Mothers

WORK IN PROGRESS - PLEASE R/R/R AND I WILL RETURN THE FAVOR!!

The procession began to unfold slowly from the narrow parking lot of the funeral home. My car’s gas light glowed an ominous orange in the gloom and I briefly worried whether or not I would run out of gas and hold everyone up in the line. Praying the gas fumes would take me at least as far as the cemetery, I snapped on my headlights and eased out after the black limousine.

The service had been a sea of faces, relatives I generally didn’t like enough to acknowledge, even when dictated by the death of the family matriarch. The church had been thick with the smell of incense and my head throbbed mercilessly from its pervasive odor. I cranked down my window and took several deep breaths. I turned my attention back to the limousine and the hearse in front of it that bore the body of my late great-grandmother, Marie Antoinette Gately. I considered it odd that in death she’d appeared as regal and cool as you might have expected from such a name, however, the last few years of her life she’d come to resemble more of a shrunken, shriveled, bitter old maid. Her deteriorating nature had contrasted sharply with that of her daughter, my grandmother in every way imaginable.

The procession neared the cemetery gates and I pulled off to one side. I wanted to make a clean, fast break once this was over. It was a busy day at St. Patrick’s cemetery. There was another service just finishing up at the grave site and there would be a delay. Not wanting to get drawn into any unnecessary conversations with impatient relatives, I walked out a little way toward my grandfather’s grave. He didn’t have a headstone, so it took me a few extra minutes to locate the veteran plaque that had been set at his feet. I spent a few more minutes talking to him softly. I knew he was watching. I wondered if it amused him that I practiced the same avoidance techniques he’d reserved and perfected for my grandmother’s family. The “Mellvilles” he would gripe with distaste, “were useless – the lot of them!” My grandfather would caustically remark, referring to my grandmother’s sister Rosemarie, her eight children and subsequent broods, which continued to expand at alarming rates.

The hearse had moved into position, so I went to find my grandmother knowing she would be looking for me. She would need me again as she had when we buried both her sister and her husband only a few short years earlier. The sudden sound of bagpipes made me groan aloud. I still had no idea what faction of our family claimed to be Scottish and why whenever someone passed on, bagpipes made a tacky, and suspicious appearance. There he was again, some obscure cousin dressed in full Scottish garb, heading off the silver casket brigade as it made its way to the site, eyes and cheeks bulging obscenely, bagpipes sickly blaring away. I dragged my eyes away from his fat, white kneecaps jiggling just below the hem of his kilt.

I found my grandmother and slid my arm through hers. She smiled and squeezed me with her hands, leaning against me slightly. I had the sudden urge to make her laugh, light her eyes and make her delicate mouth curl into shy giggles. It was not the time. That would have to wait. The casket was placed at the open grave, covered discretely by Astroturf. The priest called my great grandmother’s two remaining children forward for a private moment before continuing with the service. My grandmother stepped up, pausing to look back at me and smile softly before joining her brother in front of the priest.

A brief dedication followed, delivered by a less than impassioned minister whom I felt could have made more of an effort to look interested. Then, in the tradition of any good catholic burial, we all fled to their cars, intent on making our way to a reception where we'd proceed to eat deviled eggs and potato salad and collectively drink our grief away.

Mothers. That day my grandmother, who is so much like a mother to me, buried her's. I cannot begin to know that must be like, when the person who brought you into the world, passes on and leaves you alone. I'd been suffering from a chronically increasing estrangement from my own mother since the age of twelve. There are days that I believe a more sudden severance of our bonds would be an easier, kinder loss. My own ailing relationship has not dampened my appreciation for the mother-daughter bond, for I understand this love, I have felt it ten times over with my grandmother.

***MORE TO COME****