“No.” That one word is spoken with an immense amount of conviction. “You haven’t been selfish. You’ve been selfless. You took off work, rearranged your schedule and flew all the way here just to be with me, and I can’t tell you how much I love you for that. And I do want to know what happened after I left, as much as it may kill me.” The last part was mumbled, and I can’t help but giggle at the disgusted look on his face. “But can we wait until after the funeral?”
“Absolutely.”
“I just want to get past this. And I want to enjoy having you all to myself for a little bit longer before we talk about anything else.”
“That sounds like a plan. Now,” I say, planting my hands firmly against his chest, “we should get up and get ready so we can go finalize plans for the funeral tomorrow and order some flowers.” He doesn’t budge when I push him, so I wriggle out from under his rock-hard body. I make it to the side of the bed when I feel a strong hand around my ankle, yanking me back.
“We don’t have to be there for another hour.”
My eyes widen. “Yes, but I have to get ready.”
“I’ll be quick.”
I giggle when his hands attack my body, but my laughing quickly turns to a whimper when his mouth joins in on the assault.
“Body In A Box”—City & Colour
THE ROOM IS FILLED WITH rows of chairs, each of them empty except the two Katie and I take up in the front row and one occupied by a great-aunt I’d never met before, who is seated two chairs down from us. Ida is nearly ninety and not a hundred percent with it, but she told us she’d promised my grandmother long ago that if anything were to ever happen to my mother, she’d take care of everything—and so here she is. But she didn’t want to give the eulogy, and Lord knows I wasn’t doing it. So here we are, listening to the funeral director do his best to say nice things about my mother as if he’s known her for years.
It’s likely he never even knew my mother beyond what my great-aunt shared with him when she planned the funeral. This is small-town Pennsylvania and most everybody knows everyone else’s business, but it seems my mother became quite the recluse after I left, even more so than when I saw her last.
Katie and I stopped by Mom’s house this morning to sift through a few things, and her neighbor, Shelly, stopped by. Apparently, she was Mom’s only friend, although I would bet she was more of an acquaintance and was only trying to be nice. She told us that Mom quit her job at Kroger’s a few years back and has been surviving off social security disability payments. According to Shelly, it was about that same time when Mom began closing herself off, slowly becoming a hermit.
Shelly said she would check on Mom as often as she could, mostly to make sure that she had food and was keeping up on her bills, but other times to give her some social interaction. It hurt to know that this woman was the only person my mother spoke to for months at a time. She also mentioned that over the last two years or so, Mom had become paranoid and delusional, often claiming people were after her.
Shelly was sweet, cringing at her own words as if it made her sick to be the one to have to tell me all this, but I made her continue. I had to know what my mother’s last days were like. She went on to tell me that oftentimes she’d find my Mom lying in a pile of empty liquor bottles, and that a few times she actually had to check to make sure she was alive. Sounds like Josephine, alright.
Now here she is, looking shiny and porcelain like a Madame Tussauds wax sculpture, the frown lines still running thick down the corners of her mouth. I try to avert my eyes, but I can’t stop staring at her lying motionless in the coffin with her spindly fingers crossed together.
She looks terrible. Even after the work the mortician put in, I barely recognize her. I can’t help but think that this is for the best.
Katie must recognize my internal struggle because she takes my hand in hers and pulls it on her lap, squeezing tightly.
“Are you okay?” she whispers in my ear. Without looking at her, I nod, continuing to analyze my mother’s current state. I’ve seen too many dead bodies to count, all in various stages of decomposition, but never in my life have I seen this. I’ve only been to one non-military funeral before—my grandmother’s, and she was cremated—and the ones I’ve attended have never had an open casket because the bodies were in too bad of shape.
Josephine may have been a stranger to me toward the end of her life, but she was still my mother, and as distant as the good memories are, I still have some. So seeing her like this, plastic and lifeless, brings so much pain to my heart that I feel like I have to fight to catch my breath. I don’t want Katie to worry, so every bit of anguish I feel in this moment is wiped clean from my face. She had to deal with this too—and not that long ago—so I’ll be damned if I force her to go through it again. Nobody needs to shoulder this burden but me. I’ll deal with this like I do everything else. I’ll let the feelings and emotions take hold for a day, I’ll process them on my own, and then I’ll stuff them so deep that I can’t help but forget about them … for a while at least.
The funeral director finishes his speech and welcomes us to say our final goodbyes. My great-aunt goes up to the casket first. She touches my mother’s forehead and each shoulder, delivering the Lord’s Prayer before departing the room. Katie looks at me, but at first I don’t move. I know I’m supposed to go up there, but my legs just aren’t responding to what my brain is telling them to do. It’s hard enough seeing my mom’s body from this distance.
The funeral director picks up on my hesitation and moves from behind the podium. “I will leave you guys be. Please, take your time and just come get me when you’re finished,” he says in his most sympathetic tone before following Ida out of the room.
I rise to my feet but can’t step forward just yet. My chest is burning, the lump in my throat letting me know I may just lose it if I take one step closer. I turn to look at Katie. She’s standing beside me, her hand resting gently on my back. Her touch is so comforting and I don’t want to ask her to leave, but I need this moment to be private.
“Baby, can I do this by myself? I just can’t—”
She rests her hand on my cheek, immediately cutting me off. “I completely understand. I’ll be out in the lobby if you need me.” She pulls my head down to hers and kisses my lips softly. I nearly fall into her when she releases me, not wanting to stop just yet. She shoots me the sweetest smile before making her way out of the room.
My eyes move from her to my mother, and I take two baby steps forward. I don’t know what exactly my problem is, but the closer I get to her, the tighter the pain in my stomach becomes. I take in a deep breath and rub a knuckle against each temple, then I move forward slowly until I’m standing beside the coffin. My eyes burn, the tell-tale sign that my emotions are taking over.
At first it’s just a few tears, but the longer I stand here, the more they fall. Before I know it, the tears are running down my cheeks, many of them coating my mother’s hands and the old black dress she used to wear on special occasions. It’s velvet and completely swallows her frail body.
“I fucking hate that you got this reaction out of me,” I say, wiping at my face. “I fucking hate crying more tears over you.” The words slip out before I can even process them. I know she can’t hear me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have shit to get off my chest.
“You stole a huge part of my life from me. You let your own pain and anguish negatively affect me. You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met. So why do I still fucking love you?” The tears fall even harder now and I drop to my knees, resting my forehead against the side of the casket. I’m so fucking angry, and I can’t tell whether that’s because of the person she was or the mother she wasn’t. Or maybe it’s just because I never had a chance to say goodbye—never had a chance to mend the broken pieces.