February 8, 2022
Venancio Faundo, my grandfather, passed away on January 26, 2022. I began thinking and writing about this entry during his funeral. He was eighty years old, with an infectious laugh. Venancio will be remembered as a Knight of Rizal and a Knight of Columbus, a handyman, an electrician, a spiritual soul, and an award-winning gardener.
To be totally transparent, my writing is going to focus on death. However, I would like to stress that I want to focus on the macabre in order to recognize how it affects our lives. This fascination is nothing new. It would have, probably, been the case regardless of my current circumstance. It is odd to be back in my parents’ home after so long. My visit was due to my maternal grandfather’s passing. The trip had been planned and then moved upward due to his worsening condition. Now, death is something at the forefront of my thoughts more commonly than most. Perhaps this had to do with its constant presence in my life.
My grandfather’s daughter, my Ninang Winavee, or Wing, died in 2004. I knew that something terrible had happened to her in the past, as I was growing up. There was a vertical divot in the back of her neck, something I scarcely saw as it had been usually hidden under her long brown-black hair. It was a scar leftover from a tumor. The procedure had left her unable to turn her head. This was a specifically tragic thing, as she was once an archer. Now unable to move her neck, the bow and arrows stayed in the backyard, never to fly again.
This had occurred before I could remember. She had always been that way in my mind, and that disease lived in the past where it couldn’t hurt us. Ninang Winavee was one of my best friends. One of my favourite places to be was sitting with her and watching her play video games. She would let me run around in these worlds all I wanted, aimlessly. She could see the joy in my silly ways and would encourage me. We would watch anime together or play with toys. She would often get McDonald’s Happy Meals, even as an adult. A collection of these (particularly the Mulan set, of which she was particularly fond) sat in her closet on some shelves.
This closet was built by my grandfather. There was a light inside of it, and to me it seemed like a magical place. All of her little effects and her clothes. Toys I wasn’t allowed to touch. Of course, my little imagination ran wild, as imaginations often do.
Unfortunately, the past often comes back to haunt us. One night, she had gotten up for a glass of water. My grandmother found her on the floor of her bedroom. She was hospitalized immediately. Ninang Wing had been in the choir — they came to her room and would sing her songs. I would sit with her sometimes, hoping that maybe she would be awake and aware to see me. Regardless, the hospital waiting room was where we would do homework and play on our Game Boys. The gloom was interspaced by moments of levity.
Papa Ven would often give us pocket change. Two of my three siblings and I would get snacks from the vending machine, the fourth far too little for anything of that sort. The whirring of machinery was interspersed by Hillsong and the family supporting one another. My youngest sister would learn how to walk in that hospital. It was there we would pray, as well as in church.
When she passed, I met Death. I had seen it before, of course. On the television, and in stories, but mostly in nature. This, of course, now strikes me as unsurprising as death and nature are often hand in hand. It was usually manifested in smaller creatures. Goldfish in an aquarium at Papa’s house, for example. I had experienced the dirge of the toilet bowl flushing for not one, but at least four “Goldies,” one of which notoriously too large for The Flush. This Goldy had taken up its post-mortem residence in the freezer, where even at my grandfather’s passing, my mother joked it could still be there among the leftovers.
Of course, with meeting Death, you also come in contact with Death Aversion. Something that, once I was given a name for it much later in life, I was able to identify everywhere. There is the way that people react to it in more obvious ways, like using euphemisms. Cameras panning away in movies or TV shows, the way some even refuse to acknowledge its existence.
This aversion can be found in myself as well. Then, part of it was a lack of understanding. At Ninang Wing’s wake, I was convinced I had heard snoring. That maybe, possibly, the doctors had made a mistake and she wasn’t dead. She had one foot in the grave for months, after all. I grew used to holding her hand, trying not to be caught in the horror of the situation. Instead, focusing on when her hair would grow back instead of about how they shaved her head, those wavy locks I knew shorn away. Trying not to think about how much weight she lost, or about the hole in her neck that they made for the tube that had pumped food directly into her stomach. No, it was time to think about how nice it would be to hear her voice again, about how I would love to see her sit up again, or even open her eyes.
On her passing, we built a bear. To be more specific, two bears — twins. A matching pair of them, one to go with her, and the other to stay with my grandmother, Mama Winnie. They were both named Angel. Equipped with the suitable fixings, of course. This included more traditional things — the golden wings, a white gown, and a shining halo. We also insisted on a pair of binoculars so that she could see us from heaven. The most wonderful and most personal touch was the little voice box. When squeezed, the little brown bear would speak in our little voices.
