Acknowledgement and Thanks

People deserve to be thanked.

I wrote the thank-you notes following the funerals of each of my parents. In Mom’s case, I wrote them knowing that my Dad would almost certainly fail to do so, and that, even if he did, his handwriting was so execrable that no one would have been able to read them, anyway. But writing letters of appreciation for flowers and contributions was just one more small responsibility I could take from his bowed shoulders.

Eleven years later, on a rainy December afternoon, I wrote similar courteous messages to those who sent contributions and flowers in Dad’s memory. Penning the notes carefully in my clearest handwriting, trying over and over to achieve a slightly different manner of saying the same thing, I attempted to express that the cards, the flowers, the contributions, someone’s presence—all were appreciated. They helped. They proved to us that Dad was loved, thought of well; that his life meant something; that he would be missed. For two and a half hours I wrote; addressing and stamping and sealing envelopes, and finally delivering them to the post office. I found the action healing. It put a period to the long sentence of my Dad’s failing health, and to the difficulties and resentments one experiences as a caretaker, and that had been such a shock to my consciousness.

But that afternoon also made me think: think of the times that I, and others, had not received either acknowledgement or thanks in similar situations. I recalled one funeral in particular, that of Cathy, who had been a member of my “Monday Night Group”, a discussion and meditation forum that I’ve attended for years. I wrote a bit about Cathy’s passing in an earlier blog post (Cathy’s Roses, July 24, 2018). Her death in a car accident was shocking, devastating all of us who knew her. Cathy, who was energetic and dynamic, riding her bike everywhere. Cathy, who in her 70s had hooted off to Nepal one summer and provided massage therapy to a Sherpa’s wife; who trotted off to Mexico to have extensive dental work done on the cheap. Cathy, who said, “If you stop moving, you’re dead”—and then ended up on life support after the accident, life support that was discontinued when there was no hope. Cathy, lively, vigorous, and often tactless, who took in waifs and strays and gave them a place to live. It seemed impossible that she was gone.

Her family arranged a memorial service outdoors in a park on a stiflingly hot day in July, and many of us from the group attended. There, hearing from them about the time that she had planted 6,000 trees in a single season to help the environment, we of the Monday night group discovered the perfect way to memorialize our companion: we anted up funds to have several trees planted in her memory in a National Forest. Meanwhile, I personally, speaking with Cathy’s daughter, mentioned an incident that had occurred following her mother’s passing—a surprising occurrence that, her daughter agreed, could only have been her mother’s spirit, reaching out. I explained that I planned to memorialize her mother in a blog post, and promised to send her a hard copy once it was published. I also promised to send her Cathy’s Talking Stick—a branch, decorated with charms representing the deceased, that would be passed from person to person as we group members spoke a few words about her in our private memorial ceremony. The post soon appeared on this blog, and I duly sent Cathy’s daughter the promised copy; her mother’s Talking Stick was dispatched to her, also.

Months later, though, all of us, comparing notes, realized that no one had received any thanks. The group’s gift of trees in Cathy’s memory went unacknowledged; I’d received no response at all to the article in her mother’s remembrance, or the Talking Stick.

Sighing, we all agreed that receiving recognition was not why we had made the effort. We’d given our time and money and actions to honor Cathy, not to be thanked.

But now, having for the second time spent an afternoon writing appreciatively to those who acknowledged the life and passing of a parent, I believe that outlook is wrong. Granted, those who have lost a loved one (and, after two years of Covid, they number in the hundreds of thousands, and we are all, every one of us, weary of loss) are often numb, in shock, and painfully unable to fulfill societal expectations of courtesy and etiquette. Nevertheless, as I found, making such an effort is, in the end, healing. It benefits the one expressing thanks even more than the recipient. And, given that people grieve differently, while it need not be done immediately following the passing of a loved one, it does, after all, need to be done. People—friends, family members—deserve to be thanked. They are entitled to acknowledgement of their efforts to care for the bereaved in their time of sorrow.

Three years following Cathy’s passing, it’s safe to assume that such acknowledgement will never be made. And that is a travesty that can never now be remedied.

If you would like to know more about the Talking Stick ceremony, you can read, “Another Talking Stick”, which you can locate in the Archives dated December 10, 2017.