rosario
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2002
- Posts
- 158
Anthony Maggio Jr. born and raised in New Orleans. Worked hard and long as a waiter and bus boy in the restaurants of the French Quarter. But Junior wasn’t tough skinned enough to survive long at any place. The first time someone joked to close to the bone the sensitive soul went home to mama. Finally he always stayed home to wait for momma. Never married. He was quick to laugh, quicker to cry, loved to sing and keep precious his Italian sayings, poems, forgettable ditties at the tip of his tongue. He spent his last few years in a home. We visited but not enough.
He died the other day. Not noteworthy. Except that life’s foibles followed him beyond his death. He was a focused spiritual man fearing God and devoted to the Madonna embodied in his mother. Catholic to the core. But without the ability to understand how to have money set aside for the inevitable, he lay on his deathbed wondering how to die and where would his body be. His mother’s last words she cried out to “put him with me”. This we all found out from Junior on many occasions. He tended to repeat things. He passed peacefully but not until we had figured out how to have him cremated and his remains placed in his mother tomb.
Cremation was the only financially feasible option We thought we could rest assured these arrangements would take place simply and our last respects would go smoothly and peacefully. That didn’t happen.
When someone dies alone without many friends and you are the only thread to family and life, the position is a sad and sensitive predicament. We loved this old man but very few others even knew him. We had to be there. We had to witness the cremation of his body and make sure his remains were cared for until we could place those ashes where he wanted to be in final resting.
On a dark rainy day we drove to Mississippi to a small cemetery. In the back a new metal building housed the office separated from the coolers and the cremation apparatus. “We took him from the cooler this morning since you said you would be here before noon” the man assigned to this task drawled. “Do you want to see him”, he asked. I replied “sure that is why we came” He lifted the cover on a card board casket with the name Maggio in felt tip pen. Never having seen a week old cadaver I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t linger long on the face of an old white male without much hair. I looked down the casket past the familiar hospital gown to recoil in horror. :”where are his legs?’ The bewildered mortician blurted back “what legs”? “My uncles legs, he had legs, they weren’t cut off”. “Is this your uncle”? he asked. Then I realized that the swollen face was smaller and different, not him. We recoiled from the sight as if we were not supposed to see someone else in this position. Like we had looked into another families privates past. “This must be him” the mortician said shakily, as he pointed to the small plastic box on a chair next to the apparatus. There is what remains of my poor uncles’ life in this world. Mistaken, forgotten, the short end of the stick even after death in complete submission.
I write this because even though my uncle died penniless and without friends he deserved better. He was a gentle soul, rather saint like in his devotion to his family. I want others to be aware that our culture has given everything over to experts at every juncture. We turn over completely our children to teachers or worse yet sit them in front of a TV to figure it out for themselves. We give our health to a doctor. We let someone else take care of our dead. Completely. Well something’s have to be watched more carefully. It was not convenient to drive far away to attend a grisly task. How else are you sure what is to happen really takes place, unless you are there to witness. Watch what your teachers are doing, watch how your caregivers give care, and watch every detail of your loved ones final wishes.
He died the other day. Not noteworthy. Except that life’s foibles followed him beyond his death. He was a focused spiritual man fearing God and devoted to the Madonna embodied in his mother. Catholic to the core. But without the ability to understand how to have money set aside for the inevitable, he lay on his deathbed wondering how to die and where would his body be. His mother’s last words she cried out to “put him with me”. This we all found out from Junior on many occasions. He tended to repeat things. He passed peacefully but not until we had figured out how to have him cremated and his remains placed in his mother tomb.
Cremation was the only financially feasible option We thought we could rest assured these arrangements would take place simply and our last respects would go smoothly and peacefully. That didn’t happen.
When someone dies alone without many friends and you are the only thread to family and life, the position is a sad and sensitive predicament. We loved this old man but very few others even knew him. We had to be there. We had to witness the cremation of his body and make sure his remains were cared for until we could place those ashes where he wanted to be in final resting.
On a dark rainy day we drove to Mississippi to a small cemetery. In the back a new metal building housed the office separated from the coolers and the cremation apparatus. “We took him from the cooler this morning since you said you would be here before noon” the man assigned to this task drawled. “Do you want to see him”, he asked. I replied “sure that is why we came” He lifted the cover on a card board casket with the name Maggio in felt tip pen. Never having seen a week old cadaver I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t linger long on the face of an old white male without much hair. I looked down the casket past the familiar hospital gown to recoil in horror. :”where are his legs?’ The bewildered mortician blurted back “what legs”? “My uncles legs, he had legs, they weren’t cut off”. “Is this your uncle”? he asked. Then I realized that the swollen face was smaller and different, not him. We recoiled from the sight as if we were not supposed to see someone else in this position. Like we had looked into another families privates past. “This must be him” the mortician said shakily, as he pointed to the small plastic box on a chair next to the apparatus. There is what remains of my poor uncles’ life in this world. Mistaken, forgotten, the short end of the stick even after death in complete submission.
I write this because even though my uncle died penniless and without friends he deserved better. He was a gentle soul, rather saint like in his devotion to his family. I want others to be aware that our culture has given everything over to experts at every juncture. We turn over completely our children to teachers or worse yet sit them in front of a TV to figure it out for themselves. We give our health to a doctor. We let someone else take care of our dead. Completely. Well something’s have to be watched more carefully. It was not convenient to drive far away to attend a grisly task. How else are you sure what is to happen really takes place, unless you are there to witness. Watch what your teachers are doing, watch how your caregivers give care, and watch every detail of your loved ones final wishes.