“We love you, Ninang!”
She looked, if anything, more alive in the casket. The desairologist, the funeral cosmetologist, had done their job well. This is something I would later learn is not the norm. As a person of colour, a bad final makeup job can leave the deceased looking like an entirely different person.
And so, convinced that necromancy was real, I ran into my mother’s arms and told her that Ninang must be sleeping. Of course, this was a child’s fantasy. Mom cried, holding me and explaining to me. I continued to do what I had gotten used to doing: holding her hand, kneeling by the casket in my dress, feeling her fingers for the last time.
It was a frigid coldness that would sit in my heart.
Reality hit when they interred the body. The grave had been dug, and one by one my family members placed a flower on the vault. After the prayers, the body began to lower into the grave. As it did, my uncle and my father stood on two sides of the hole. My siblings and I were called to their side. One by one, we were lifted up over Ninang’s body. The flowers, placed atop the cross made with the pallbearer’s gloves, sat on the case. She was being lowered into the cold ground, and for a moment, I was above it.
I now know that this is a Filipino tradition. At my age, it was actually rather late for me to partake in it. Usually, the practice is reserved for toddlers or babies. It is believed that passing the children over the grave will encourage a good visit from their deceased loved one. This was something that I had, perhaps, fallen for. I remember being convinced that I could feel her angel tucking me into bed at night, even sleeping on one side of the bed to make room. Once, at recess, I told my teacher that her spirit felt “like starlight.”
When telling people about this memory, sometimes they react with horror. The idea of being suspended over a coffin is so viscerally abhorrent to them, that it’s really all they can do. In fact, while conversing with the parents of the children I educate, I was told in some families they wouldn’t even bring children to funerals. It is understandable how the idea of confronting your loved one’s grave directly could be traumatizing. However, I see it as a gift. It was a way to participate — being lifted up that way was always fun. More profoundly, it was a way to say goodbye. In a way, I was there until the very end. Being suspended in the air over her, I looked down and said my final farewells.
It is a powerful metaphor as well. The remaining adults of the family physically carry the children over the tragedy. The arms of the strong, the ties of the living, allow us to look at death and know we will always have a place in the cycle created. For the deceased, it is a promise that we will always be remembered. For the living, it is a promise that the adults will be strong and persevere.
Growing up, I continued my dance with the macabre. Obviously, part of it had to manifest in a Hot Topic scene kid way. My Chemical Romance blared in headphones on the swings. Teenagehood came and went, but I kept my grim examinations. If it had anything to do with ghosts, ghouls, vampires, or Halloween, I was all over it. This would bloom into a desire to be a Death Counsellor, maybe even a Death Doula, and a need to be Death Positive. To face it, prepare for it, and embrace Death as a part of Life.
A funeral was what brought me to my family in California. Through my great-grandmother Pura’s death, I learned about my heritage. Apparently, she had owned a bra factory and made sure to hire women to help her local community. I met relatives I hadn’t seen since my infancy. They took one look at me and knew I was Queer. The Pedagats welcomed me with open arms and waited for me to be comfortable enough to tell them about my identity. We lit up the town, going to a gay bar for the first time with my titos and tita. I came into my adolescence in the shadow of grief. The feeling of community was incredible.
By this time, I had been to quite a few funerals. These included my Tito Martin, another victim of cancer. He, too, joined the ancestors very young. His wife’s father had passed away right before this loss, in the same year. He was my Ninong Umby, a lover of music. This was the first wake I played my violin at. The song was “Yellow” by Coldplay. My father and I stood in a little alcove, practising until the last second in the funeral home. I remember being a mess, hands shaking, sweating, convinced the notes were sour. Years later, I would be assured that nobody noticed.
After I moved away, I attended my first funeral via virtual means. It was the death of a sweet old lady named Carol. Our family made friends with her at a local dog park. Her husband would build picnic tables for people to sit at, painting them the most wonderful colours. This included a Pride bench, and I greatly appreciated it. My youngest sister would lie on one of them with a gigantic Great Dane. I would play ocarina for Carol and her husband while our dogs all played together. I said goodbye to her through a screen, not knowing that the practice would become widespread in a number of years.
This continues into adulthood. I was always fascinated by encyclopedias and their scientific illustrations. In my artistic ambitions, bones are a regular subject of mine. Although they’re usually connected with death, they’re only created by living things. Bones are the scaffold, minerals given energy and structure by a beating heart.
