His and Hearse: A Funeral Procession for Grief

A few weeks ago, I used my first-ever hashtag on Facebook. Only a few people knew what #hisandhearse meant at the time, but now that the major pieces of the plan are in place, we're excited to reveal our plans for this summer.

Here's the short version: Earlier this spring, Aaron and I started discussing the idea of a summer road trip. We needed to find a the right kind of vehicle (versatile, affordable, comfortable) to take the kind of trip we had in mind. We bought a used hearse that we're taking on a 7,000-mile road trip from Michigan to California and back, with stops to across the country to visit National Parks and see friends and family along the way. I came up with #hisandhearse as a way for people to follow along with our adventures, since we like to take pictures and tell stories.

For me, the trip is more than just a fun way to spend part of my summer with my husband. For me, traveling by hearse is a symbolic way to celebrate surviving a very difficult year.

Last July, my parents were in a single-car accident on a country road. Dad was rescued, but has endured a few surgeries to repair a badly broken ankle and foot. Mom died in the helicopter on the way to the hospital; nothing could be done to save her. Knowing that has not made the last 11 months easier for our family to adjust to losing Mom. She was only 58. I had spoken with her just an hour or two before the crash. I'm one of many who were just not ready to say goodbye to her.

Anyone who has lost someone close to them understands the magnitude of such a loss. It is only through the love and support of family, friends, and sometimes strangers that I'm finding ways to keep going through a life I sometimes don't recognize as my own because it is so irrevocably changed from the plans I had before. Imagine that we go through life as a rower in a boat: we face the part of the river we've already rowed, much like we are able to see the past but not the future. Mom's death was a waterfall. After it happened, I knew I was still on the same river, but the scenery had changed completely.

Grief is not gentle. It is raw. It makes you feel acutely aware of just how painfully alive you are, in part because of how fiercely you continue to love the one who is gone. Besides the expected sadness and crying, my grief manifested itself in other ways. I couldn't sleep or eat. I lashed out in anger and became easily frustrated at home and at work. I had unpredictable and terrifying panic attacks. At times, my grief was a black kaleidoscope, fracturing and darkening everything I saw. I had been visiting a counselor, but I still I sunk into depression by November and pretty much stayed there through February. I didn't want to leave the house or see anyone, and typically did so out of obligation or guilt, ducking out of things when I could and letting my calls go to voicemail as often as possible. Grief still complicates how I process my own emotions, and it can take longer for me to react or make decisions. I take medication now to help manage my emotions--something I fought for as long as I could, out of some misguided sense of shame about needing help.

With time (and with a lot of help), I've slowly started crawling back into the world a little bit. Being able to share my grief with others has been a tremendous source of healing, and words are inadequate to express my gratitude to everyone who has supported me and my family in ways big and small since Mom died. Thank you all so much. I know I have not been easy to be around these last few months, but it is because you have all been carrying me, or pulling me forward, that I've managed to figure out where I'm going.

Part of that equation, it seems, is travel. We did a little bit of traveling this spring, going to Ft. Lauderdale and Las Vegas for Aaron's work and Salt Lake City for a friend's wedding. Even though each trip was challenging, it sparked something in me that made me remember that there is a world out there, and it would be nice to actually interact with it and to see some more of it. Aaron started talking about taking a vacation together, maybe just us, an actual vacation (not a vacation tacked on to a conference, for example). We talked about possible road trip destinations. We caught a rerun of a few episodes of Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS one night. I picked up a book about the National Parks at Goodwill, just in case.

And then, while sitting with friends both old and new in a hot tub in Park City, Utah, cocktails in hand and feeling giddy from the decadence of the situation and the effects of the altitude on our Midwestern bodies, we started talking about our idea to take a road trip that would somehow get us out to California. We had thought about flying out to Reno or San Diego or Sacramento, then renting a vehicle and driving back to Michigan--maybe an RV, maybe an SUV. Someone mentioned buying an old hearse, and we laughed a little, nervously.

But the idea stuck. We agreed that a hearse's noble history of transporting the dead was just that: the past. How wonderful that the deceased had been given one last smooth ride in a Cadillac. How wonderful that we would be able to give the vehicle a second life, with passengers who could actively appreciate it. We'd have the convenience of a camper, but the added flexibility to customize the back for sleeping and hauling our gear. In late May, we drove to Cincinnati and bought a white 1996 Cadillac Fleetwood hearse; the modifications on the interior have already begun.

This summer, Aaron and I will embark on the longest and most ambitious road trip we've been on in the 17 years we've been together. The trip, while important to us as an experience and as an opportunity to see new places together, really is a way to celebrate the end of a difficult year, and to honor Mom, who taught me that sometimes, the best thing you can do is just GO. Aaron and I started our relationship on a high school trip to Washington, D.C. because we switched seats on the bus and ended up next to each other. I was only on that trip because Mom said I could go--granted, she probably had no idea that she would be inadvertently setting up the meet-cute for her only daughter. Over the years, Aaron and I have reminisced about that bus trip as one of the best experiences of our lives, and we've long been grateful that both our moms were there for what turned out to be the beginning of our lives together. Since Mom's death, I'm even more grateful that she got to see the first 17 years of what's turning out to be a pretty decent story about the love two nerdy kids can have for each other.

I know I will grieve Mom for the rest of my life, because that's how it works when you love someone. I know there will be times the grief will feel as suffocating and intense as it did that night in the ER, and so many of the sleepless nights that followed. But I finally feel like I am ready to live more forcefully and deliberately than I have been able to since last July. I am ready to start making memories again. I am ready to haul my grief with me, to shoot it down the Interstate and drive it through this whole country, not because it will make it go away, but because I need to take it for a ride. I need to it see me enjoying life. I need grief to finally learn that it rides in the back. What better way than to strap it in for 7,000 miles and make it write postcards? What better way than to make it stare at snapshots of the lives not lost on July 29th?