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THINKING OF KETI - AUGUST 2003

It is early August in Tbilisi and even though it’s been a cooler than normal summer and we’ve had rain recently, the city’s trees are all starting to look dusty and droopy. I know these are called the dog days and I can see why – everything slows down and it’s hard to feel motivated to do much.

The first friend I made here in Georgia was a young woman who was our real estate person. Every other day or so for weeks, Keti Cheishvili appeared outside the Marriott or Betsy’s Hotel or the office in the dusty, beat-up, maroon Lada she drove, and she and I coughed (problem with the choke) our way to Vake, Saburtelo, Vere and the Ortechala neighborhoods to walk through people’s homes to see if this would be, perhaps, ‘the one’. She always greeted me with a smile and a kiss on the cheek and I always asked her how her family was, particularly her nine-year-old son, Constantine. The father long gone, the boy was her real joy in life and much of her extracurricular activity revolved around him.

Unlike the stereotypical real estate agent, she was not pushy, she listened carefully to what we asked for and wanted in a house or apartment, and she was delicate and tactful with the owners (most of whom had unreasonably large egos regarding their homes). She and I spent many hours together during the first 6 weeks of my life here. We became so familiar that she gave me a gift on my birthday, a locally painted piece, matted under glass, of a violin player in the park. When we were together in the car and she was maneuvering the bad roads and her cell phone rang, I would dig into her pocketbook, which was wedged between us over the gearshift, for the phone so that she did not have to.

In a city full of drivers who “buy” their driver’s license (there is no system of state testing), Keti was one of the best and most careful drivers I knew – and she usually managed to get that Lada up horribly steep inclines full of massive potholes or cobblestones with relative grace (and usually with heels on that old clutch). It is tragically ironic therefore that she should die in a car driven, of course, by someone else. She is gone, her delightful laughter, her kind words, her wonder at our strange lives. Although it is always a tragedy when the young die, in part because it is not natural, it seems even more so when the person is a single parent, and with a heart the size of the moon.

It was an unusually drenching rainstorm on Friday evening, July 25. Tamuna and Roger and I were eating at Steve Yu’s restaurant (as real as Sichuan food gets in the Caucasus). When Sergo picked us up at about 11pm, the downpour was still fast and furious. On that trip home Sergo had to maneuver around all the old Nevas and Ladas stalled along the roads. Apparently, since the Soviets had a monopoly on their vehicles, there was no reason to change the designs so for the last 50 years the exposed spark plugs have gotten wet fairly fast in weather like this – rendering these vehicles useless. The night was incredibly dark and the rain remained very hard for hours. As we arrived at Betsy’s Hotel, and I opened the car door, I realized that the 10-inch deep river running along the car would destroy my leather shoes so I slipped off the shoes and made a dash for it in my stocking-ed feet.

The night remained very dark apparently. From what I’ve been told Keti was a passenger in one of three cars full of friends out for the evening. Because trickle down is not a concept that the Georgian government even vaguely understands, things like well paved and lighted roads are unheard of. When the car came upon an unmarked and unlighted machine (truck?) in the roadway, it met it head-on, killing Keti instantly (we hope). The driver, if he survives, will not likely have use of his body below the neck, and may not have much brain-function either.

Death is, like birth and weddings, handled ritually in every culture. The experience here, while terrible – like it is in all cases, was, for me, cathartic and much healthier than the experiences I have had in the States. Keti had many, many friends (not surprisingly), including some in our immediate office, like Tamuna. The family is obviously in shock and not in any position to manage any of the necessary issues involved with the wake and the funeral. The friends, therefore, are the managers and they work in consensus with each other. From the day after the accident until the church service the following Thursday, from morning through early evening, the sidewalk outside of Keti’s home was packed with people. We passed them every morning on the way to work, and every evening on the way back to the hotel. The young people in the office who were her friends dressed in black every day.

The friends met and talked and decided what would be best for the family, for the now orphaned boy, and for the formalities and even informalities of the whole process. This was not the only difference between what I had experienced in the US and what I found to be much more comforting here. First, every one talked about it. What had happened, how terrible it was, how unfair and how tragic. I marveled at the discussion, the expressed anger, the tears and the hugs, and I found all this open emotion to be MUCH more helpful and normal in the process of coming to closure on such a sad event. No one pretended it hadn’t happened, no one denied their pain, anger and sadness, and no one acted as if things hadn’t changed. In other words, no one behaved as we do in so many American families.

The body, once embalmed, is placed in the casket and given the nature of this particular accident, is shrouded in white satin. The friends and neighbors visit the family during all of the days between the death and the actual funeral. On the day of the funeral, the casket (opened) is taken to the church where it is laid in the center of the nave. The family sits in the church on a bench near the open casket. At the head of the casket at a podium, the deceased’s closest friends stand reading non-stop prayers, taking turns throughout the day. The friends and neighbors who have come to pay their respects during the course of the afternoon of the funeral enter the church and slowly circle the casket. Some remain inside for some period of time and others file out quietly.

It was dreadful to watch Keti’s mother clutching her grandson (Keti’s boy) and to look upon the photo of Keti set up at the end of the casket. My heart fell into my feet and the tears welled up in my eyes. As we left the church I wanted to cry out that it was not fair that it should be such a beautiful day. It seemed too hurtful, the incongruity of the beauty of the day and the hideousness I was feeling in my heart.

Roger and I walked slowly down the long steep path through the cemetery from the church to the street. We were silent for a while, looking at the elaborate engraved headstones and the decorative plots into which families had laid their loved ones in years past. We thought of Tomo’s death in Tuzla five years ago. I was told recently that grief is compounded in our lives. When someone dies we grieve not only his or her passing but the losses we have suffered in the past. Perhaps the intense grief I felt losing Keti, who was not a family member or a long-time friend, was compounded by the losses I had suffered recently and been unable to adequately mourn. Perhaps it was just the anger that is felt when a good and loving human being is lost in such a violent senseless way.

Regardless of what it was, the grief was there. But in this culture I could cry, hug, talk and listen to people help themselves come to closure on the loss of a loved one. There is so much we learn about life by living in places that are not ours.

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