Episode 118: Putting the 'fun' in funeral

So, I must apologize. I promised I would post this on Friday and I thought I had, but upon logging in to the site today I realized that it still said 'draft' next to this. So, sorry it is a couple of days late.

As I mentioned on Thursday, I spent a good amount of time last week at my grandmother's funeral in Western Massachusetts. This not only marked the first time I have spent any significant amount of time at home in a few years, but also the first time in much longer that I was able to spend time with family beyond my parents and sister, for better or worse. This, obviously, left me very much outside my comfort zone and we all know, as tiny as that zone is, it makes for a much more functional experience if I am calm and relaxed.

Although my grandmother lived well in to her 90's, I feel like the entire family has been waiting for this day since 1987. That was when my grandfather died and it wasn't too long after that my grandmother started experiencing health problems of her own. Not that anyone wanted her to die, I think everyone just expected it. Literally every single year, starting with my preschool graduation, my mother at some point would remind me of how important it was to do something because 'This could be the last time Gram gets to celebrate (insert event here).' One of my least favorite things to do as a kid was go to the annual family picnic, I hated being forced in to spending time with every kid in the family that was in the same age range as myself and having my face pinched by smelly old aunts, but every year my mother would say 'You have to go because it is important to Gram and this could be her last picnic.' Needless to say, it was never Gram's last picnic. In fact, much to everyone's surprise, the picnics ended before she did. This pessimistic attitude that our family displayed, along with the obvious rapid decline of Gram's health over the past two years, really went a long way in preparing everyone for last Friday when she actually died- 23 years after my grandfather.

Because of the inevitability of the situation, I think everyone, or at least myself, kind of looked at Gram's funeral- whenever it was going to happen- as kind of the next, last big family event. While most everyone from Gram's immediate family, children, grandchildren, cousins, aunts, and the like all live fairly close to her, there were many of us that did not and only made it home for sporadic special occasions. This stressed me out. Going home and seeing all of those people, as well as having to deal with my own feelings and those who are close to me feeling sad all combined to give me a relatively pessimistic attitude going in to the week's events.

Monica and I managed to get the trip started off on the right foot, though, meeting my cousins from Rhode Island, who I rarely see but actually enjoy being around, at an Irish Pub just as you enter town. Much like the Irish, Italians like to get a little buzz on before they do, well, just about anything, and especially before they go to any sort of formal event like a wedding or a funeral. The main difference being that Irish people drink whiskey and cry and Italians drink beer or wine and bury their emotions somewhere deep inside their gut. Both are effective ways of mourning.

The wake pre-game was good at easing a lot of the tension and bringing us cousins together in a kind of 'fuck 'em all, we're here for Gram' defiance.' It was also the first indication that, despite the circumstance, we may actually have a little bit of fun. The second indication of that was the fact that each of us showed up to the wake with a 12 pack in our trunks, which we combined in to a tiny cooler in the back of my cousin Patrick's Youkon, which he had backed in to a parking space at the funeral home in case things got too overwhelming for any of us. Which it did, about twice an hour. I think one of my fondest memories of the entire occasion was myself and my two cousins huddling in back of the truck, pounding beers and saying 'Who is this piece of shit?' every time someone pulled in to the parking lot, nine times out of ten realizing that it was either someone we didn't recognize or a family member that we hadn't seen in decades, but we remembered liking. The piece of shit ratio was actually like 1-10, so I guess we were way off on that. It could also have been all of the beer.

So I'm not going to give a play by play of the two days, there are just a few things that stand out to me. First, I had a lot of crazy, interesting interaction with the funeral home staff. A bit of background. Ever since I can remember, we have had a family funeral director. One thing you should know about the family is that we have a person for everything. I am the 'writer of the family' my cousins are the 'cops of the family,' etc... Well, along the same lines, Roger is the family funeral director. He has done everyone's. Aunt's, uncles, cousins... everyone. I have no idea how this came to be, he isn't even related to us. he was friends with my mom's cousin Kathy and somehow he cornered all of our business, even after he and Kathy stopped speaking when she married a rival funeral director- or something. Yes, only in my family does this happen. Scandal at the funeral home.