When I graduated from high school, my journeys brought me from Mississauga to Ottawa. I was hours away, alone for most of the year. This was something that I had, admittedly, craved. It was difficult to express myself at times, especially when I decided to make my gender transition.
The distance was something I believed I needed. In Ottawa, I accomplished a lot. Over the years I educated many children, began my hormone therapy, and came into my own. It was not without a price, of course. When the pandemic hit, my routines changed very little. My health had always been on the poorer side. An injury left me using a cane, and I had already been making trips to the hospital for multiple other reasons. Growing up, I had been so used to being surrounded by family and found myself isolated from them. Of course, this was a decision I had made on my own. Unfortunately, I didn’t call as much as I should have, but I made sure to visit during the holidays.
My marriage was in 2018. My wife and I are in a long-distance relationship. We were a couple of artists and authors that found inspiration in one another. Nights were spent on voice calls, streaming video games and shows, and serving as one another’s muse. Our friends played together from around the globe for Dungeons and Dragons and other creative writing activities.
I spent the Christmas of 2019 with my wife’s family in Oregon. It was my first time not spending the holidays with my clan. It was bittersweet to be away from everyone. I promised that I would spend the next Christmas with my family. After all, I had just seen them that November.
Yet another death pulled me from Ottawa back to my hometown. Isabelita delos Reyes, known to me as Ninang Abing, was my grandfather’s oldest sister. She was Ninang Tina’s mother. Her husband, Gabriel “Gaby” delos Reyes, had died in 2017. The priest had made him seem like a pious man, which was confusing and a little laughable. Ninang Tina and my mother knew the source of the misunderstanding. Tito Gaby hadn’t been to church in years, but he had driven his wife to church every weekend nonetheless. Perhaps the priest had wrongly assumed that he also attended mass. This would later drive my mother to write my grandfather’s eulogy herself.
While sitting in a suit I tried to feel confident in, Ninang Tina recounted her mother’s life. I learned that Ninang Abing was the first of us to set foot on Canadian soil. She immigrated in the wave of Filipina nurses in the 70s. With the promise of a job, she boarded a plane with a cardboard suitcase and the clothes on her back. Ninang Abing asked the secretary at the hospital that hired her for a list of all of the Filipino people that worked there.
She went down the list, calling numbers in her hotel room until she found a place to stay. Of course, this would never be allowed in this day and age. At an event for death, I learned about her life. As I grow older, it seems to be that way. Another thing that I’m rapidly learning is that I regret not asking them more questions while they were alive.
During my holiday in Oregon, it was a wonderful time. My wife is white, and I got to experience some things that I never had before. It’s a little defined by the delicious mystery that is casseroles, something I have a warm, gooey, soft spot in my heart for now.
We walked around the small town. The days were spent making art, heading to vintage stores, and getting to know my in-laws. A number of treasures came to light in our adventures. These included some old folk song books, old cookbooks, and even a first-edition Monster Manual. Although this holiday was not all perfect, it was wonderful.
The promise I had made, unfortunately, would not be one that I would be able to keep. Ninang Abing’s funeral would be the final time I saw my Papa Ven in the flesh. We hugged one another, and he helped me into the car. Of course, I had no idea I’d never hear his voice in person again.
I was meant to visit that Christmas. The high prices of train tickets left me stranded again, but I promised to visit in the new year once I had my booster. That was a long process, but the kindness of one of the mothers I worked for made sure it happened. She had even paid for me to Uber to the Jabapalooza event in time. I had known Papa Ven wasn’t doing well, but I planned to be there in a week. The date for the trip was to be the thirty-first.
I called him for a video chat. I had known he had been deteriorating. I was prepared for the end of his life, but it was made clear to me that his mind was going as well. The older of my younger sisters was there with him, along with my Ninang Arlyn and Ninong Ev. Ninong and Ninang lived with him, along with their three children.
Laurie, my sister, held the phone up for him to see my face. Without his glasses, he seemed bewildered. His features were much more weary, and the physical change was something I had prepared myself for. What made the other shoe drop was how my sister explained who I was and where I lived. She spoke as if to an infant — slowly, tenderly.
I had wanted to ask him about the upo he grew on a trellis in the backyard. The huge, green, sausage-shaped bottle gourds that he was so proud of. I had shown him one of my pieces last year — a bound carabao skull with mango branches tangled in its horns. When I had asked my grandparents about what to paint from our homeland, they had both told me about the beasts of burden. He knew I wanted to paint the things he grew. I told him about my aspiring art career and how he inspired me. It seemed to please him as much as it could.
