GRIEVER's DOSSIER // "I want to feel more"
~ with Mirielle Fontana
GRIEVER’S DOSSIER is a Q+A series that invites grieving humans to share their experiences with death, loss, life, legacy, mourning, memorials, and more. This is the sixth such dossier in the series; you can read the first one here, the second one here, the third one here, the fourth one here, and the fifth one here.
I don’t think it’s the dead or dying’s responsibility to show us our available roads and open storylines, but I do think it’s something they often do. Like a lot of us, my good friend Mireille Fontana had some big questions about occupation and vocation over the past few years, and when those questions and explorations seemed to dovetail with the need and opportunity to care for a very sick and beloved cousin, it seemed likely that new possibilities might be opening up, right alongside that which she was losing. As Mireille (it’s French, say, “meer-aye”) was cooking, cleaning, and caring for Pauline—who you’ll read about here—she slowly but surely dug into a desire to help others declutter, create less waste, and live with less white noise. And now she’s running a small business called Homeostasis, sharing a gift for organizing and creating more useful and generative spaces. If you need help with Spring cleaning in the Seattle area, I would highly recommend connecting with her.
WHO ARE YOU GRIEVING?
Pauline Lora Benson, technically my second cousin, but more like an Aunt. Really my friend, and someone I loved and respected. She died of pancreatic cancer this fall.
I was able to be her caretaker over the last several months; cooking and cleaning for her and just being with her. It was my first experience of accompanying a person in their last stages of life.
WHAT’S ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE MEMORIES OF PAULINE?
Stick Fighting. Pauline lived in Seattle’s University District. It is a noisy, busy, kinda dirty neighborhood. Her building was tucked behind tall holly hedges and an iron gate. When you walked through the gates from dingy Brooklyn Ave it was like stumbling into an enchanted courtyard. The Tudor style building surrounded a charming garden, giant swaying weeping birch, flowering shrubs, curving walkways leading to mint green apartment doors. There, on the bright soft grass, Pauline and my son Augie, age 2 or 3, each with a long stick, would sword fight.
“Do you remember the rules? Don’t hurt anyone on purpose, be fair, and if you do get hurt, you have to be brave.”
And Augie would recite the rules and say “en garde”.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT PAULINE’S LIFE?
Pauline was a minimalist, and a zero-waster before the term existed. Her garbage can was a large coffee mug on her kitchen counter. Her clothes were neatly mended and patched. Her couch was from Pottery Barn circa early 80s, and was in her house until she entered hospice this summer. She only had things she loved—a beautiful, framed Turkish leather puppet. A dresser she decoupaged with New Yorker clippings in the 80’s. A leaf skeleton she found 20 years ago. The beautiful table hand built by a great great uncle. A Chagall etching. She appreciated beauty and utility and did most things with thoughtful intention.
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND IN TERMS OF YOUR GRIEF?
I think I did a lot of grieving while she was still here. Pauline was told in January that she could be dead in weeks, or if she chose to treat, maybe a year. She died October 11th.
Over those 10 months I cried and made lists of things I loved about her and spent tons of time with her. So now, my grieving is really just missing her. Missing her laugh, her smile, her graciousness, her intelligence, her quiet voice, her ability to balance positivity with realism. I’ve sometimes been dismayed at my lack of tears. I just miss her.
DOES DEATH HAVE A GIFT? DOES GRIEF?
I am still processing the stages, from illness, to hospice, to active dying to the actual time of death—when I fell asleep with my head on her bed for 2 hours, and woke to find her gone. I guess I don’t have an answer for this one yet. Or maybe that is the gift, the experience.
WHAT DO YOU THINK PAULINE WOULD HAVE SAID WAS HER LEGACY? WHAT WOULD SHE HAVE SAID ABOUT LEGACY + ACHIEVEMENTS IN GENERAL, AND THE NOTION OF MEASURING ONE’S LIFE THAT WAY?
When I asked Pauline what she wanted her obituary to be like she made a face—a grimace really—and said “I don’t want one!” She objected to the formality, the pomposity, the lists of accomplishments and titles. My position was that it didn’t have to be like that, and that this was her chance to decide what she wanted to be remembered for, and what mattered to her, if she chose to.
The only thing she wished to have mentioned was her work with the American Foreign Service. AFS has a long history, but what they primarily do now is cultural exchanges. As a working class teenage girl in high school in Longview, Washington she decided that she wanted to study abroad. She had to work very hard to be accepted into the program; having to maintain excellent grades, extracurriculars, and overall, show herself to be a representative the organization and the USA in general would be proud of. She spent the summer of her 16th year (1961) in the north of Norway, in a tiny village with a family she kept in touch with until she died.