One of the things I took the most enjoyment out of at the wake was seeing all of the people who still remember me as an 11-year-old and watching the looks on their faces when they figure out who this tall, bearded, gray haired man was standing in front of them. Roger was one of those people. As was typically the case, he did the 'Oh my goodness, I'm so old' thing, and then called me in to another room to 'catch up' with him. Roger is a strange fellow. That is the best way I can describe him. And not just because he is a funeral director. No, it is something else. He is older, very tan, very eccentric and very, very serious about organization. Oh, and he wears personalized socks. In the process of speaking with Roger, I was introduced to the funeral home's owner, Mr. Dwyer, who looked exactly like the crypt keeper, appropriately enough. He was about 11 feet tall, his head looked like it was made out of wax and he had no expression in his eyes. He was about 100 years old, he had all sorts of wires coming out of his ears and his teeth were all perfectly the same size. He was the most terrifying man I have ever seen. Nice enough when we talked, though, even though I was pulled away for something mid conversation. He managed to find me though, and made sure to track me down and finish his story about a man from Romania who walked 10 miles to his in-law's house to ask for his wife's hand in marriage, even though he had never met them before. Cool. Completely irrelevant, but cool.

I was also thrust in to the position of Pallbearer for the event, something that I was both proud and nervous to do. They literally give you no instructions, they just hand you a pair of gloves and put you in a limo. Myself, along with three of my cousins and two of my grandmother's nephews were asked to do the job. Both nephews, well in to their 50's, asked to be in the middle so they didn't have to work as hard, leaving my two cop cousins, liver-transplant Tommy and myself to work the four corners. I ended up in the front, exactly where I didn't want to be. Too much pressure. Although, my suit looked pretty friggin nice. The first observation I had was that casket is pretty friggin heavy. I know that it has a person inside, but my grandmother was tiny, and I am pretty sure that the box itself outweighed her by like 300 pounds. The funeral directors make it easy for you, wheeling the casket most of the way and only making us carry it up stairs and on to platforms and such, but it was still a strenuous act. So, as the face of the funeral, I guess, I carried that thing up the stairs and in to the church, confused the entire time about what my role was going to be during the funeral, and hoping against hope that none of us screwed up and dropped our end. The Crypt Keeper must have had to correct me three or four times on where my hands were and what I was supposed to do next, and that was before we were in the church. Once inside, we didn't have to do any heavy lifting, just place our hands on the casket and guide it as it was pushed down the aisle. This would have been cool if the aisle wasn't so narrow, or if maybe I was a little bit stronger or something, because I kept getting run in to all of the pews on the way by. This was cool because I had to walk sideways and try to avoid every obstacle, creating a fantastic visual effect for all involved. It was the same thing on the way out, too, bouncing off of pews, wondering what I was doing wrong. I am still not sure that I actually did anything wrong at all, but I have been to a few funerals in my day and never seen anyone run in to anything, so I was obviously messing something up, right?

TO make matters worse, I was forced to sit in the passenger seat of the limo, meaning that I had to ride in awkward silence next to the Crypt Kepper's son/ assistant as he drove us to the cemetery. As nice as it was to not be crammed in the back of the car, it was very uncomfortable riding up front in complete silence. And a little terrifying to have a bird's eye view of the limo barreling through red lights and cutting off traffic.

Finally, it was the trip to the cemetery, where we were blessed with the task of lifting Gram out of the hearse and over another headstone on to the platform above the grave. At first, my morbid curiosity wanted to see in the hole so I peeked over. It was just concrete, kind of boring. Once again, though, I was put in the front, which meant that I had to be the brawn of the operation, lifting the casket up over the headstone, which is like three feet off of the ground. Yeah, that didn't go well. Aside from almost dropping that heavy-ass thing, I realized the plywood I was standing on was in no way supportive of a man my size and nearly caused me to fall in to the hole, putting a damper on an otherwise lovely ceremony.

In the end, the trip home was a pretty successful one and I feel like we all did a good job of honoring Gram. I will, however, forever have the thoughts of Roger's personalized socks, slamming my hip in to church pews and almost falling in to an empty grave tattooed on my brain. I am decidedly glad that it is over and I hope I don't have to bury anyone else any time soon..