I spent most of the call comforting my grandmother. I found myself reliant on the skills my fascination with the morbid had taught me — Death Positivity. As his condition worsened, it crept nearer and nearer. It was decided on the twenty-sixth I should be there for the next day.
That night, I had a dream about Papa Ven. It was mostly a journey. Part of the trip was with my father. But we had separate paths to get to where we were going, even though we were headed to the same place. I walk up to a strip mall. The Asian kind, with medicinal herbs, restaurants, and gift shops. Coming into the food court, I see my Ninang Wing sitting and talking with her friends. Papa Ven is standing there to greet me. He’s wearing a red-collared shirt and khaki slacks. His white newsboy cap is on his head, dark eyes sparkling behind his glasses. He’s much taller in the dream than he is in reality. Perhaps it’s because I’m remembering him as when I was a child — when he seemed as tall as the trees he planted. We exchange a few words, hugging one another before sitting down to eat.
Upon waking, I called his house that morning. He was asleep, but I was able to tell Mama Winnie about my dream. She cried over the phone, the sobs carrying over miles. The vision had comforted her, and as I expressed the guilt of my absence, she insisted she understood. Because of the pandemic, I had to stay away for my safety and their own. My parents, whom I would have stayed with, ended up catching the disease over the holidays. To her, hearing my voice was enough to make us feel together. Internalizing that, we supported one another before bidding farewell.
Buying the train tickets was over the phone as well. A minute or two after that was finalized, I got another call. When I answered, my mother Myra’s distraught voice came over the line.
Papa Ven was dead.
She was clearly beside herself and needed her own time. I reassured her that I would be fine on my own. Shortly after, I received another call from Laurie. She was clearly in tears, calling me Ate over the line. With a cool voice I explained that I already knew. Also needing her own time to process, I thanked her for calling. When I told my wife, Jessa, she and her family ordered flowers for my grandmother from Oregon.
For better or worse, I was in my element. The funeral didn’t intimidate me as much as the overwhelming task of packing everything in a night. My father, Fred, told me over the phone that he knows I’m strong, and that once I came home I’ll be taken care of. That any past disagreements were under the bridge, and what was important was that we could support one another.
I was able to make my early train. I was wearing Ninang Wing’s red Mabuhay Bowling League letterman jacket. I spent most of the six-hour trip either napping or staring out the window. By some stroke of luck, the same day that I left Ottawa was the same day the Truckers Protest moved in. This emergency would lengthen my visit but would be chalked up as another one of my grandfather’s miracles. I wouldn’t be downtown in the middle of the crisis.
Planning for the funeral was a busy and stressful time. I wanted to make the collages for Papa’s wake. Being a mixed-media artist, I had more than enough experience cutting out paper. Stacks and stacks of photo albums sat in bags by my side. My mom was planning on taking photos of the photos, but my inner perfectionist denied this vehemently. Instead, we got to work scanning the pictures. Although my mother helped me at first, she had plenty of her own work to do.
My favourite picture had to be one of him “piloting.” He had never flown a plane himself, but he was in the navy as his first job, working on the wires. His last job would be making the wires for Bombardier. His career was bookended by flight. The original view through the plane’s window was the hangar wall. This was carefully cut out and replaced with a sunset from Hagonoy, his hometown.
In the end, it took me four days. The photos were used for the memorial slideshow, and I had my pick to create my art pieces. There were over three hundred pictures of my grandfather that I recorded in the end. It was a magical journey, flipping through page after page. I sat for hours, carefully removing and replacing photographs after digitizing them. Another one of my favourites had to be the second black-and-white photo we recorded. My grandfather stood in a line with his navy friends, grinning ear to ear and all in drag. Beautiful dresses, headdresses, and smiles so bright. Apparently, it had been a contest of sorts to boost morale. It certainly worked on me.
Like the historian I fancy myself as, I peeled back each layer. I had found myself afraid that perhaps I did not know my grandfather very well. And it was true, while there were things I discovered, I also was reminded of things that I had always known. When my friends asked about him, I was able to recount many stories. Humorous, inspiring, and human. How cranky a cat Ronin had been, how happy Papa would be to pet him again. About the MacGyver-style, upcycled playscapes he made not only for my siblings and me, but also for my cousins.
