DEATH V

On May 9, 2003, I got a horrible phone call. My only uncle, my mom’s brother Valera, had passed away. There were three circumstances that made this waaaaaay more painful than any of the previous deaths. The first was the fact that he was 45. The second was that he died in his mother’s arms from acute alcohol poisoning that basically stopped his heart. The third was that there was no way I could fly there for the funeral, not in time, not that summer, all because my employer did not file my visa renewal in time. I was stuck in Boston with my grief, and a complete inability to do something about it. Moreover, I was so fucking angry at my uncle. Angry for being selfish, for going out drinking with his friends before the holiday (V-E Day, a huge holiday in Russia), for knowing what alcohol can do to him (the man was a fucking doctor, ok? A radiologist!), for not calling the ambulance fast enough. Angry for the ambulance for dilly-dallying, for making him get dressed before they tried to take him away, for treating him just like another alcoholic, instead of a man with a medical degree who self-diagnosed. Angry for the broken-down social systems in Russia that turn a talented doctor into a depressive alcoholic because his salary is not enough to live on apart from his mother, because every day he doled out 4^th Stage lung cancer diagnoses to teenage girls and working men in a dark office with ancient equipment and complete inability to help his patients, because life is just too fucking depressing and needs to be escaped. So he did. In a major way.

In Russia we bury our dead in their physical bodies. Cremation is against the tenets of the Orthodox Church. It is believed that when the day of Judgment comes, the dead will walk among the living, and they need their bodies for that. The soul also is believed to not leave the body until the 9^th day after the passing, so you kinda need the body for that as well. On the 9^th day it is good to go to the cemetery and talk to the decedent, giving them a shot of vodka covered in a slice of black bread. This usually gets drunk and eaten by the bums who hang out at cemeteries after you leave. On the 40^th day, the soul leaves this world, having corrected all its earthly sins and mistakes. It is also necessary to go the cemetery then. So this very natural system for grieving is built in, a gradual way to let go of your loved one, a way of communication that is both consoling and reassuring. My grandmother went to the cemetery every week that year, rain or snow. It helped her to not lose her mind completely. Helped my mom too. They buried Valera next to his father. Most cemetery plots have little tables and benches installed, if you wish. It’s oddly comforting to visit their graves with my mom and grandmother, and have a meal with them, telling them about the events of last week/month/year. I just wish I could do it more often, because not being able to tell the dead you love them is a terrible burden.

However, I can tell Jasmine I love her almost all the time. In June 2005 my pretty blue-eyed Tonkinese seal-point princess Jasmine, aged 11, was lying on the cool tile in front of the fireplace, and panting like a fish out of the water. She was diagnosed with a malignant lymphoma in August 2004. One day I was scratching her throat, and felt a lump. In a few days it was the size of a golf ball. My original idiotic vet put her on antibiotics, which only spurred the cancer. Once in oncology, they excised the growth and put her on chemo. The chemo made her so sick, she stopped eating and sleeping. By Christmas she was in complete remission, but literally starving to death. LK and I spoonfed her every four hours. I was exhausted and scared. I’ve had her longer than any other cat ever. She was my friend and my baby. She had the most intense blue eyes, and the most annoying, endearing meow. She did this thing, where when you were sad (and I’ve been sad a lot!) she would lie on the pillow next to your head and pet your face with her paw. She would literally stroke your cheek or forehead, as if to say “it will be ok, you can stop crying now” which of course made me cry even more sometimes. When LK came to my apartment for the first time years ago, Jasmine sat on her chest, stared in her eyes, and said “you are ok, you can stay.” So when at Christmas we knew she was suffering so much we had to put her down, we still couldn’t do it. It would’ve been akin to euthanizing a fucking person.

On the morning of January 6, 2004 (which happens to be Orthodox Christmas) Jasmine walked up to her food bowl and ate solid food. She continued to eat and gain strength and generally behave normally all through the spring, testing in remission, until we found another lump on her throat in May. By early June she couldn’t breathe. The look in her eyes as she laid on that cool tile said “I’ve done all I can, please help me now.” LK cradled her while our friend drove to the hospital. We kissed her, and held her paws while she was given her injection. When she was still, she was the smallest, most precious lump of fur I have ever seen. She was warm and supple as her life was no longer there. They took her away, and I got on the plane to Russia the next day, leaving LK to receive the cremains. We still haven’t decided where to scatter her. It’s as if while she is still here, in a pretty red box, she is with us. The Russians have a point. You need physical reminders of the dead, because once you stop thinking about the dead, they stop existing.

