Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? (9 page)

I attempt to give as much instruction as possible beforehand to those participating in the procession. I recommend that they turn on their headlights and follow the car ahead of them as closely as safety permits. “Think of it as a parade,” I say. Alas, most procession drivers are either too upset by the circumstances or choose not to listen. They lag far behind, which makes for a dangerous situation when they approach a cross street.

Since the grave site is usually the last place where all bereaved family members gather, that is also the place where family conflicts come to a head. A few years ago, I arrived at the cemetery for the burial of the father of two sons. The sons could not stand each other. Neither spoke to the other at the visitation or service. The older one, who had arranged for and paid the funeral bill, requested that I give him the guest registration book, but then the younger one approached me at the cemetery and demanded it.

When I informed him that it was usual to present the book to the person who had paid, he produced a handgun, pointed it at me, and asked for the register book again. I immediately complied with his request and handed it over. I then informed the armed man that I would be happy to return to the funeral home and photocopy the pages for him instead. He agreed, apologized, and put away the gun.

It's not just brothers who act up. A deceased woman was the mother of seven daughters and five sons. Family closeness was severely tested when the youngest daughter had divorced her husband and began a new union as a lesbian. The evening of the mother's visitation proved a strain, with all eleven siblings making derogatory remarks to their sister and her new partner.

The tenseness continued the following day during the funeral ceremony. Not only was the daughter not permitted to sit in the front row with her siblings; her oldest sister began making threats to her sister's partner. We arrived at the cemetery, listened to the minister's words, and proceeded to our respective vehicles. That's when the fireworks started. The oldest sister strode up to her sister's partner and attempted to tackle her. But since the partner was bigger and more athletic, she quickly pummeled the sister into submission—to the amazement of the gathered mourners and myself.

One winter day a few years ago, a large crowd gathered at the graveside of a deceased young man who had accidentally overdosed on various painkillers. Before the minister was able to speak, two inebriated females began to argue. One was a former girlfriend, and the other, his current one. One accused the other of providing the young man with the lethal concoction that ultimately took his life. As blows began, it was obvious to both battling parties that neither was particularly accurate with punches. So they both reached down to the snow-covered grass and began to pack snowballs to hurl at each other.

Unfortunately, their aim was off as well, so more than a few bystanders were struck in the crossfire. The minister was so disgusted that he quietly departed, leaving me to say a few words over the deceased man's grave.

Drug abuse deaths and their commonality have confounded me for years—not the intentional overdoses, but the accidental overdoses of methadone, cocaine, methamphetamines, and OxyContin. A young couple was recently found dead in their home, both victims of a heroin overdose—I had naively assumed that heroin usage was a 1960s relic. The young couple had left behind three school-age children, whom a loving aunt was to care for.

At the cemetery for the double burial, another aunt, who must have thought she should have been the designated caregiver, felt compelled to create a scene. Drunk and disorderly, she told anyone who would listen that the deceased couple “got what they deserved” for their constant illegal drug use. Finally, another family member asked the aunt to leave. Her response was to get into her car and, on her way out, ram as many of her family members' vehicles as she could.

Another case involving a husband and wife who had accidentally overdosed on OxyContin featured an angry confrontation between two feuding relatives who had supplied the couple with their deadly stash. The mental-midget females each accused the other of furnishing the deceased couple with a big bag of pills on the previous night—but before they could agree on the exact time line, they exchanged blows. One of the brawlers then left the building, only to be followed outside by two other women, who proceeded to beat the first one to a pulp. The scrap was over by the time police arrived, and the two attackers returned to the chapel to brag loudly about their fist-fighting prowess.

Birds of a feather flock together, and that cliché is no more apparent than at the funeral services of deceased drug abusers. Their friends are easily recognizable—skinny from poor nourishment, unkempt from no longer caring about how they look in public, or perhaps so stoned that they don't even realize how terrible they appear. Other adult mourners are rarely teary eyed or emotional, perhaps because they understand the inherent risks of such abusive behavior.

They may also realize that they could be next.

No matter how loving, courageous, or strong we are, we all come into contact with death each time we lose a loved one. Nothing can spare us; nothing can prepare us. We have no idea how we'll respond.

The common denominator among living things is that we all die—as does everyone we love. Yet few of us seem emotionally equipped to deal with death when it happens. Grief sideswipes us and knocks us to the ground like some speeding, out-of-control car. No matter how well we accept the many other logical laws of nature, we never manage to see this one coming.

I cried at my mother's death—and then eventually became resigned that her spirit was in a far better place. Since she saw to it that my siblings and I attended Sunday school and church from the age of three until after high school, exposure to those many sermons at Front Street Presbyterian Church cemented my belief that we go to Heaven after death. When my mother passed, therefore, I felt somewhat comforted by recalling those streets of gold, walls of jasper, and gates of pearl. No more suffering, no more pain, no need for doctors, no need for undertakers—my mother had no doubt earned her heavenly reward.

