The telltale neatly packaged American Flag indicates that a military person of honor is the one being laid to rest.
This very scene depicted in the photo is familiar. 18 years ago today, my father was found dead in his sleep and what would follow was a military funeral to honor his service as a Marine in the Korean War.
There is a way, particularly through my healing work, that I have literally "laid him to rest". I have been freed of crippling resentments and bittnerness about our relationship and the time period he was alive. I have developed a deep compassion and understanding of his limitations based on in his state of post-traumatic stress and subsequent alcoholism.
As he was about to be put into the ground, the flag taking its prominent place atop his casket, I can remember, quite vividly, my brother falling apart as he could barely take in the reality of what was before his eyes. He kept saying "No!" and the tears poured down his face. He was barely consolable. To this day, I don't believe he has ever laid my father to rest. I believe, instead, that his memories -- some good and many bad -- haunt him. My brother was the only one of us siblings still in the house when my father died. Newly diagnosed and medicated for paranoid delusional disorder, my brother seemed to suffer the most from his exposure to the end stages of my father's alcoholism. My brother's mental illness impaired him from seeing reality and the reality that was right in front of him was just as horrifying as the delusions that lived only in his mind.
My sister had a strained and painful relationship with my father. She never made peace with him when he was alive. She kept his grandkids at a distance to get him back for all the ways he kept her at a distance. She never forgave him for kicking her out of the house at 18 when she got pregnant. And, my sister has never laid him to rest. Every year on this day, she dutifully places flowers at his gravesite. I believe this is the pentance she's given herself in an attempt to seek forgiveness for the way she shut my father out. She is riddled with guilt and remorse.
My mother, for the most part, moved on with her life after dad died. If anything, she experienced the kind of freedom that she had always wanted. Traveling, dinners with friends, decorating a space just the way she wanted, eating anytime she wanted, and going to bed with quiet and peace. I believe my mother put my father to rest long before his heart ever stopped beating permanently. She had to grieve the man she fell in love with before he was exposed to the horrors of war. That man never returned. I experience such deep sadness in my heart as I type this and think of how she remained for almost 40 more years as a living widow residing with the ghost of the man she once loved.
The one who I believe is resting most peacefully is you, dad. It was far more torturous to be here for you. And we are all making our way in the world without you. I think all of us, including you, are better off this way.
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