Sup Juggalos, As most of you know, I lost my mother during this deployment. What started out as a routine day out at sea, turned into two weeks of unforeseen circumstances. I worked the late watch, as I usually do. I worked from midnight to 0600 in the morning. Typically I would prepare myself for the next day and then go to bed. As well as call my wife and check my email. I was woken up at about 1300 (1pm for you non-military types) with one of my second class petty officer's telling me that our Ops Boss (a full bird captain) wanted to speak to me, asap. My first reaction is why does the Ops Boss want to speak to the Leading Petty Officer, what did my guys do to get me into trouble? I got dressed and while I was squaring myself away, my Senior Chief came down to the berthing (where us sailors sleep on a ship) and told me that I needed to hurry up and that he had been instructed to escort me to see my Captain. Wow, this is some serious stuff for me to get escorted by a Senior Chief. I we walked, rather quickly, down the passage way with my Senior Chief in front of me and my Chief behind me. I had to ask the question, was I in trouble, did I do something wrong? Apparently not. When I walked into the War Room, there stood the Master Chief, my Electronic Warfare Officer (a Lieutenant), my Deputy Information Warfare Officer (a Commander) and my Ops Boss. I felt like I was walking into a firing squad. Something big had happened for my entire chain of command to be present. Master Chief handed me a letter and told me it was a red cross message that they had just received. My heart dropped, the last time this had happened, my Father Lonne Burnell Faanes had died, he was the man that raised me and my namesake. My brain was trying to process everything that was happening. I read the message and it stated that my mother was in the hospital under critical condition and that the condition was terminal and they didn't expect her to live through the night. I didn't know what to do. My brain was on fire. I had just talked to her the day before, what was going on, I didn't have all the information. Through blurry eyes, I saw the Captain tell the Senior Chief to pack my sea bag. My Senior Chief asked if my locker was unlocked and where was the bag. I heard my Commander tell me that there was a bird waiting on the flight deck standing by for me. Huh, what? I need to call my Dad, my mother's husband who had earned the privilege of me calling him Dad. The Captain took me to his stateroom. I called my Dad and asked him what was going on. He told me that my mother had took too many pain pills and was in a coma, her organs were shutting down. All I could say was I'm on my way home. He said he didn't think she was going to be there when I got there. So I went to the berthing and got dressed into my civilian clothes. Senior Chief just threw a bunch of clothes in the bag. I asked who would stand the mid watch. He said don't worry about it, we'll handle it. I was hurried up to the flight deck, still dazed the Air Transfer Officer put my cranial helmet on me with my ear muffs (cuz it's loud up there), goggles and life vest. I walked up to the back of a C-2 Greyhound that was waiting for me. They grabbed my sea bag, threw it into the cargo area. I took my seat, buckled in my harness and waited. My brain was still filled with clouds of what's going on and what do I do now. Before I knew it the C-2 was shot off the bow of the aircraft carrier and I was feeling my stomach trying to touch my teeth as the G forces pulled my goggles from my head. I flew into Bahrain, where I called my Dad to make sure he was doing okay and to let him know that I was on my way. He told me that she was gone. Her heart had stopped and her brain was not functioning. The only thing keeping her alive was a machine and she died instantly once they unplugged her. I tried to comfort him and tell him that I would be home soon and we would go through it together. I called my wife and told her that Mom was gone. She cried as she told me that Mom would never get a chance to see JJ and Demitri grow up. I did my best to comfort her. After I hung up the phone I spent a lot of time alone in my thoughts. Trying to search through my feelings. What was I feeling? I think I was still in shock. I was torn between sorrow for the loss of my mother and a sense of duty, like I had a responsibility to my Family to keep things moving and to help my Dad. It wasn't long before I got home that the Drama started happening. My brother and sister were grieving completely different than I was. My sister was accusing my Dad of killing my Mom. This is so far from the truth that it is almost sickening to even fathom. My brother was angry, he was grilling my Dad, trying to make sense of what had happened and put it all together. I calmed my brother down and explained to him that we are all going through a wide range of emotions from shock, to anger, to the completely hysterical. But none of these things will bring Mom back. We have to deal with our emotions and pay the proper respect. My brother, being also an ordained Minister and a thinking man saw the value in those words. My wife, my youngest Demitri, and I flew into Flagstaff, AZ. There we met my uncle, my Mom's brother, who drove us the rest of the way. It's interesting meeting family that you don't have to much dealings with, because you don't really know what to say to them. I knew that my Mom and her brother reconciled over, a situation that happened years back, involving when my grandmother died. But this man had also lost his wife, not too long ago, so he told me that he felt what my Dad was going through. My step sister, Traci, was already there and she was being a big help. She made sure that my Dad was eating and did chores around the house. When we arrived I found that the ranch that Dad and Mom lived on was kind of like a