A Lover's Lament(90)

“Absolutely.”

“I just want to get past this. And I want to enjoy having you all to myself for a little bit longer before we talk about anything else.”

“That sounds like a plan. Now,” I say, planting my hands firmly against his chest, “we should get up and get ready so we can go finalize plans for the funeral tomorrow and order some flowers.” He doesn’t budge when I push him, so I wriggle out from under his rock-hard body. I make it to the side of the bed when I feel a strong hand around my ankle, yanking me back.

“We don’t have to be there for another hour.”

My eyes widen. “Yes, but I have to get ready.”

“I’ll be quick.”

I giggle when his hands attack my body, but my laughing quickly turns to a whimper when his mouth joins in on the assault.





“Body In A Box”—City & Colour

THE ROOM IS FILLED WITH rows of chairs, each of them empty except the two Katie and I take up in the front row and one occupied by a great-aunt I’d never met before, who is seated two chairs down from us. Ida is nearly ninety and not a hundred percent with it, but she told us she’d promised my grandmother long ago that if anything were to ever happen to my mother, she’d take care of everything—and so here she is. But she didn’t want to give the eulogy, and Lord knows I wasn’t doing it. So here we are, listening to the funeral director do his best to say nice things about my mother as if he’s known her for years.

It’s likely he never even knew my mother beyond what my great-aunt shared with him when she planned the funeral. This is small-town Pennsylvania and most everybody knows everyone else’s business, but it seems my mother became quite the recluse after I left, even more so than when I saw her last.

Katie and I stopped by Mom’s house this morning to sift through a few things, and her neighbor, Shelly, stopped by. Apparently, she was Mom’s only friend, although I would bet she was more of an acquaintance and was only trying to be nice. She told us that Mom quit her job at Kroger’s a few years back and has been surviving off social security disability payments. According to Shelly, it was about that same time when Mom began closing herself off, slowly becoming a hermit.

Shelly said she would check on Mom as often as she could, mostly to make sure that she had food and was keeping up on her bills, but other times to give her some social interaction. It hurt to know that this woman was the only person my mother spoke to for months at a time. She also mentioned that over the last two years or so, Mom had become paranoid and delusional, often claiming people were after her.

Shelly was sweet, cringing at her own words as if it made her sick to be the one to have to tell me all this, but I made her continue. I had to know what my mother’s last days were like. She went on to tell me that oftentimes she’d find my Mom lying in a pile of empty liquor bottles, and that a few times she actually had to check to make sure she was alive. Sounds like Josephine, alright.

Now here she is, looking shiny and porcelain like a Madame Tussauds wax sculpture, the frown lines still running thick down the corners of her mouth. I try to avert my eyes, but I can’t stop staring at her lying motionless in the coffin with her spindly fingers crossed together.

She looks terrible. Even after the work the mortician put in, I barely recognize her. I can’t help but think that this is for the best.

Katie must recognize my internal struggle because she takes my hand in hers and pulls it on her lap, squeezing tightly.

“Are you okay?” she whispers in my ear. Without looking at her, I nod, continuing to analyze my mother’s current state. I’ve seen too many dead bodies to count, all in various stages of decomposition, but never in my life have I seen this. I’ve only been to one non-military funeral before—my grandmother’s, and she was cremated—and the ones I’ve attended have never had an open casket because the bodies were in too bad of shape.

Josephine may have been a stranger to me toward the end of her life, but she was still my mother, and as distant as the good memories are, I still have some. So seeing her like this, plastic and lifeless, brings so much pain to my heart that I feel like I have to fight to catch my breath. I don’t want Katie to worry, so every bit of anguish I feel in this moment is wiped clean from my face. She had to deal with this too—and not that long ago—so I’ll be damned if I force her to go through it again. Nobody needs to shoulder this burden but me. I’ll deal with this like I do everything else. I’ll let the feelings and emotions take hold for a day, I’ll process them on my own, and then I’ll stuff them so deep that I can’t help but forget about them … for a while at least.

The funeral director finishes his speech and welcomes us to say our final goodbyes. My great-aunt goes up to the casket first. She touches my mother’s forehead and each shoulder, delivering the Lord’s Prayer before departing the room. Katie looks at me, but at first I don’t move. I know I’m supposed to go up there, but my legs just aren’t responding to what my brain is telling them to do. It’s hard enough seeing my mom’s body from this distance.

The funeral director picks up on my hesitation and moves from behind the podium. “I will leave you guys be. Please, take your time and just come get me when you’re finished,” he says in his most sympathetic tone before following Ida out of the room.