DEATH IV

On April 22, 1997 my Baba Zina, a grandmother who raised me as a nanny and mother and housekeeper and whatever else rolled into one, because she lived with us, and my parents were inept, died of ovarian cancer. She was the only person who knew all the names of my friends, all the things I was interested in, she taught me how to be independent and how to cook and sew and do whatever else a woman needs in life. She was also my roommate for 16 years. I last spoke with her on March 15^th or so. I knew she was dying, and wrote a poem asking her forgiveness after I got off the phone. I was so overcome, I took a leave of absence and bought a plane ticket to Russia. My parents freaked out. They thought I’d be throwing away my entire academic career, my entire future, by coming back to Russia. Russia was still very unstable, both politically and economically. I’d only planned to be there until August, and finish the incompletes I was given. They thought I might not be able to come back to the States. I argued with my parents on the phone for two days. At the end, I gave up, changed the ticket date, and went back to school. That was a very stupid thing to do. I never got to say goodbye to my baba. My parents never told me she died. I flew to Russia on June 2^nd or so. I thought I was coming home to say goodbye. It turned out she’d died six weeks earlier. I went into a depression that lasted a few years after that. I know that eventually I have to forgive my parents. They did a very Russian thing, where you never tell anyone the worst. In Russia, people with fatal diseases are kept from knowing their own diagnoses. This was very similar. I was too weak to stand my ground, and I guess at the end that it made me stronger. It also made me feel less.

A couple of days after arriving in Tomsk, I went to go see my maternal grandparents. My grandfather Yura, who’s been a diabetic for many years, generally in poor health, and bedridden for the last two or so years, was very excited about my visit. He got dressed up, came out to the dining room, and had a meal with us, having a bit to drink, very animated and interested in my news, my work in theatre, the way of life in the US. I never knew him very well, mostly due to his being very reserved from his sometime military career, and the Russian habits wherein men prefer male company. It was very touching to have him be so excited and loquacious. Two days later, in the early morning of June 7, 1997, my mom called me to tell me he has died. He did not live to be 70 by 13 days.

The thing I learned at his funeral is that I absolutely, resolutely, cannot drink vodka in large quantities. Russian funerals are a lot more involved then the Western ones are. After the wake (which is either religious or civil or both) and the actual internment of the body, there is a huge party, wherein all who attended the funeral proceed to get shitfaced. Toasts are said about the decedent, nothing bad (as you do not speak ill of the dead) and a shot of vodka is taken with each toast. My grandfather had touched a lot of people in his life. I tried to pace my shots, but I was at the head table with my family, and it was impossible to not drink. I stopped counting after 7 or so. By 5 pm my dad and I stumbled home, wherein I passed out and did not wake up until 5 pm the following day. I no longer drink vodka. Well, sometimes, but it has to be really good. Like Pravda.

I came back to the States sometime in August. The nightmares of that summer were not over though. August 31, 1997 - Princess Diana. I had this tiny teevee in my dorm room, painted like a fish bowl, and everything that came through it seemed surreal. You might remember, Mother Teresa quietly passed away the next week, and nobody really paid attention, as the world was still not right.

The next 3-4 years felt like a real breather. No significant deaths, famous or familial. I was still depressed, but functional. Then 9/11 happened. Now, I did not actually know anyone who perished, and not to sound trite, but that was a huge relief. I woke up that morning to a panic’d DJ on my alarm radiostation yelling for everyone to turn on their teevees. Just as I did, the second plane hit. I thought it was WWIII, maybe. (I always think it’s WWIII. All day today fighter planes have been flying overhead for something 4^th of July related, and it freaks me out endlessly. You can take the girl out of the Cold War, but you can’t take the Cold War out of her brain.) My hysterical mother called me, finally got through, she was watching CNN in Siberia, and just as we were trying to make sense of any of it, the Pentagon plane hit. I went to Russia that winter, and talked about 9/11 non-stop. Everyone was still very upset. I seemed to be a conduit for so many people, somebody who was actually THERE, the only person they knew who’d been to NYC, nevermind WTC. We weren’t at war yet, I don’t think, so everyone was very sympathetic to the US. It felt a little funny to represent the state of mind of an entire country where I am a non-resident alien.

