The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.
Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.
Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.
Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)
Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)
Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.
Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".
Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...
Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.
You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.
Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.
Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.