I still feel secure in that belief, even when the pain of separation gnaws. I rarely visit her grave site, because I know that she is not really there—however, when I do go, I feel a lump in my throat, and I smile as I ponder the huge and lasting impact of her life here on the earth.

Some of us are more stoic than others. Some stand straight; others crumple. Some recover in time; others never do. Some skate to the very brink of madness and then miraculously resurrect themselves. Others fall off the edge and don't come back.

I see them all.

THE MANY FACES OF GRIEVING

When I arrive at the cemetery, leading a funeral procession through the entrance, I often observe a kindly looking elderly gentleman seated in a lawn chair facing a black granite headstone. One day, following a short service, I decided to speak to him.

It was, he told me, a monument dedicated to his wife. She had passed away four years earlier, after forty-four years of marriage. He could not forget her, nor did he wish to. He would never find anyone else to love, and he had no intention of trying. So he visited her every day, weather permitting. Even on some of the coldest winter mornings he would show up, sometimes remaining in the warmth of his car's interior but still very much present.

He explained to me that he greeted her by name on arrival, settled into his chair, told her of his daily activities, and then said a tender good-bye. Joggers and cemetery personnel steered clear, probably thinking him unbalanced. He didn't care.

To this day, I still wave to him whenever I arrive at the cemetery and as I depart. His genuine smile of recognition—and his enduring devotion to his beloved wife—warm my heart. There are other stories that do, too. A thirty-year-old Nascar fan's monument is decorated with Matchbox cars. His widow and his mother visit regularly. They sit together on a Jeff Gordon blanket and stay a long time.

Sometimes there are difficult stories as well. Once, I saw a grieving father plopped on the ground, his back resting against his late daughter's recently erected monument. I had conducted the funeral for his precious twenty-two-year-old just a few months earlier. At the time of her death, he was an inconsolable basket case—sobbing violently and shaking.

After the funeral he thanked me but admitted that he was thinking of ending his own life so that he might join his daughter in heaven. I informed three separate grief-support organizations, and they contacted the gentleman the next day. One woman who specialized in assisting parents who had lost children reported later that the man seemed to be adjusting well and, in her opinion, was starting to heal.

But the father had already chosen the day of his daughter's monument installation to shoot himself. Cemetery workers noticed him seated at her grave, armed with a handgun, so they called police to the scene. After many tense moments of negotiations and pleading, the father shot himself dead and slumped against the base of his daughter's beautiful pink-granite headstone.

Another time, an elderly woman approached me at the conclusion of her husband's funeral and requested that I escort everyone out of the chapel, so that we might be alone. She then asked me to snip a lock of her husband's hair so that she could retain it as a keepsake. I placed it in a plastic bag and handed it to her.

A few weeks later she stopped by to pay off the funeral bill. She reached into her purse and produced a glass baby-food jar that contained another lock of hair, this one from her child, who had died in 1952. The tightly closed metal lid had kept it in pristine condition for more than fifty years. She also showed me a cracked and faded photograph of her child lying in a casket. She'd made it a habit to gaze at the aged photo and the lock of hair every morning as a tribute—and she planned the same daily ritual to honor her husband.

Another time, my son and I arrived at a beautiful two-story home in an upscale subdivision to remove the body of a young woman, a cancer victim. Bicycles, Big Wheels, and assorted balls scattered about the carefully manicured lawn showed that this was a tragic case indeed: three towheaded little boys, ages four, seven, and ten, had lost their mother.

We entered the front door, and were greeted by the bereaved husband, a red-eyed man of forty. He directed us to the first-floor bedroom, and on the way down the hall, we spotted various family portraits of a beautiful blonde woman, her handsome husband, and their three sons, all smiling at different stages of life.

On entering the bedroom, we met a vision of sadness—the deceased young woman, still in her bed, surrounded by her mother and her children, each tenderly caressing her, and the boys stroking their mother's arms and legs. Their father escorted them out of the room so that we could prepare for her removal. Cancer had reduced this once-lovely woman to a shell of herself; she had sunken, dark eyes, her temples were depressed from severe weight loss, and her limbs as thin as sticks.

We carefully carried her into the waiting hearse, and I consulted with the husband regarding burial plans. As we talked, the ten-year-old looked up at me and said, “Mister, I don't want my mom to be dead.”

At the visitation two days later, I watched with great sadness as the devastated family arrived. Then the husband and three little boys stood before the young mother's casket, wracked with grief. Usually, children of that age are easily bored and restless. But throughout the evening, the boys stood near their father, accepting hugs from relatives, yet all the while stealing glances toward their casketed mother.

The father wrote me a kind letter a few weeks later that his wife had been amazingly restored to her original beauty and looked healthy again, just like they remembered. He thanked me over and over for making his wife and the boys' mother look so pretty for her visitation and funeral.

Holiday Heartbreak

For some reason, major holidays are hugely represented at cemeteries. Grave sites are often festooned with New Year's noisemakers in January, heart-shaped red balloons in February, green derby hats in March, and Easter-egg trees in April. I have seen witches on broomsticks and pumpkins of all sizes in October, and cornucopia in November. And in December there are countless Christmas trees, some with battery-powered lights; garlands; icicles; and even small, beautifully wrapped presents.