I did not know he was a Knight of Rizal until his death. Due to my own research, I knew about Jose Rizal. This sparked a pride in me, as I had also aspired to be like him. A renaissance man, soft-spoken, powerful with words. Papa Ven and I shared the same insatiable thirst for knowledge, and the same endless wonder for the world and people around us. We would go camping, and Papa would take a fancy to a particular wildflower and simply take it home, planting it and being able to coax it to thrive.
My memory flits to how he had once grown corn. Although the fruit was mostly harvested by birds, it hits me now how poetic it was to have both indigenous plants along with the ones he had brought along with him. There were so many wonderful things that he cultivated. One of his final wishes was to see his two cherry trees bear fruit again. With the climate changing, they hadn’t flowered in a number of years. My childhood was spent out back, with a metal hook Papa built. He would use it to bend the boughs down to us, filling our little buckets with white and black cherries. The halo-halo my grandmother made would cool us from the heat of the sun. Whenever that shaved ice touches my tongue, I’m transported to those days.
When Ninang Wing died, we planted a blue spruce. In 2004, it was a sapling. In 2022, I’m able to stand in its shade. There’s a chair there, along with a stone engraved with a prayer for her. When I visited in 2019, I had to search for it. It lies under the long branches now. I expressed a desire to plant another, for Papa, once the winter thawed. Instead, Ninong insisted on focusing on the trees that were already there. This, of course, is fine with me.
The first thing I did when I saw my grandfather in his casket was take his hand. This, from my observations, seems to be something few people venture to do. I understand the stigma a corpse faces, but I know that I remember them as people. I looked him over — the desairologist did a great job, matching his skin tone well enough. His lips could have used a little more colour, but that was more of a nitpick than anything. He had been in the morgue for quite a bit longer than most, due to the strain of the pandemic. It was most apparent on his hands, how the skin had dried. When I saw a stray hair on his nose, I reached in and removed it in the same way he would before a photo I’d be in as a child. As the person most comfortable, I felt it was best.
I was also the one that placed his rosary in his hands. My grandmother gave me the beads and asked me to break them. This is the custom when you bury a body with a rosary. Looking at the Knights of Columbus emblem it bore, I considered my own decolonization process as the chain gave way in my hands. I gently weaved it with his fingers, respectfully, reminded I have both indigenous Filipino and colonizer roots.
One of Ninong’s favourite pictures featured my grandfather in front of his white cherry tree, the delicate blossoms filling the background. He sat with a satisfied and sage smile on his face. Happy, with his yellow flannel and garden chair. The image was on the front of the memorial fliers we had made. The subtitle was “A Life Well Lived,” something that I have to agree with. He went out on his own terms, which is something very few can say.
Papa, like his daughter before him, would be buried with a stuffed bear. This was a gift from my younger cousins. Instead of being of the Build-A sort, it was the Bear of Caring kind. This served as a link for me to the children, who were shocked to hear that I, too, grew up watching Carebears stare darkness in the face with their stomachs.
His funeral was the one I was most involved in. Laurie had made a large oil painting of him for the occasion. It was so fresh, it was still wet, and we needed to clean the fingerprints of curious little fingers. I found myself comforting my relatives, thankful for the robust end-of-life vocabulary I had been collecting. My paternal grandfather, Papa Art, came to pay his respects. I made sure to sit with him. I told him about this project, how I wanted to return to my roots, and how I wanted to learn Tagalog. I lost my chance with Papa Ven, and I wouldn’t waste my time with my remaining grandparents.
I was asked to perform, and I thought about the last time I played at a funeral. This went much better, with my sister at my side. She sang with me at the wake, with me on ukulele. “Any Dream Will Do” was the first song; Papa was a fan of musicals and our family was fond of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The second was “Power of Your Love,” which the youngest in my family, Sydney, soloed. This song was special — Mama Winnie’s favourite, and also one that was played at Ninang Wing’s funeral. It would be eternally short the last two lines, the emotions overcoming her. At this moment, my brother Jacob and Laurie joined us at the piano.
Laurie held Sydney as she cried. Jacob pulled the mic away from them and looked at me. Immediately delegating the situation, he helped me manage my sheet music for the next song. Any of the hang-ups we had in the past simply melted away. Even though I had been distant from my brother, we shared a real tender moment that I felt changed our relationship forever. All of this healing was in the face of our darkest hours. Although it was a sentiment I often thought about, I felt it extremely viscerally on that day.
