My Funeral

My father's mother died yesterday. In a couple of days, I'll be flying out for her funeral.

I've been thinking about the (mercifully few) funerals I've attended.

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine blew his head off with a shotgun. Rumor had it that he'd crossed off the last thing on his bucket list, which was “have sex,” after which there was nothing left for him to do but repent. His parents buried him in his boy scout uniform.

Shortly after Parker and I married, his maternal grandmother died unexpectedly. Helen flew us back east for the funeral. Parker's sister Liz, who had not wanted to come, spent the whole trip writing long letters to her boyfriend. The simple graveside service was poorly attended. It was August in Maryland, and the air was like butter.

My friend Lauren died of breast cancer when she was younger than I am now, leaving behind a husband and six children, the youngest of whom was just a baby. I saw her four days before she died. Except for her miraculous pink tongue, she might have already been a cadaver. “Would you like to see it?” she asked, and shyly pulled down the white sheet covering her chest. I noticed that her fingernails were black, almost as if she had been digging in dirt. As soon as I saw her breast, I realized what was really under her nails. “It looks like an apple,” she said, with a little giggle. It did not look like an apple. She replaced the sheet demurely. An angel had appeared to her, she said, with a message from God: she would be healed. This was why she was still refusing to see a doctor. When her husband asked me to speak at her funeral, I agreed. The church was packed. I stood at the pulpit, looking down at her children lined up in their pew, doing my best to honor her memory. But I just could not bring myself to close with, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

The service for Parker's great uncle was simple. The body lay in an unfinished pine casket under a pavilion. Occasionally, an airplane would fly overhead, and Denali, then less than two, would cry out, “Airpane!” I took him outside the tent and explained to him that we were at a funeral: “You cannot just say anything you want. You must be quiet. Okay?” We rejoined the service, whereupon Denali called out loudly, “Thay anything thoo want!” After the funeral, Parker's cousin, whose eulogy for his grandfather went something like, “So, like, I didn't know my grandpa all that well...but, like, he was a good businessman, I guess,” hung out with a couple of friends under a tree in his parents' garden, smoking pot and singing “Hotel California.”

I was standing right there when Grandpa Jack died. After her mother's death, Helen had moved her father out west, to an assisted living facility near where she lived. Over a period of several years, his health gradually gave out. “Why can't I die with my dignity intact?” he would grouse. After a series of small strokes left him completely incapacitated, he decided, I guess, that it was time to go. He fell into a coma, and Helen moved him to her house to die. At the time, Parker, Denali and I were living there, too, as we'd recently sold our house in preparation for our move to California. The night Grandpa Jack died, my boyfriend Scott and I met at a cheap motel. “I can't stay long,” I said, “I don't think Parker's grandpa is going to last.” I hadn't wanted to cancel the date, because Scott and his wife were also moving to California, but unlike us, they were set to leave immediately. Scott and I spent an emotional hour together, said our goodbyes, and then I rushed back to Jack's deathbed. When I walked into the room, very conscious of my naked body under my red sun dress, there was a small group of people gathered around Jack. His breathing had become very labored. Helen and her friends were telling stories and jokes, trying to entertain him, in case he was still listening. I found a funny story from Harper's that I thought he'd like. When I finished reading it to him, he took one last breath. I put my hand on his chest. I thought I felt a heartbeat. Just one. Then, all was silent.

When my mother's mother died, Parker, Denali and I made the trip up to British Columbia for the funeral. It was the last time I saw my grandfather alive. He spoke at the funeral, directing his address toward his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This is the last letter Grandma, Great-Grandma, ever wrote, he said, putting aside his emotion and projecting like an orator, as was his custom. She couldn't think very well anymore, but she still knew what was important. He began to read aloud: “Dear Ones. Hard to get going with the letters, but trying to do what is right. Feeling better in a way, tho' us of us who are not really well cause a few problems. But we try to do what is right. It's hard sometimes to do, but we must do what is right. We have had a little rain. It's 8 p.m. and time to go where all good girls go. Not feeling all that well, and it's hard to write. Hard to know what's right. However, we all should do what it is that's right.” He folded up the letter. Now, which of you little ones can tell me what Grandma's final message is to you? One of my little cousins piped up: “That we should be like Jesus?”

Less than six months after his wife died, my grandfather died of a broken heart. He'd lived with my grandma for sixty-five years, and I guess he didn't want to live on without her. I don't remember much about his funeral. I do remember sitting on a bed at my aunt's house afterward, giving my mother a head massage while my sister rubbed her feet. Three women, connected by grief. I have another clear memory from after that funeral: watching my brother sob, his head in my mother's lap. I hadn't seen him cry since he was a little boy. He'd been tense all through the funeral, and during the ferry trip back to the States, he confessed to me that his marriage was falling apart. “What would you say if I said I was going to get a divorce?” he asked. “I've tried,” he said, his voice breaking, “I've really tried.”

Now, my father is losing his parents. My grandma died yesterday, and I don't know how long my grandpa will last. He doesn't recognize anyone else anymore, not even his own children. My dad took him to see the body before they took it away. My grandpa had to be reminded more than once that his wife was not merely asleep. He kept trying to wake her up. On the drive back home, my grandpa remarked, “Boy, it sure was wonderful to go for such a nice drive on such a nice day.” “Dad,” my father said, “Do you remember why we made this drive today?” My grandfather was silent a moment, and then he said, “Because my sweetheart is dead.”

I sometimes think about my own funeral. I hope it happens many, many years from now. Perhaps most of the people I love will already be gone, and if so, I don't know that it matters very much how my life is celebrated, or not, by the people I leave behind.

But if I die before I should, I like to imagine that my funeral will finally bring everyone together: my family, Parker's family, my lovers, their lovers, our friends. I like to imagine that no one at my funeral will feel unwelcome or unloved. I like to imagine that everyone's grief will be acknowledged and let be. I like to imagine myself, as the disembodied spirit-hostess of my last party, watching as all the people I love cheer one another up. I can't imagine a better goodbye.