I have often wondered why survivors go to such lengths. Is it because the deceased loved the holidays? Or does the family want to include him or her in their merrymaking? Such displays may look garish to observers, yet they obviously provide some degree of comfort, or people wouldn't do it. Grief is an intensely personal journey. Each of us handles it in our own way. From 1962 until he died in 1999, the baseball great Joe DiMaggio sent fresh bouquets of red roses twice a week to the crypt of his beloved former wife, Marilyn Monroe.

Never have I seen the holidays more prominent than in the case of a minister's seven-year-old daughter. She was afflicted with erythroblastosis and finally succumbed, outliving her doctor's predictions by three years. She died in late November. This charismatic minister and several of his flock waited for me to arrive at the hospital to take his child to the funeral home. I placed her little body in the vehicle, and the entire group returned to their cars to follow me. The pastor-led mourners even accompanied me into the preparation room and assisted me in placing the girl on the table.

My waiting employer and I soon learned that the assembled congregation planned to keep vigil while we embalmed the body. As soon as the doors closed, they began chanting, wailing, and saying desperate heartfelt prayers—and they continued for hours. I wept as I worked, hearing this heartbroken clergy, his wife, and his friends pleading with God to please bring their little girl back to life. Of course, it was not to be, and even I felt a little cheated on their behalf that God did not answer prayers so genuinely offered.

After the embalming was completed, they handed us the child's burial clothing and hastily selected a casket. We put cosmetics on the beautiful little girl, dressed her, and placed her in a pink casket, its fifty-four-inch length a sad reminder that this was not some ninety-year-old great-grandmother who had lived a long, satisfying life but a vivid realization of every parent's worst nightmare. The progression of events had certainly been unusual. Leading an unofficial procession from the hospital to the funeral home had occurred before, though not often. Embalming a body, however, while family members and friends waited just outside the door was a first for me, as was dressing and putting a dead child in the casket with the mourners looking on. Still, where grieving loved ones are concerned, I always hesitate to make judgments. Perhaps this was part of their healing process. But then, after the funeral, the minister asked us to place his daughter's casket in his car. She would lie, he said, near the family fireplace at home, so she could spend Thanksgiving with the rest of the family. And that's exactly what happened. The day after the holiday we were called back to the residence to retrieve the little girl and conduct a proper funeral service.

The Toughest Cases: Children

There is probably no more heartbreaking human tragedy than for a parent to lose a child. I have no idea what that feels like, and I hope and pray that I never do. With more than thirty years in the profession, I still cannot help becoming teary-eyed at the sight of any parent, wild with grief, standing over the casket of a recently deceased child, young or old.

The young couple that walked through the funeral home front door that morning had the familiar look on both of their faces: reddened and tear-stained eyes, eyes that were swollen and puffy from lack of sleep and a lot of intense sobbing. In contrast, I was very excited and full of joy and happiness that day, as my first child was to be born at any time. Baby Anna was holding out on us, a few days past due, so my wife and I were anxious, and I was playing the proud expectant father routine to the hilt—anyone I saw, whether I knew them or not—was going to hear that my baby daughter was about to be born, and it felt good to receive the congratulatory handshakes and pats on the back.

However, the couple I was about to meet with had lived every parent's nightmare. Their nineteen-year-old son had been brutally murdered—a story I had heard about just the evening before on television news. Two hoodlums had forced their son's car off the road, pulled him and his girlfriend out of the car in a remote area, and made them walk to an abandoned farmhouse. The nineteen-year-old was repeatedly stabbed, and his body was stuffed into a dry well. The two hoodlums forced the girlfriend to participate in the stabbing as well, probably to convince her that by going to the police, she would implicate herself. She was threatened with the same fate should she report the incident to authorities, but she did anyway.

The mother and father told me very little about the manner of their son's death—perhaps it was too painful to recount. We made the funeral arrangements, which included an all-night visitation and funeral service the next day at a large Pentecostal church. We were to take the casket to the church at 4 p.m. and it would stay there until the funeral the next morning. After completing the funeral arrangements, I made the trip to the coroner's office to retrieve the body.

The coroner's personnel were amazed at the manner of this young man's death; they gave me all the gory details the moment I arrived. The chalkboard in the autopsy room reported the grisly findings: the number eighty-eight was scrawled next to the words
stab wounds
. Why stab someone eighty-eight times? The coroner called it a frenzy killing: high on alcohol or drugs, the two perpetrators probably wildly stabbed the victim out of extreme anger or in an attempt to silence the screams of their victim. I had dealt with stabbing victims before, but never with such a number of thrusts. The seasoned coroner's office personnel had never experienced such a number of stab wounds either. The majority of the wounds were introduced into the back of the victim, perhaps because he had assumed a fetal position to ward off a frontal assault. The coroner explained that three or four of the wounds could have been the fatal blow, and the rest were likely postmortem (after death) wounds. My thought then was that I hoped the police would apprehend the two suspects right away.