This morning I rediscovered a Frederick Buechner book called Telling Secrets. I wanted to read from someone sensitive and thoughtful, I hoped to find some words on grief to kind of prime that pump a little, get me thinking and feeling again. “Buechner” sounded like one of those guys.

He talks about his mom. She’s 92 and, when having trouble getting from her bed to her walker, she says things like “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me today” even though she hadn’t made it to the walker in at least a year. Buechner writes:

“It never seemed to occur to her that what was wrong with her is that she was on her way to pushing a hundred. Maybe that was why some part of her remained unravaged. Some surviving lightness of touch let her stand back from the wreckage and see that among other things it was absurdly funny.”

I want to be the kind of person who, in my old age, looks at getting older and laughs. The wrinkles, the long ear hair, the saggy bits of skin, the way my ass looks in a mirror, the varicose veins, the inescapable fact that my nose, big as it is, will never stop growing. I want to grow old and see these things and be the kind of person who laughs at how absurd it is that such a bright, strong, lovely, interesting, diligent, talented, intelligent boy with so much opportunity and so many dreams about what he could do and become, a boy with so many goddam journals full of prayers and ideas and plans could end up, at the end of it all, with terrible vision, worse hearing, such saggy buttcheeks and surprise farts. No journal writing, no big plans for the future, just hoping to god I find my goddam keys and have a great BM today.

Rowan is my first experience of death besides one other, my family’s dog. Lucy was our yellow lab. She was overweight and lush and my mom’s closest confidant. At my parents’ house there’s a cabinet with a bunch of VHS tapes. Most of them labeled something like, “Lucy in the Backyard, 1998” and, “Lucy Humps Her Bed, 2001.” My mom would have a glass of chardonnay, fire up the video camera, point it at Lucy and press “record”… The videos invariably starting with mom saying (in that excited-whispy voice all dog owners address their dogs with), “Lucy! What are you doing??” To which Lucy would do that, “I’m so excited to be here! What are you doing!? What’s that thing!? Is it for playing!? IS IT A PLAY THING!?” thing that all dogs do back to their owners. That’s how each tape starts, and most of the tapes finish with Lucy humping her bed. She was a humper.

When Lucy got old, when it looked like she was in more pain more often than we thought humane, we all got together and had a vet come over to the house. He was a ranch vet. His Jeep had big, knobby tires. In the back yard Lucy struggled while I held her down and the vet gave her a shot in her haunches. Once the shot was done I let go of her. She jumped up to her feet and came near me. I ran my hands through her hair. She seemed unsteady and decided to lie down. I crouched down with her, petting her fur. She looked at me, clearly dazed. A moment later she was gone. She was gone. Her body was there, but it was just stuff. Lucy was gone. It was just stuff.

With the ranch vet I put her body on a blanket and carried it to the Jeep. I remember how her head rocked unnaturally, her jaw rocking as we walked, when her head leaned all the way over and her tongue lolled out. Just stuff. Stuff I recognized as my old dog Lucy.

Rowan’s body was different. It came out as just stuff, but it didn’t seem like just stuff. Rowan’s body seemed like a baby. So many intricacies, the wrinkles in the fingers, the toenails, the shape of his nose… but I knew it was just stuff. With Lucy it seemed like stuff but I knew it was Lucy. With Rowan his body seemed like Rowan but I knew it was just stuff.

Maybe that’s what’s absurd about growing old, that we realize we’re just stuff. We’re capable of so much. We love so deeply and feel so much. We get our hearts broken and we try our best and we worry and strain so much about the future. We hope and we try and dream and scheme and fail and fuck it up and we have to beg for forgiveness and we get so selfish and so expansive and feel in one moment the deep connection between all of us and in the next we get super greedy… and in the end we’re just stuff. When I get old I want to laugh at that.

I want to be someone who laughs at that because I’ve always been someone who laughs. Even in that hospital room. We had Rowans body wrapped up in one of those striped hospital blankets. Mellisa was holding him. I remember when I cracked the first joke in that room. I remember because a few other bits had come up in my mind that I wanted to say, that I thought would be funny. They came up like uprooted things from the bottom of a lake, bobbing on the surface for the first time. It’s hard for me not to say them but I, of course, knew not to. Until a very calculated moment.

I had the sense the room might be ok, we might be ready for the first light hearted bit, but it was still a massive gamble. This was my son. He had died. My wife was holding his body. Her mother and our midwife, two legends among women, had been with us through the whole ordeal and were in the room. Wouldn’t I be the shittiest guy if it still wasn’t the right time to say something light? Would it reveal the truth about me, that I’m an insensitive, inane, flighty and unfeeling person? Is that the truth about me?

I made a faith call. That is not the truth about me. I can make jokes and feel deeply, and while we’re at it, heaviness is not more true than lightness. Both are necessary. They make each other tolerable. They work together. This was the rally call in my head, I was psyching myself up. I was going to say the first light hearted thing and represent the balance of all things in the face of death! (I was pretty riled up about this, like I was about to do the most deeply human thing ever.) So I said the lil’ joke which, of course I don’t remember, but it had something to do with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we were eating. It wasn’t a very good joke — I never promised anything about the quality of my jokes. I watched as my wife, her mom and our midwife all did the same thing. They each went through the same process in a second: Is this ok? Can we laugh right now? I think we can. And they giggled a little. It felt like a necessary step in the grieving process. I’ve always been someone who laughs. This was the first time I realized how important it was.

Rowan’s body. Lucy’s body. My body. My wife’s body. When all of us grow old, when the wrinkles and the sags and the grey hairs and the groans and the difficulties and the limitations build up, I want to be someone who laughs at the absurdity of our stuff-ness. Someone who laughs and welcomes in the next generation to dream and scheme and one day have their first surprise fart that catches them off guard and begins the process of discovery that awakens them to the realization: “oh shit, I’m stuff. I’m funny and bright and hopeful and there is more to come… but I am also stuff.”