Before I came to Russia, November 29, 2001 gave us my mom’s 49^th birthday, and the death of George Harrison. Of course, I was a bit more matter-of-fact about his death then 15 years earlier with John Lennon, but I still have the clipping from the NYTimes. This meant that there will never be even a remote possibility of a Beatles reunion.

I am fuzzy on this next date, but it was sometime in late December 2001, when I was already in Russia. Elizabeth Woodward was my American Grammy. She was a matriarch of a wonderful family that basically adopted me when I first came to the US. She was the same age as my Baba Zina, so I was not surprised it was her time to go. Her funeral taught me another quirk – (umm, no pun intended, you know who you are) – in Northern climes of the States, they don’t inter the bodies in the winter. They wait until the ground thaws out, and have a ceremony in the summer. In Siberia, we just use construction equipment to dig graves in the permafrost. Given the bloody history of Siberia, it makes more sense.

DEATH III

Sometime in 1986 - Baba Dunya – my maternal Great-grandmother. She’s been bedridden for many years, had strokes and was paralyzed on one side. I disliked visiting her, disliked the smell of medication, the constant gloom in her room, inability to carry on a civil conversation. I think everyone was a bit relived when she passed, it made my grandmother’s apartment less cramped. There was always a wedding photograph of Baba Dunya and Ded Mitya above her bed, where they were twenty and painfully beautiful. I want to remember them that way. When they took her outside for the drive to the cemetery, my grandmother was beside herself with grief, screaming and throwing herself at the coffin. I got to watch her do that twice more later in life. I don’t know if watching her did something to me, but I’ve never cried at a funeral. We all grieve in different ways, and mine does not involve public tears.

Two other things I learned from this death – the traditional Russian dish of kutya (sticky rice or wheat pudding with raisins and honey) you taste at funerals to pay respect for the dead tastes like shit; and kissing goodbye to a dead body that is not embalmed and has been displayed around the apartment for two days is gross. I can’t eat rice pudding in any incarnation anymore.

Winter 1987 – my cat Phil’ka – this is rather silly. Probs in winter of 1985 my dad brought home a tiny squealing ball of Siamese goodness. We previously had this magnificent Siamese cat Nestor, who was a rescue from the ruins of a demolished apartment building nearby, but somebody stole Nestor after about 2 years, and I was distressed. So when a colleague of dad’s had kittens, he brought a little guy home. He fit in the palm of my dad’s hand. My dad is crazy about cats, btw. So we named this one Philimon, for some other emperor, as the Siamese are so freaking majestic. Unlike Nestor, who was a smart angel, Philimon turned out to be a dumb brat who scratched everyone, and marked. Because he was so little when we got him, he was handfed, and he insisted on being handfed when he got older. My grandmother would cut up fish into tiny bite-sized pieces, and Phil’ka would sit on her lap and eat one piece at a time from her hand. He refused to eat anything else, or in any other way. And since nobody fixed kitties at that time, Phil’ka got in the habit of going outside to court some ladies. Until he never came home. Until some time after his disappearance I went outside to play in the snowbanks in the yard, and found his little body. Frozen, in the snow, cut clean in half on midsection by a snowshovel. I’d like to believe he was already dead by the time he got dismembered, but I will never know for sure. I got hysterical and made my dad go out, collect the cat into a garbage bag, and dispose of him.

August 7, 1987 – Anatoly Papanov and August 16, 1987 - Andrei Mironov – two very famous Russian actors, who were in multiple iconic comedies together. We tend to idolize the dead, so it’s even harder when people who are already idolized pass away suddenly with a heart attack on stage at age 41. It was a very cold summer, and Papanov’s last film “Cold Summer of 1953” had just come out, so ever since I associate cold summer weather with loss. It was also the last quiet summer before my hormones turned me into a short-tempered raging bitch until 1992 or so.

August 15, 1990 - Viktor Tsoy – this was a hard one. I was really into rock by then, and Kino was king. I would buy records when I could, they have become plentiful and affordable. Kino was music for young people sang by young people in Russian – together with Nautilus Pompilius they were very much Gen X (before there WAS Gen X). Sure, there were other Russian rock bands then, but they were all closer to my parents in age. Kino was OUR generation. Plus Tsoy was exotic and hot. They criticized the politics, but also sang of young love and angst. And that August Viktor Tsoy went on a fishing trip in Latvia, possibly fell asleep in his car, and collided head-on with a bus. I wasn’t a hard-core fan who would travel to his grave or anything, but for me this was the equivalent of John Lennon dying.

