a hospital bed - and was moving his eyes around a bit. I grabbed his right hand and said “Dave, it’s Jay. I’m here, I love you, and there still is no tomorrow.” I’m sure that statement confused the hell out of the others in the room with me - Lindsay and Dave’s brother Mark - but it would mean something to Dave. As I spoke Dave - still in a cervical collar - rolled his eyes slightly to see me and squeezed my hand lightly.

What happened next will stay with me for a long time.

He was still looking at me when I squeezed his hand hard and said, “man, you scared the crap out of us!” and shook my head. Dave surprised me by looking right at me and shrugging his eyebrows in a very….well, Dave manner.

That simple shrug did it for me - I knew that there were still going to be tough times ahead, but just as certainly I knew things were going to be just fine. Dave was still Dave. The whole way home from the hospital I alternated between laughing and crying. Being sports fans here in Cleveland we’re all well acquainted with The Drive, The Fumble, and The Shot. Now I’ve got The Shrug to add to my list - and it is on my list alone, since Dave can’t remember any of this. But that’s OK with me.

Dave’s out of the hospital now, doing well. He has some work to do rehab- and recovery-wise, but with Lindsay riding herd on him I’m not foreseeing that as a problem. The rest of us - well, I think we all have a new perspective on life and what’s important.