WHY I WEAR POLKA DOTS TO FUNERALS

Photo: "Polka Dots and Funerals"
By Skitch

NOW:

Journal entry
On December 29th I lost a very dear friend named Laura. She left unexpectedly, younger than death usually likes them, just a bit older than me. I was floored, angry, and so sad. She was loving, funny, humble, and charitable. How can it be that people with so much to offer are taken from us when they could have stayed and continued making the world a brighter, better place for decades to come? How can it be that people that sit on their couch absorbing television, drugs, and nicotine and only getting involved with others long enough to spread hatred and lies are left to carry on? I have no answers, a few guesses, but no answers. Maybe it's all completely random and we're on our own. Maybe we chose the game and God sits back and watches us play it. Maybe Laura was saved many years of pain and heartache by leaving now. Maybe. I have no answers, but I have a plethora of questions. Why her? Why now? When me? Where do we go? Anywhere? Nowhere? Everywhere? Are we alone? Loved? Watched? Hated? Ignored? Is there a purpose to all this? Is there a plan? Are we nothing but animals, for if so we are a pitiful lot. We're an infestation that destroys it's host. If we are animals we fall, in my opinion, to the bottom of the worthy list. Even cockroaches don't destroy the planet. Even flies don't wage war. Even mosquitoes feed frogs.

All the dozens, maybe hundreds of questions, make my head spin and I fall back on instinct. Instinct tells me that everything around me is part of a creation and creations have Creators. Instinct tells me that I am loved and that life is beautiful, that humans are given the ability to make art and to see their own mortality and individuality for a reason. Instinct tells me that irony and karma are part of a plan, part of The Plan. Most of us learn more the first decade of life than we'll absorb the next three. As a child I was convinced that I had always existed and that I always would. I didn't know where I had come from but I had this feeling, this belief that I did come from somewhere, not from nothingness, not from nowhere, but from somewhere. I could absorb language, social rules, ABCs & 123s, body language, and stories on top of stories. I took most of what I was told at face value, except for three things: I did not buy into the idea that I could stop being, and I felt intrinsically that The Easter Bunny and Santa were stories told as truths. That didn't bother me though; I still believed that the world was full of magic and mysteries far greater than a fat man riding flying reindeer. I was acutely aware of Miracles, of Magic. I never felt alone. I never felt unloved. I was not the least bit afraid of death, as it was inconceivable to me that I would Stop, that death could end me. I've felt all my days like my life was the movie of the week and one day God and I would watch it. When first confronted with death, I asked, "Where did it go?" It was obvious to me that the chicken wasn't in it's skin anymore, so where did the chicken go? I now trust that, in many ways that kid that I was knew some universal truths. I fall back on her instinct when I'm overloading my brain with the questions she didn't deem worthy of her time. She did not ask, "Did it go somewhere?" She asked, "Where did it go?"

Most of the cultures on this planet have come up with their own ideas about Creation and God. I think this is because people can remember being that child that was not afraid of stopping because stopping was not possible. That thread, I think, connects us and leads most of us to fill in the blanks and flesh out the colors that we are not sure of, so we come up with different versions of God, but we come up with God nonetheless. My hero and peer Voltaire told us, "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him." I concur but will add that, in many ways we have. 

I have the funeral to go to tomorrow. I will wear the same black and white polka dot dress that I have worn to every funeral, and many festive occasions, and several ho-hum-but-blessedly-normal days over the last five or so years. I wear it because, to me, it makes a statement about death. It reminds me not to take it too seriously, to view it with my polka-dot-loving child's eyes, to remember that though it is dark and somber there are many questions, many mysteries, polka dotted throughout. It is like a silver lining on a black cloud, though the lining is peppered. I've even done my nails up to match. It's extra meaningful for me this time because the very last time I saw Laura in person she was wearing black and white polka dots and I admired them aloud. I like to think that she too was in touch with the polka-dot-loving child inside herself. I like to think that, had the shoe been on the other foot, Laura might have worn something similar to my farewell party.

This is what I wrote about my friend the day she died:

Laura being taken away by death so young is like going out on the coldest, darkest night of the year, finding some homeless people huddled around a warm flame, and stomping that fire out. The general consensus would be, "Hey! What are you doing? We need that!" 
I always imagined our little group growing old together. Laura would have made such a cute and effervescent little old lady. It was easy to believe she would have been busy making a difference for all the whippersnappers around her. And now I'll never see it. The world needed it, but we'll never see it. Sometimes life makes about as much sense as a bug full of blenders. But here I am, holding on until I find out what Laura now knows. What's next!? Until then I'm going to be a bit of an outraged bum. I needed that fire!
You will be sorely missed my sweet, joyful, friend. Light up that next place like you lit up this one. We saw you!