May 1991 – Yanka Dyagileva – what is it with musicians taking their own lives? She was a local rock chick from Novosibirsk, a rarity in Russia – most famous musicians then were from Leningrad. She recorded ten or so albums of acoustic angst-y rock, similar to early Ani DiFranco, very unusual and cool – women were absent on that scene until Zemfira came along, really. Then fell/jumped into a river after a long bout with depression. It’s extremely disheartening to learn to love a musician only to have them die right away.

Sometime in 1992 - Car Accident in high school. A guy from my grade whom I knew since we were 5 and his younger sister (who used to bully me relentlessly) were riding with three others from a wedding. I did not know the driver. Russian car from the 80s, seatbelts not mandatory. Wrapped around a telephone pole. Guy’s sister went through the windshield from the middle of the back seat. Driver and shotgun-riding passenger joined her. Instant death, broken necks. My classmate and his friend got lucky, the seats saved them. Later in the summer, my classmate crashed his motorcycle. Imagine being their single mother – two children dead in once summer.

1994 - Kurt Cobain – not even going to blog about this. Everyone should remember where they were.

In the fall of 1996 I entered the semester of my college career of which I have very little recollection. This was because JW (my roommate at the time) and I would get stoned on Wednesday night, stay stoned for the next four days, add some alcohol to the mix on Fri and Sat, sleep most of Sunday, and repeat the cycle the following week. Part of it was because we could. Part was self-medication. We had this joke between us, that if the phone rings at 8 am on the weekend, it’s because somebody is dead. I think the first person to die was her high-school friends’ mom, who she was very close with. Or maybe it was the friends’ gay dad. Or maybe both. Things were a bit fuzzy. Then it was my friend K’s mom. Then it was JWs grandmother. Then it was my American sister M’s dad. Then it was JWs girlfriend’s grandma, I think. Sometime around this lk’s grandmother died too. Big mess, in other words. Granted, most of these people were older. But we weren’t even 21 yet. That’s a lot of fucking funerals. We HAD to joke about it, because we thought we’d go crazy otherwise. However, the one funeral in my life that I would give anything to have gone to wasn’t meant to be that way.

DEATH II

Sometime in 1977 - Baba Panna – quite possibly the first person to die in my young life. This is only significant because I was a toddler of maybe 18 months. My great-grandmother on my mother’s father’s side was quite old (I think she was born in 1888) and blind, but I was introduced to her shortly before her death. I told my mother about this when we visited the cemetery together last summer, and she thought I was lying, because I couldn’t have remembered this woman at such a tender age. But I described the circumstanced of meeting her so clearly, I could not have made it up, and my mom was astonished. I thought I was pushing 4 years old with this memory. Then we walked to the grave and looked at the date. Like I said, I wasn’t even 2. Weird.

Sometime in 1978 - Ded Mitya – again, I am too young and fuzzy on the details. My great-grandfather on my mom’s mom’s side. They definitely did not take me to the funeral. He had had a stroke and was bedridden for the last year or so of his life. My parents used to leave me with my great-grandparents a lot, and Ded Mitya would tell me stories of fighting WWII in Berlin, and I would play with his war medals on a red velvet pillow.

July 25, 1980 - Vladimir Vysotsky – No, I could not have possibly been affected by the death of a Russian legend at the age of 4. I did not know who he was until at least 1986. But it was a huge phenomenon in Russia, people were depressed for months, and his music was everywhere that summer, from every open window. I also totes associate him with the Summer Olympics of 1980, because his death coincided with the ceremonies, and the authorities hushed it up as much as they could. Since I am doing this is chronological order, he was the first out of my heroes to die when I was growing up.

December 8, 1980 - John Lennon – Ditto. I did not get into the Beatles until 1987. I was very much into Soviet Pop up until then. My parents had a reel-to-reel machine with Abbey Road, Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour. Very subversive. I used to listen to Abbey Road non-stop at full volume. I translated the lyrics. There was no Internet or even liner notes, so if you wanted to know what a song was about, you listened 15,000 times and transcribed the lyrics, then tried to figure out what they say. So to learn that the band I was so enraptured with has broken up before I was born, and one of its best musicians was shot dead when I was 4.5 was absolutely devastating.

