Reading: All Creatures Great and Small, for perhaps the twelfth time. I needed something light and reassuring to read during this weekend, so I picked this one back off my bookshelf.

Background courtesy of
Ace of Space

The American Way of Death

Rita has about a dozen 8mm tapes from her camcorder with footage of Nana on them. She would like to transfer them to a videocassette to show after the funeral tomorrow when we gather at my Aunt Sheila's. Rita's camcorder isn't working correctly, so she asked Tab if he would do it for her. Unfortunately, it is turning out to be a huge job. There is a lot of cruft on the tapes that needs to be edited out to arrive at the good Nana footage.

To give Tab some space and quiet time to work, Mom and I took the three boys to Wegmans. I needed to pick up chicken for dinner and some more blueberries for another blueberry crisp. Daniel was excited to finally get a chance to play in Wegmans' play room; he had been envious when he'd heard his brothers' tales of the maze and the computers.

The viewing for Nana was scheduled at 6 p.m. this evening. My mother-in-law came over to stay with the twins while Mom, Tab, Daniel, and I attended. Both Tab and I had decided that Daniel was old enough to handle the calling hours tonight and the funeral tomorrow.

There was a sizable crowd there when we arrived shortly before 6. I allowed myself to be waylaid by other guests, postponing as long as possible my entrance to the room where Nana was laid out.

Finally, we entered. Daniel held my hand, and Tab had his arm around my shoulders. I cried when I saw Nana lying there. I thought again the same thing I have always thought at viewings: that the deceased person does not look like someone sleeping, as people often say, but like a very good waxwork effigy. I laid my hand on Nana's, but drew it back because her hand was so cold. I'd never before touched a dead person, and I hated that cold, hard feeling of the skin.

Instead I touched her hair. When I visited during the last few months and found Nana in bed, I would sometimes try to hold her hand, but after a few minutes she'd pull away, her hands fluttering about like caged doves. So I would stroke her hair. Her hair has the same texture as mine, and before she turned grey, it had the same color, as she used to tell me.

Daniel stared at Nana and at the flower arrangements that flanked the casket. "I thought she'd be prettier," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I thought she'd be covered with flowers."

I have no idea where he picked up that notion. The sight of a dead body did not seem to upset him, however. He soon found his young cousins with whom he spent much of the evening.

To the left of the casket, there was a kind of receiving line composed of Nana's children. When I came to my Aunt Rita and hugged her, she handed me a cameo on a gold chain. "We were going through some things of Mom's," she said, "and we would like you to have this."

I remembered Nana wearing this cameo on occasion. I immediately took off the necklace I had on and put on the cameo in its place. Nana's jewelry was mostly costume jewelry. Almost none of the pieces are valuable, but they are priceless to us because Nana wore them. Rita had found other pieces, many of them rose pins (Nana always loved roses) for the other granddaughters.

The next few hours passed slowly. The crowds visiting spilled over into the adjoining room and out into the hallway. I saw people from our old church, whom I haven't seen for twenty-five years. It was like a strange family-reunion and party. At one point, I stopped and looked around at the little clusters of people embracing, talking, and even laughing, and then beyond them to the casket with Nana's body lying motionless. I thought how she would have loved a gathering of this size. She always was a party-girl.

I have mixed feelings about viewings. I understand it can be therapeutic for the mourners to see their loved one's body one last time. Still, I have told Tab that if I die before him I do not want a viewing. I always hated being stared at during life; why would I want people to gawk at my mortal remains? Put up a nice picture of me during the funeral service: that should suffice.

Tomorrow is the funeral. I am supposed to speak, then. Jim was going to speak, too, but he learned from the priest today that the total time for all the speakers was only to be two minutes and thirty seconds. "So I'm going to do a reading, instead," he said. "Mom wanted you to speak."

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