Next week is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. (In Middle English, lenten means springtime.)
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| | | Alice Demetrius Stock is a Post-Gazette news assistant. Her e-mail address is astock@post-gazette.com). | |
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On that day of fasting and abstinence, like many other Roman Catholics working Downtown, I'll stop in at St. Mary of Mercy, on Stanwix Street, to receive ashes in a ritual marking 40 days before Easter (excluding Sundays). The 40 days recall Jesus' fast in the desert. The ashes come from the burning of palms used the previous year. The tradition is rooted in the Jewish custom of wearing sackcloth and sprinkling ashes on the head as a sign of repentance but, since the 11th century when that practice died out for Christians, a lot less messy.
As the priest smears ashes on my forehead, in the form of the Cross, he'll say, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."
It's not a totally morbid thought. The contemplation of death, for me, is merely the impetus for a stronger appreciation for life. But, while the Church encourages the faithful to think about crumbling to bits at least once a year, that thought is in my mind from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every working week day, as I prepare the death list for publication.
The day-side news assistants begin the death list -- the alphabetical roll call of "Latest Deaths," positioned just before the Classified Obituaries in the Local Section.
To complete the death list, I skim each of the classified obituaries and condense the long paragraphs into something like this:
SMITH, John Jacob Jingleheimer "Hymie" "Smitty," III, 99, of Good Hope, formerly of Still Valley, died Feb. 3. Rest-in-Peace Funeral Home, Woodwind.
I don't mind reading obituaries of people bound for Glory in their 100s or 90s or 80s, but I'll be 62 in April, so obits about souls in their 70s and 60s make me squirm.
An obit about anyone younger than 30, especially a child, makes me cry. The three most sorrowful words in any obituary are "accidentally," "suddenly," and "unexpectedly."
On rare occasions, I'm asked to retrieve someone's photograph for publication with the obituary. Most of the time, after knocking on the door ("The lady from the Post-Gazette's here"), I'm handed a photo ("Thanks for coming"), and that's that.
But sometimes I have to wait and, for a while, I'm drawn in to become one of the mourners -- in an apartment with a family who is sitting siva or at a funeral home where an entire high school class is in line to say goodbye to a friend.
Where the father has died and the house is full of people while little kids play on the floor and an older woman keeps repeating, "I don't know what she's going to do now. I don't know what's going to happen."
Where well-groomed people, drinks in hand, avoid eye contact with the mother who has lost her boy and who is standing in the kitchen.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her, the faces of my children clear behind my eyes and in my mouth. "I don't know how you're even standing with such a hole in your heart." She hugs me tightly, for a long time.
Where an elderly gentleman has lost his wife. We sit on the front porch swing as he tells me a story about each photo in his album, then asks me to choose the best one.
"Can I get it back?"
"I'll put it in the mail myself."
As I'm typing the death list, I'm also taking phone calls -- news dictation from reporters and stringers; from parents desperate to get an answer to their kid's homework assignment; from slap-happy saloon patrons searching for the celebrity's name that will win their bar bet; and, once in awhile, a call for help such as the one I took last summer:
"City Desk. This is Alice."
A young woman's voice says, "I need to put an ad in the paper. Right now."
"I'm sorry, they're closed." She breaks down crying. "What's wrong?"
"I just lost $1,000," she sobs. "I got it from the bank this afternoon and put it in the stroller and when I got home, it wasn't there. All our vacation money's gone."
"Are you sure? I once broke a window to get into the house and then found the keys in a side pocket of my purse, even though I thought I'd turned it inside out."
"Yes, yes, I looked all through it." More sobs. "He says I'm stupid for wanting to put an ad in the paper. He says no one will return the money. . . . Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think somebody would turn it in?"
"You're certainly not stupid for trying to do everything you can to get your money back. I think most people would return even a large sum of money if they knew where to send it. Advertise a reward."
"But what if they don't, and our vacation's ruined?"
I sighed. "In that case, you just have to face the bitter facts and start over."
She's crying again. "Hey, you can still have a vacation. There are lots of things to do right here that don't cost any money, or very little. People from all over come to visit our museums and parks and . . . Look in our Friday Weekend Magazine. You'll see plays and concerts and boat rides and historical sights; all kinds of places to go, right near by."
More hard crying. "Hon, I know that sickening feeling of loss . . . and frustration and guilt, but the only way to get rid of that awful feeling is to let it go. . . . Just, let it go."
"How can I? . . . A thousand dollars!"
"I know, but you can save it again. There are worse things than losing money; even a lot of money."
"Like what?!" she barks in my ear.
I take a deep breath and let it out. "Your house hasn't burned to the ground. Your husband doesn't have a fatal disease. Your child hasn't been murdered by a pervert and you are not DEAD, yet!"
No answer on the other end. Is she gone? Then I hear her take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"What time do they open?"
After we hung up, I pressed a tissue against my eyelids, blew my nose and returned to the death list.
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