My uncle, Richard Emmet Maloney, died a couple weeks ago.  After a long, healthy life, he went through a year of lung cancer, mostly without pain, and passed away on St. Patrick’s Day which was also his mother’s birthday; looks to me like he picked his day.  I haven’t even begun to fathom the meaning of this loss, in part because it’s still so new, and also because I’ve been so busy taking care of his business matters and carrying out his funeral arrangements.  It’s an experience like no other: planning a service, a reception, and the logistics of a burial, all within a short period of time. Something I had never been in charge of before, and something you don’t get much practice in beforehand.

I was Uncle Dick’s Durable Power of Attorney, able to transact business for him, and also became a health care proxy for him as his health declined. He ended up at the Vermont Vets home, where he received very good care, and spent his final days in their “End of Life” room. My uncle was a bachelor who never married, but took care of his mother after his father’s death, and then helped my mother, his sister, raise six children after my father’s death. Since he had no spouse or children of his own, I became primary caretaker from three hours away, and with my own growing family to look after.   

In some ways, planning and carrying out the funeral was easy, as these things go. The list of requests was short. For a man who had little material wealth, he had money put aside for his funeral.  After retirement, he had returned to his hometown of Bennington, VT.  The service was at St. Francis/Sacred Heart Church, where he’d been baptized and served as an altar boy. The Mahar Funeral home had done his brothers’ arrangements, those that died young and Uncle Johnny in old age, as well as their father’s, James Maloney’s. Dick is buried in Park Lawn Cemetery, next to his Maloney grandparents, up the hill from his own parents, in one of the most beautiful cemeteries in a state with many cemeteries of broad mountain vistas and deep green valleys. In other words, the way to his death had been well paved. 

The challenge was in the details: choice of casket, choice of vault, music for the service, readings, eulogy, pallbearers and where to send out the obituary notices.  True, between the funeral directors and the Catholic church, there was a lot of guidance and precedence, shall we say?  Still, it’s work, and not easy to arrange from hundreds of miles away, and with busy teens at home, even with the wonders of fax and email.  So, we did it committee style, splitting most of the jobs between the siblings: Sheila on service and program, Maura on obituary, Shavaun on flowers, Jim and Kelly on reception.  Plus, the help of local relatives, Kathy and Dolores, who were also close to Dick. That left me, in main, as coordinator and bill payer.  Poor Bill at the Funeral Home, when I told him my sister would be calling:  “Which sister would that be?” He could hardly keep track.

In the end, it was a lovely funeral, one I think Dick would have liked.  He got his three priests on the altar, which we had doubted.  The church was beautiful, the service both personal and full of ritual.  Many family members, including children, were able to take part, including my boys as pallbearers.  And now that it’s over, I am happy and relieved.  But older and sadder, closer to my own mortality.  Arranging the funeral of someone I loved dearly, a caretaker of my childhood, whose prayers and support I will no longer have, was a milestone I was in no hurry to reach — a part of growing up I don’t think I will ever get used to.