Behind a fucking bowling alley? Internally, I laugh at my own morose humor.
“And it’s with this prayer that we say our final goodbyes,” the reverend directs, bowing his head once more. I follow suit this time, but when I make my silent speech to the Big Guy on the top floor of this world, I do it in the name of a whole bunch of someones who are much more deserving.
Please, God, I ask that you grant my mother happiness and eternal safety. That you give her the life she so deserved here and never got around to having. I miss her, but I know she has to be living a much more peaceful existence with you.
At the end of her life, my mother’s body was ravaged. The chemo, the surgeries, the radiation—she was a shell of the woman I once knew, and she held on way too long, just for me.
She suffered for me. Which, I suppose, is what most mothers do. But I never wanted that for her. I wanted only the woman who never stopped laughing.
And while I’m at it, I guess I’ll ask a few favors for some people on this side of your gates. My friends, as ornery as they can be, are the best guys I know. They and their wives know what the real meaning of life is and have carved out their place in happiness. Please protect that for them for as long as you can. I know I’m the last loner, but I’d rather you focus your energy on them than me.
Give their children health and their lives happiness.
My shoulders shrug as I struggle to finish it out, given the lack of frequency with which I engage in the practice of prayer.
So, uh, thanks. Hope you have a good day or whatever.
It’s not eloquent, but I’m trying, at least, and I think that’s what counts. If not, maybe my thoughts will fall on some other spiritually helpful ears.
“No matter your connection here on earth,” the reverend continues, “your relationship with Hall will live on. In your head and your heart and in the spirit of Jesus Christ our savior.”
A few quiet moments later, he nods to the funeral director behind him, and all at once, the interment begins.
Slowly, inch by inch, my father’s casket makes its descent into the open ground.
The reverend looks out to the small crowd and gestures his hand toward the casket. “I invite you to come up and say your parting words to Hall’s earthly body. Take a rose from the basket and drop it in as a veil of your love and affection.”
Stepping forward, I bury the complicated concoction of emotions threatening to bubble to the surface and grab a rose from the basket.
From this angle, above my father’s casket as it unhurriedly lowers into the ground, he doesn’t feel nearly as big anymore. In fact, it’s an amazing reminder that almost nothing is as big as it seems at one time or another. It’s all relative, and when it comes to people, we all end up in a hole in the ground—or a mausoleum or an urn or whatever, but you get my point.
My aunt Shirley—my mother’s sister—is next. And her daughter, my cousin Irene, is right by her side. They both grab roses and stand above my father’s grave, silently offering up prayers that I have a hard time believing they actually mean.
Hall Hughes wasn’t really kind to anyone during his life, and my aunt Shirley was no exception.
Yet, she doesn’t hesitate to take part in saying goodbye, bowing her head and tossing a rose from her hand toward the casket.
And her daughter begins to follow suit—bowing her head and lifting her arm to toss a rose toward my father’s descending casket. But just before Irene releases the flower from her hand, she teeters on her sky-high heels a little too long, her body tilting precariously toward the burial site.
Oh God, no.
My eyes go wide and I reach out my hand to try to stop her forward momentum, but I’m too far away to be of any help.
Aunt Shirley shouts.
Irene screeches.
And everyone in attendance, including the priest, watches as Irene’s body falls directly onto my father’s casket—that is now a good five inches inside the grave—with a thud. The cables jolt and creak, and I swear on everything, the priest mutters “Holy shit” once his huge, shocked eyes take in the insane scene that lays before him.
My cousin continues to shriek at the top of her lungs while she tries to adjust her black dress that’s now edged its way up her waist, revealing way more of her than I’ve ever wanted to see.
Aunt Shirley cries for someone to save her daughter’s life.
Thankfully, including me, some people run toward the proverbial fire, but a whole lot of other people run away from it too. Out of their seats and toward their waiting cars on the other side of the cemetery, attendees move so fucking fast, it’s like they’re afraid if they step any closer to the grave, they’ll end up like Irene.