The time my grandfather died - Part II; The Funeral

Because death doesn't really take a holiday...

Saturday morning, people converged on the house to follow the limo to the service. I brought out pound and coffee cake. My dad had a rum and Pepsi. Two of my dad’s ex-wives shook their heads at him. He and I shared a second drink as we were leaving.

About seven cars followed us through the streets of downtown Newark to the funeral parlor. I sat up front with the driver, who asked me to hold the paddle that said “Funeral” out the window as we cruised through the intersections. I started to cry a little bit.

I was supposed to read the obituary, and a few of the acknowledgments. The night before, my sister and her mother had gone through all the cards we had received and picked out the most prominent well-wishers to have their notes read during the service. In the front seat of the limousine, I read the program for a man I loved very much, but didn’t know very well.

He had been married to my grandmother for 63 years. He died when he was 84. He had spent roughly three times as much of his life with her than he had apart from her.

She cried at the service, which ended up being another exercise in morbidity. The casket was thankfully closed, but at the end they opened it up for one last goodbye. The mannish woman who ran the funeral parlor attached a handle to the head of the casket and cranked grandpa up like he was part of a magic act in Las Vegas.

In moments like that, you are holding your breath for the hijink. You’re waiting for the lever to slip and the body to bolt upright, or the table to collapse, or even for the mannish woman to trip and fall in a compromising position. I was almost wishing for it. But nothing like that really happens at funerals. They are chillingly ordinary, and overwhelmingly sad.

I made it through my speaking part pretty well, although to me my voice sounded young and far away. People congratulated me later. I didn’t know what to say, so I would just nod thanks. And at his last goodbye, I kissed his bald head and remembered what it was like to kiss that head when it was warm, and the skin was supple with Vaseline and perspiration. I loved kissing my grandpa’s head.

They lowered him back into the casket, and we filed out of the parlor to the cars. We drove by the house on the way to the cemetery, and the number of cars behind us was considerably larger. My grandfather had meant a lot to a lot of people. My dad got out to place a flower on the door of the house, under duress. “Why me?” he asked the funeral director. In protest, he picked up the mail while he was there and sifted through it on the way to the graveyard.

My aunt had held herself together well at the service, only waving childishly as they had lowered her father back into the casket. Now, as we lowered him into the ground, she put her hands on the casket lid and pleaded “Come out daddy, please. Please come out daddy.”

When the minister got to the “ashes to ashes” part, his assistant produced a vial of gold glitter which she sprinkled over the casket. That struck me as a little theatrical, and the type of thing my grandpa and I would have laughed about if we had seen it. We would have laughed about a lot of things.

People came over again, but this time they were impatient and hungry in their grief. I found myself acting as hostess to a gigantic buffet, reheating food people had brought, getting the older guests food and drink, stocking the coolers. My grandmother retired to her room, my aunt was incapable of processing so many tasks, my father had churlishly yet rightfully decided that people could fend for themsleves, and my sister had gone AWOL - ostensibly to get “more fried chicken”, but by the time she arrived two hours later, all I wanted to do was go up to my grandfather’s room and take a nap.

I don’t think I ate anything for two days. But in the spirit of the mourners, I tried my best to get drunk. I drank all day, and into the night, but I still remained painfully sober.