The funeral was spent reconnecting with family and friends we hadn’t seen in years. There was laughter mingling with the music and sobs. A reunion, tinted with the knowledge that all our time is short. A final gift from my grandfather, who, from his casket, reminded us of our own mortality. “As you are, I once was. As I am, you one day will be.” Looking over the slideshow, I was reminded of the friends and family he had lost that he would be joining, and that I, one day, would join in the future. Now was the time for the living.
After the performance, Jacob and I insisted on being there for the closing of his casket. This, unfortunately, would have to serve as our “Over the Grave” ceremony. There was a certain reverence in how the funeral directors produced a silver device that fitted over some mechanisms on the coffin. Turning this rodlike key, the body sank down into its box. I was unaware he was on a raised platform at all, but it was convenient for viewing. He lay almost above its walls when displayed and sank down into it before the lid was closed.
The next day, before the burial, my siblings and I dug Ninang Wing’s grave out from underneath the snow. Laurie’s fiancée, Gavin, used an ice scraper from his car. All our hands cleared the snow so we could remember her in the moment as well. I placed flowers on her grave, and an extra one on Papa’s casket in her name.
We were unable to have the children jump over Papa’s grave. The winter meant that heavy equipment was going to be used, and policies dictated we had to watch from the road. Despite this, I had discussed the meaning of it to my relatives and how thankful I was that it had lived on with me. My father and I watched at the roadside as the huge vault sunk into the ground. Our car was the last, remaining at the cemetery until the backhoe started to bury him.
I was, once again, thankful to be there until the very last moment. This time, I found myself even more grateful for those around me that were still here.
August 2, 2022
I return to my writing after a trip into the forest. There is so much I would like to say, but I only have five hundred words and I am known to ramble. Right after my grandfather’s funeral, we went through his belongings with my grandmother. His old workshop was home to all his tools and a photo of his parents and siblings with him as a child. We talked about memories and examined his old coin collection. I pocketed one with Jose Rizal on it, and my mother confided we were related to Marcelo del Pilar. While going through his possessions, I picked up a book called Hagonoy: A Shared History. Opening it up, I found a passage about traditional toys and I read his name. It turns out my grandfather had helped to write the book and he had never told us.
In his voice, I read that he believed his grandchildren had never played with traditional toys. What he did not know was that I had just been given one by a friend. It made me feel close to him. A new quest began to attain more copies of the book to give to the rest of the family.
It has taken quite a bit longer to get to this than I would have liked, as I’ve started a new job. Delightfully, I now work at the Ottawa Haunted Walk. This, of course, aligns with my Death Witch sensibilities. Being paid to wear the cloak and tell ghost stories is a dream I’ve always had. Now, I’m the Official Lorekeeper. This title has extended from being the Family Historian to being a Professional Storyteller. I find myself flourishing. My crafts will haunt the gift shop until a guest invites them into their home. I ran a booth in a market, peddling charms and collages of my own design.
I could feel myself remembering this summer fondly in the future. Connected to time in ways previously unimaginable, broadening my horizons. To be truthful, my heart is usually heavy with self-loathing. These past few months have lifted some of that burden from my soul. I’ve begun to internalize the idea that the knowledge I possess is a Gift. Not everyone has the stomach, patience, or resources to build such a robust spiritual vocabulary, especially about Death.
Kaleidoscope 2022 was so eventful I could write an entire book about the experience. This was a spiritual gathering in a wonderful place called Raven’s Knoll and in fact was my first time attending. A journalist had come to my little stall in the woods, and I had returned after some shenanigans that are a detour too long for these pages. He had requested a pendulum with skulls and other death imagery. I laughed and said he had come to the right place; of all the shops, he wandered into the domain of a Deathling.
Our conversation swiftly turned into an interview. He asked me about what it meant to be a Death Positive person. I answered, “My goal is to help the community when a living person is taking the journey to become an ancestor.” We spoke about many things, and I was more than happy to explain. He was curious about me — not only for real life but also for some creative writing he wished to do.
I began recounting stories of the week and my life — he took out his phone and began to record. I confided that my father had at first been confused and disgusted with my desire to be a Death Counsellor. By the end of my experiences with Papa Ven’s funeral, he pulled me aside and told me he had asked about the funeral home’s hiring process in an implied approval. This included me counselling a recently diagnosed cancer patient, explaining how space and time works, and my views on the universe.
The last words he recorded were, “Death is not the end. It is a transition.”
Live and die well, friends.