Send them my condolences
At 26, I am thankfully fairly unacquainted with death. One of my grandfathers died before I was born, while the other, I’m told, held me once a few months after my birth, then died. Hopefully not while holding me. My father’s mother (whom I’m named after) died before I was born, and I have only trace memories of my mom’s mother. She was dying of cancer, and the chemicals in the chemotherapy and painkillers she survived on caused her to hallucinate. We were visiting her in the hospital, and I was barely tall enough to see above her hospital bed. I didn’t know her very well, and didn’t understand what was wrong with her. No one prodded me to approach her; no one in my family prods anyone to do anything, really, but I went to her bedside and said "Hey granny." My grandmother moved her eyes toward me and said "There are giant spiders crawling down the walls." She said that in the way she might say "There’s an arrangement of flowers on the table from my church." She died shortly thereafter.
I have an equally vague memory of my great-grandmother. In short, I either wasn’t born or wasn’t old enough to understand when the pillars of my family died. There have been other deaths along the way, but none close enough to have affected me emotionally and none of whom’s funerals I attended. But for the most part, I have seen little of the reaper. The Finks and Christians are surprisingly resilient, considering the hard lives we choose to lead.
My coworker’s mother-in-law died. My coworker is middle-aged, and unnaturally sweet and helpful. I met her husband once at a barbecue, and laughed at almost everything he said. So when I got the office e-mail of the time and date of her mother-in-law’s viewing, I felt an obligation to go. I also felt a gut-wrenching dread. I don’t know how to handle myself at these things. What do I wear? What do I do? What do I say? I had to work that night, so I considered not going, but she knows as well as I do that we get an hour dinner break, and I could visit then. The truth is, she probably didn’t care one way or the other that I came, and wouldn’t have blamed me if I didn’t. I wasn’t the first thing on her mind. But I am the first thing on my mind, and my misplaced sense of vanity and guilt wouldn’t release its stranglehold. I had to go.
I wore something I thought was appropriate, and also hip. Not too dressed up, but not jeans and a t-shirt. And would anyone even notice what I was wearing? Probably not, but I am too paranoid to take that risk.
I drove, chain-smoking, to the funeral home, practicing my sad face, and my words of condolence. Once inside, there were so many people I thought surely there must be more than one viewing going on. A 2 for 1 special maybe? I lingered uncomfortably in the lobby, pleading with my eyes to anyone who would look at me to tell me what to do, where to go. I got no help from the mourners. The line was shape of a snake filled with rats, a curved thing so mottled with pulsing thumps and lumps I wasn’t sure where it ended and just became groups of people standing around talking. I finally settled at where I thought was the end of the line, right next to an advertising display of monument stone offerings. The Premium Teal and Aztec Green were too much for me, and I had to touch them. I also moved all the portrait covers aside, looking at the pictures underneath, wondering if these people were actually dead or just stock photographs they left in the models.
I came back to myself when the line began to move, and realized some people around me had noticed my behavior. What I hoped looked like the curiosity of a foreigner in a strange environment probably seemed closer to what it was - strange.
When we got to a place in line where I had nothing to preoccupy myself, I began looking at people. There were so many old people. I wanted to tap one on the shoulder - there was any number of them at arms length of me at all times, and ask them how they felt about all this. My coworker’s dead mother-in-law was probably about their ages, 70s or 80s. Did it scare them, because a death of one of their own reminds of them that they aren’t too far off themselves? Are they secretly glad, because it wasn’t them; that they lasted if nothing a day longer than their contemporaries? Or are they just sad that they lost a friend? I couldn’t bring myself to talk to any of them - not the man with the oxygen tank (I wonder if he smoked?), not the small, frail looking woman in the purple pantsuit that is lingering near me (presumably to steal my spot in line, which is not happening). I was staring blithely ahead, wondering how much time it actually took for a handshake and an "I’m so sorry," when I see my coworker walking determinedly down the line toward me.
She is in tears, stopping for a hug from someone in line now and then, but eventually makes her way to me. She takes me hand, in hers, which is wet.
"Oh, you didn’t have to come, that was so sweet of you." And she hugs me. It’s no problem, I tell her. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you, I tell her. After delivering my prepared lines, I tried to step out of the line and make my escape. But she wouldn’t let go of my hand. In a whirlwind of breath and tears she told me of how suddenly it happened, and they weren’t expecting it, and to look at the Thomas Kinkade throw her church sent her, and the whole time, she never let go of my hand. I felt for her, I really did. I also felt uncomfortable, so I dumbly began repeating my script. "Well, just wanted you to know I was thinking about you, umm, if there’s anything I can do …" and then I was being whisked away.
"Where, um, where are we going?"
She’s pulling me down the side of line, toward the room everyone is trying to get into.
"You’re on your dinner break, and you were so sweet to come see me, you shouldn’t have to wait."
Wait? Wait for what? I just spoke to you.
When it dawned on me that she meant I shouldn’t have to wait to see the corpse of her mother-in-law I almost fell out in the lobby. I’ve never seen a human corpse in person. Would it scare me? Would it make me have to go to the bathroom? Would I have an uncontrollable urge to touch it, or would it not affect me because I hadn’t known this person when she was a living, breathing, feeling friend?
As we hurried past people, I could hear snippets of conversation.
"Did you catch the end of the game?" "Naw, but they started winnin’ as soon as I turned it off."
"He’s just a mess. I don’t know what to do with him."
"We’re going to Gatlinburg next week."
Is this what people talk about at viewings? Maybe they are only making small talk because they are as uncomfortable as I am, and that’s what normal people do when they are uncomfortable, they make small talk, not blather all over monument displays. The whole time she is explaining to people why she is rushing me ahead of everyone else. "She works with me, she’s on her dinner break." I just smiled at them like "What can you do?"
We get into the viewing room and thankfully, oh God thankfully, there are too many people crowded around the casket (why? why??), so she just takes me to her husband, who kind of remembers me from the barbecue, and seems surprised to see me, and I hug him and tell him the same thing I told her, knowing there was nothing I could do for someone who’s mother has just died.
After dutifully admiring the flower arrangements and averting my eyes from the casket, I tell them bye and slink out, trying to avoid the glares of some who were annoyed that I got special treatment. It’s a viewing, not a concert.
Back in my car, I lit a cigarette and sat back, wondering if people will talk about football and smoky mountain vacations when I’m dead.