As an adult she continued to work with AFS, chaperoning a group of young people from all over the world in their travels. Her impact on those young people was profound, and I received letters and emails from several of them on her passing, 40 years after their trip together. That is her legacy.
I don’t even know if her obituary was published, so hear, hear!
WHAT IS OR WAS DIFFICULT ABOUT PAULINE’S MEMORIAL?
As close as my mom and I are to Pauline, she does have other family and they did not include us in planning her service which was really hard.
Pauline was an avowed atheist and her service was held in a church, presided over by a seemingly kind, shambling, ancient priest, followed by a reception where any public sharing of feelings was discouraged in favor of crudités and Rice Krispie treats. Separate tables of people socializing with members of their own tribe. The whole thing was hurried and half-assed, no photos, no slide show, no guest book, a thing to be gotten over with and glossed over in a way that was uncluttered by emotion or personal experience. Pauline’s memorial was hollow, impersonal, thoughtless, and soulless. It was slapped together, her whole life shoved into a template [insert name here].
WHAT IS OR WAS BEAUTIFUL OR GENERATIVE ABOUT PAULINE’S MEMORIAL?
Maybe just this: Don’t throw me a cookie cutter funeral or I will come back and haunt your ass forever! You got that, family?
WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WISH SOMEONE WOULD HAVE SAID OR DONE OR SEEN OR RECOGNIZED ABOUT YOUR GRIEF?
I think that a lot of people don’t quite understand how special she is/was to me. When I say my cousin died I think they imagine some friendly relative that I saw once a year. So nobody said the right or wrong thing, and I didn’t really want them to anyway.
WHAT DO YOU NOW SAY OR NOT SAY OR DO OR NOT DO WHEN YOU KNOW THAT SOMEONE IS EXPERIENCING GRIEF AND DEATH?
When my baby died 9 years ago I realized it is better to risk saying the wrong thing than to ignore someone’s grief. I feel the same today, and simply try to be gentle and open with those who are grieving, following their lead. It’s not more important that I look wise or say just the right thing. Other people’s grief is not about my ego.
WERE THERE ANY BOOKS, MOVIES, MUSIC, OR ART THAT HELPED YOU DURING YOUR MOST ACUTE TIMES OF GRIEF?
When Pauline entered hospice Kaiser gave her a notebook full of hospice related information. Included was a little blue booklet that outlined the stages of dying. It was fascinating and helpful to see so many of the changes predicted occur, and also reassuring.
Although not a grief resource, Pauline introduced our family to the beautiful Russian animation film Tale Of Tales by Yuri Norstein. Pauline and my kids and I watched it together. Since she died we have watched it, and it feels a bit like she’s there, in our enjoyment of it. It’s really a lovely film.
HAVE YOU DEVELOPED ANY RITUALS OR TRADITIONS AROUND YOUR GRIEF OR AROUND PAULINE’S DEATH?
No, I am not usually one for rituals. They often feel confining and stress me out.
WHAT’S YOUR MOST PRESENT NEED, DESIRE, OR HOPE RIGHT NOW, WITH RESPECT TO YOUR GRIEF?
I would like to go deeper. I can’t tell if I am really just fine or if there is some part of this process that I have floated over, watching from afar. I want to feel more, and I’m waiting for the other shoe. To drop, or fit, or tap dance.
WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU MOST WISH YOU COULD DO WITH PAULINE, OR THAT YOU WISH YOU COULD SAY TO THEM? OR – IF YOU COULD SPEND ONE MORE DAY WITH PAULINE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
If I could spend one more day with Pauline I would take her to her favorite place, the Toutle River. She grew up camping and swimming there, and raised her son swimming and camping there. It was really a magical place for her.
I would love to watch her soak up the beauty, and the lifetime of memories, the smell of the trees and the campfire. She would have been happy.
DO YOU HAVE A GRIEVER’S “P.S.”? SOMETHING YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SHARE THAT I DIDN’T KNOW TO ASK?
Pauline lived in Greece for a year or two, and she developed a love of Mediterranean cuisine. She used to make this fantastic dish: Chicken baked with figs in port wine. When she was in hospice I asked her for the recipe and she told me where to find her favorite Greek cookbook. While I busied myself around the house, she looked through it, showed me where it was in the book, and told me to take it home.
Weeks after she died I started thinking I’d like to make that dish, and I grabbed the book to check the recipe. I read the whole entry and at the bottom of the page, in her neat unfussy handwriting it read, “I love you, Mireille”.
This was so like her. To do something so loving, so thoughtful, to give such a special gift after she was gone.
We had this dish for Christmas dinner.
That note on the recipe... I’m wrecked. What a gift.
"it's better to risk saying the wrong thing than to ignore someone’s grief....It’s not more important that I look wise or say just the right thing. Other people’s grief is not about my ego." I love this so much. What a powerful interview. Thank you Mirielle!