Last Rite

Last Rite

It was April when her father died. She was five or six, she could never remember, and they were dirt poor. The town where they lived was small and didn't have a lot of the amenities, particularly then, so they had to travel to another town to find a funeral home and an undertaker willing to do the job for little pay and because he knew the family from church.

Her father – people called him Jake because he didn't like the name his parents gave him but Jacob suited him he thought – was not the first husband that her mother had, nor the last. Jake was the middle one of three and most who knew them all would doubtless say the third one was the charm. All the adults in town knew that Jake was not a hard or steady worker. He got far too drunk, far too often, and smelled of cigarettes and booze when his little girl sat on the sofa to listen to a story he would read her, or when he tucked her gently into bed. But he cared for her in his way, and he was the only father she had ever known.

She was not completely clear about what killed him, either. Her mother likely told her, but whether it was booze, or an accident down at the plant where he was working at the time, or a fight he got into at some bar he was in, or the complications from some disease he had, it didn't matter. She loved him – as children do – simply because he was her father and he told her funny stories.

There was a difference there, between the adults she knew and her.

Ruth hardly knew of the abuse her mother received at her father's hand. She had heard their voices, true, but they were distant murmurs, muffled by sleep. More clear to her – because she had seen the bruises and he spoke of it – was how her father smacked her older brother, yelling obscenities all the while, whenever he was drunk and angry and filled with fear and needed someone he could take it out on. Her brother – from her mother's first marriage – escaped each time by running from the house to walk along the street and back again when he knew that it was dinnertime. When he was old enough, and before her father died, he left for good. But with her father gone, her mother knew that she could call.

“Jeffrey,” her mother said. “He's dead now son and if you'd like we'd love to have you come to say good-bye.”

“Good riddance,” Jeffrey said.

“Yes, I know,” was all she said by way of answer. “But your sister would really like to see you and so would I. Make of the funeral whatever you want – you don't even have to go – but if he's the only reason that you've stayed away, and Lord knows I'd never blame you if it was, just know that you are welcome here at any time.”

Her mother was like that. Not forgiving – she never forgave her husband the abuse – but understanding. She was wise in the ways of men, both good and bad, said her piece about what she knew of each, and if the men were not completely evil, accepted the roughness of her life among them in much the same way as she accepted the harsh landscape of Minnesota. Life was what it was and that was that.

It is the opposite of childhood innocence, which is rarely wise. It is why we count the age of reason when we do. Children, in their innocence, are content with laughter and brightly colored toys and bandages upon the wounds. We adults provide these things and hope that life's experience will add some wisdom to the joy. At five or six the little girl's joy was great in her father, and her wisdom was only this – that she would never see him again.

So it was that the small band of congregants and drinking buddies and working pals and wives and Jake's family gathered together to make what they could of one man's life. Jeffrey sat in the back, properly resentful of all the pain and abuse that his step-father had meted out, but wise enough to know that his mother and his half sister needed comfort. Ruth sat in the front row staring at this man that she had known, lying in silence and peace at last. She wanted to say good-bye. And she wanted to say good-bye as she would have when he tucked her in at night. She wanted to give him a kiss. She wanted to give him a hug.

“Mommy, can I kiss him good-bye?” she asked.

Her mother looked at her, not knowing what to say. She didn't know if this would be a desecration of the dead, but thought it might. In any case, her history with this man had argued against kissing him in any but the most perfunctory way for many years. The thought of doing so to his corpse disgusted her.

“No,” she said, as mildly as she could.

“But I want to.”

“No, sweetheart, it wouldn't be right.”

The little girl thought for a second and asked the question that all parents dread to hear: “Why?”

Her mother answered, “Because I said so,” which meant, of course, there was no real answer that she could think of that she could ever hope to explain to a little girl.

“But mommy, I want to. Please. Please let me kiss daddy good-bye.”

Her mother thought for awhile. She thought, what if this man meant all the world to me? What if he had brought me joy instead of pain? What if he had left me suddenly as he has left my little girl? Would I not wish that I had given him one last kiss? Held him in my arms one last time?

“Yes, go ahead. I'll help.”

And so they walked the short distance to the casket where he lay, wisdom hand in hand with joy. Her mother lifted her and placed her on the lifeless body and a gasp went up as the congregation realized what Ruth would do. Her mother whispered, “Never mind them, they just don't know.”

Ruth looked back at her mother and smiled. Then, continuing to smile, she turned to look for one last time at her father's face. And she kissed his lips and gave him a tiny hug and her mother lifted her back to the ground and they walked up the aisle and into the sunlight..