I cried for days. 1987 was not really a good year. I had this poster of John Lennon from the Let It Be cover next to the poster of Viktor Tsoy (see below), and I would look at them, forever young, and think that I will stay young forever as well.

November 10, 1982 – Leonid Brezhnev - February 9, 1984 – Yuri Andropov - March 10, 1985 – Konstantin Chernenko – these 3 blend together in my mind. Our school experience was highly politisized, with Young Pioneers, ideological discussions, history revisionism, teambuilding, whatevs. So when 3 leaders of the Soviet Union pass away roughly at the rate of 1 per year, and yet nothing changes, you start losing any kind of faith in the system, even if you are 9 years old. There were 5 more high ranking officials who passed away in-between these three, adding to what was slangily called "The Epoch of Lavish Funerals." November, February and March are very cruel months in Russia. It was cold and bright, hard-packed snow in Siberia, the funerals always taking place in the morning for Moscow, which made it early afternoon for us. We would have memorial services at school, then there would be 3 days or so of national mourning, entire cities would be draped is black, and while they showed the funerals live on TV, all the factories would toot their horns for the minute of silence. It was creepy and majestic all at once. The whole country would then get drunk for the mourning, not because they missed the leaders, but because they had an unexpected holiday.

Side note – in Orthodox Christianity, you display the body of the deceased in an open coffin for 3 days, waiting for the soul to leave the premises. In a state funeral, you also display the body so the mourners could say goodbye. So every time a head of state died during those years, we had endless live images of the dead old white guy in his coffin being genuflected to by important Party officials and genuine mourners alike. We only had a B&W TV then, so the picture was even more depressing. It totes desensitized me to death, right then and there. During the days of mourning, only cultural programming was allowed in teevee – ballets mostly, old movies etc. No news.

DEATH I

I was going to post about MK's wedding that I went to last week. I will. After I get through this enormous post. I am also going to try to top-post, so it all makes sense. But in case it doesn't, it should be read in order of the Roman numerals.

I often read through the night. Especially in the summer, when I know I have very little to do during the day, and can therefore be less than functional after very little sleep. This habit developed in my early teens, when my parents would bring home books borrowed from friends for a couple of days, and there wasn’t enough time for all three of us to read them in a logical manner, so we read them through the night. These were either banned books, or popular books that we couldn’t afford, or couldn’t obtain in any other way – I read “Lolita” that way, for instance, and “Gulag Archipelago” – you couldn’t buy it in Siberia, but somebody bought it in Moscow, and it would make its way around my parents’ circle of friends and acquaintances.

Now I read through the night because a book in question is too interesting in either the plot or prose to be put down, and I tend to “gulp” them. I am actually a very crappy reader, retaining little specific info from fiction, reading fast, deriving pleasure from the pure fact of reading. I do not linger, I do not memorize quotes. If I come across something good, I type it up. I read most novels for the plot points only, unless they are exceptionally well written, and the language itself captivates to the point of needing to re-read passages because of their beauty. If I recall the plot of a novel 10-15 years after I read it, it must have made a huge impression on me. I used to read almost indiscriminately, drawing the line at romance novels and historical/military non-fiction. Now I read popular novels, mystery, and biographies. Also, in the last few years I discovered I prefer fiction with strong female protagonists who echo my own experience in some way. I don’t know why other people read. I read to escape, and to relive.

Which is why this post is about death. Last night I read this novel – Finishing Touches by Deanna Kizis.

It’s quintessential Chick Lit. I am often a sucker for Chick Lit. In this novel a woman my age who has interior design aspirations loses her best friend in a car accident, and this leads to a chain of events that allow said woman to discover who she truly is, and who her friends are. How our relationships are fragile, and people never really talk about their true feelings. How it’s not too late to find yourself at 30. So of course, instead of drawing parallels with my own friendships (as I believe the author would like us to do) I went into my relationship with death. My extremely complex relationship with death, I’d like to believe. I felt the need to chronicle my personal acquaintance with death, as if writing it down will make something better, will explain my grieving processes, will make the constant terror for my loved ones dying go away.

First of – my parents are alive. As are my closest friends and lk. I have no siblings. So I have no trauma equivalent to losing your best friend at 30. Nor do I wish to ever experience that. But I have experienced many small losses over the years, which have desensitized me to death and grief. They also constantly make me think – how long before a VERY significant loss occurs? Will I be able to deal with that when it comes? I decided to recount them chronologically, mixing relatives with famous people, so take it for what you will.