Sunday Melancholia

At church this morning, the priest broke the news of the death of a fellow church-member. This fellow had multiple varieties of cancer over the past eight years and had been terminal for at least a few. Lately, it had become obvious that the end was near, and the comfort wagons began to circle. This man’s death overnight was the very definition of “expected”, but the words announcing it were a shock nevertheless. Not to me, as I (like a good third of the things said in church) did not hear it clearly, but to Catherine, for whom the news caused immediate, palpable sadness. During a break in the action a few minutes later, I solicited the decedent's name, and I realized why it had been such a sad hearing.

I spent the rest of the service thinking about death, as the announcement in church was the third brush with it I had had that morning, the first being a text from Brother Jim to the family collective noting the one year anniversary of our Mom’s death. I use that term—death—rather than any of the more gentle versions, like “passing” or “passed”. I’m not sure why, but I do not prefer them. What I do know is that whether one passes or dies, they are no more, at least in any corporeal or conscious state. That immediate disappearance of consciousness became the center of my thoughts. One day, she is here. The next day, she is not. There are memories of course, and they sustain us, but the finality of the concluding breath is unmatched in its power to terminate.

I am especially attuned to death in Catherine’s orbit, which, while I am a church member too, this latest death falls squarely into. She, for whom death has left scars deep and wide, summons compassion from a seemingly bottomless lake of it when others are grieving. Along the way, she has improved my previously inept and cowardly approach to the grief of others. A man two rows in front of us—an occasional usher at the church—lost his wife several weeks ago, (my second brush with death today) but I learned of it only recently. When we arrived at our standard spot in the back of the church, I saw him sitting there by himself, in thought or prayer or some combination thereof. I quietly approached him and told him how sorry I was about the death of his wife. We had never passed words before this outside of “good morning” upon receiving a bulletin on the way into church, and I could tell he was surprised, but he cracked a painful smile.

I have written before of the social club I have joined in town, where at 61 years of age I am probably in the youngest fifth of members. I have acquired a great many dear friends in the past three years there who are at least fifteen years older than I and who are slowing down. I said to Catherine the other day that I will have to reconcile myself to attending more funerals than I have been accustomed to. I sat at lunch the other day next to one of my friends from the club, a man I recently saw in the Amish Market in a motorized scooter, which was the first time I’d seen him on that apparatus. I mentioned it to him, and I asked if he thought he’d make the trip to Florida this year, a place he spends the winter. No, he answered, he was going to go for a little in September/October, but his declining mobility argues for being at his Maryland place. We talked a little about getting older, about how much the club meant to each of us as a means of social interaction, and then he said something that I’ve heard Catherine say about her grandmother who died at 97. “All my friends are dying” he said. I nodded. I understood.

This conversation was just a few minutes after I’d chatted with the gentleman to my right at the table, a man of ancient civility and rectitude. I asked about his wife, who I knew to be ailing. He teared up almost immediately. “Not good”. He talked about the continuity of care she is receiving, and the fact that she spent three quarters of the day asleep.

That’s a fair amount of death in a couple of days, which I guess is why I dilated on it for so long this morning. But as I sit here writing this, I am also aware of the lives that preceded death, of the great loves my friends have had and the wonderful lives they’ve led. I am centrally aware of the wonderful life my mother led, and the great pride she had in her family and herself, right up to the last moment. And then I thought about my own life, and what an enormously good run it has been. Each new day is—in fact—a gift, especially in retirement.

And as certain as I am that death is the end of life, I am just as certain that a new life begins, a new consciousness emerges in that moment. And that “life” never ends.

Sunday Roast Chicken

There is little in life to be desired so much as a Sunday Roast Chicken, and that is what will grace our table later this afternoon. Rarely are roast chickens prepared the same way twice, as either spicing, presentation, or vegetable beds are subject to alteration. This approach has costs and benefits, with the cost being that some approaches are better than others, and the benefit being that some approaches are better than others. The choice of approach usually flows from what is available at the victualer, a trip to be undertaken upon conclusion of this essay.

The general scheme of maneuver for this day will include a bed of potatoes, onions, a shallot, garlic, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, and parsnip, and some white cooking wine. I’ll shake a little poultry seasoning on the bed and mix it up well before depositing a 3-4 lb. bird atop it, olive oiled and well-salted. I start cooking in a hot (450) oven and and after ten or twelve minutes, reduce heat until the sorcery of my internet enabled temperature probes tell me it is time to pull the works out. After I remove the chicken, I mix the vegetables again, turn the oven back up, and roast them a little while longer as the chicken rests.

Sometimes I cut up the chicken. Sometimes I spatchcock it. Sometimes I do a root vegetable bed. Sometimes I just cook the chicken atop a thin mattress of orange slices bathed in wine and vinegar.

Because of the applied technology, the dicey part of cooking chicken—timing—is not a problem. So the fact is, even a lesser version turns out delicious. The Kitten is especially fond of today’s likely version, and will eat little stashes of the leftover root vegetables for days.