little family community. Each person was helping out. Everyone gave food and shared their condolences. Some of my Dad's children showed up and we all sat around and waited til it was time to do the memorial service. The service was small and very personal. My Dad shared with us the cause of my Mother's death. Apparently, my Mom had dropped a puppy and killed it about a month ago and was depressed from that. When I had called her last she was taking the other puppies to the vet. When they had gotten home she had accidentally overdosed another puppy and it died. My Mom loved her dogs (all dozen or so) as they were her children. So she decided that since she had overdosed the puppy that she would overdose herself. She had overdosed on Oxycotin. She refused to go to the hospital. My Dad had called the EMTs and the Sheriff to get her to go to the hospital. He even tried to put her in the truck and she fought him like a bull. The Sheriff made my Mom fill out an affidavit exclaiming that she was refusing medical treatment. She just wanted to lay down. When they had woken up to start the next day, my Dad had some errands and usually my Mom went with him, but she wanted to stay in bed. When he returned from the errands, she was unconscious on the bed, foaming at the mouth. It was too late, there was nothing the hospital could do, she must have taken the rest of the Oxycotin. Hearing this information was more gut wrenching than actually typing it. As we all took it in, it was time to mix my Mom's ashes with my Father Lonne's ashes. My brother and I were the only Ministers. He wasn't in the condition to do it. Up until this point I had been the solid stone for my wife and Dad to lean on. I would do it. I very methodically and quietly put my Mother and Father's ashes together. I also put some of my Mom's ashes in an old pre-dating Christ Anasazi Indian Tribal pottery that my Mom and Dad had found on their various walks about the land. I held up the pottery and gave thanks and said a prayer. My prayer was about how we start as ash, we live our lives and leave this world as ash and as a memory. It was sobering to think as I stood there that all that was left of the Man who had raised me to be a Man and the Woman who had changed my diapers was soot and ash. But memories is what sustain us and keeps us. When I was done we all went outside. We stood by an old Anasazi Mound in our backyard. My Mom wanted to be one with the land. The day before, the Zuni Indian Tribe who had adopted my Mom and Dad, fore every year they played Santa and Mrs. Clause for them, had done their own Memorial. When they heard of the news of my Mother's death, the women lamented in loud wailing saying "She's dead, our sister is dead". I had been a rock. I had been a stone. I had stood like a soldier on the battlefield who had witnessed death and stared on. But now I was no longer dealing with my pain. I was no longer comforting my wife in my arms and keeping my Dad strong. Now I was witnessing the compassion and pain from other people. I quickly grabbed my Dad's arms, as his legs gave out beneath him and he said goodbye my love, goodbye my best friend. This was too much for me to bear. While keeping him steady I broke down as we each shared a piece of my Mom's memory and shared what kind of person that she was to the community and to our lives. We celebrated her Life and what she had given, there wasn't a person in that town that didn't know my mom. She treated everyone like they were her family. She and my Dad had worked hard and making the ranch a place where your neighbor was just the person you lived by, they were part of your Family. So much like Juggalos (or at least how Juggalos should be) these townspeople had become. Rough rugged and full of love and caring for one another. Mindful of the old ways. You see not only were people sharing their good memories about my Mom, but my brother and my sister never had the opportunity to reconcile with my Mom. My brother never had the ability to get to know my Mom. We took turns sprinkling her ashes and sharing thoughts. As us kids walked together and spread my mother's ashes, I looked down and saw a piece of pottery and remembered that if Mom was there she would have stopped everything to say "Oh look some pottery". Truly in Death we see what kind of people that we are. We drop the facade and see what condition our souls lie. We see what people are really like. We see that people deal with death differently. For some we celebrate the Life, for others we fill ourselves with sorrow and loss. For some still we do both. We also see, who greets death with love and comfort and who greets it with greed as they pick over the corpse before it has even had the chance to be put in the ground. We also learn that each Life is precious. We learn that each one of us has value, even if we do not think that we do. You will never truly appreciate yourself until you are gone and you see the impact that you had on other people's lives. We can be taken away at anytime. And all that will be left is a memory. All that people will remember is what you did in this world. I struggle to try to understand my emotions at this time. It is difficult to ascertain. It is difficult for me to analyze my feelings. You see there are two things that I have learned from my Mother's death. Some I share in the open and some I keep private to myself. Live your lives to the fullest. Love when you can Love. Do when you can do it and do not wait another day to tell someone that you love them or to do something in your Life, fore you may not have tomorrow. MCL Rev. Last Rite Presiding Minister, Founder Fellowship Of Juggalos http://groups.msn.com/fellowshipofjuggalosonlinecommunitycenter www.juggalofaith.com http://myjuggalospace.com/rev_last_rite www.myspace.com/rev_last_rite www.myspace.com/fellowship_of_juggalos www.myspace.com/foj_central_hub
