GIVING BACK GRANDPA

“Are we ready?” Without thinking, I repeated my leaving-the-house words to my family. As we headed out the door to my father-in-law’s funeral, there’s no way we could’ve been ready.
We bought new clothes, shoes and ties. We showered and dressed and the dog had been walked. I took a minute to open the windows to invite the warm July breeze through the house. The birds’ singing was intrusive on the other side of the screen but I forgave them.
I could feel the neighbors watching us walk to our car like the guilty to the guillotine. They feel pity. They have all been down this place of darkness and they are sad for us.
The four of us remained silent above the awkward sounds of our new dress shoes on the gravel.
Starting the car broke the silence with Jewel singing “Who Will Save Our Soul?” Butch turned it off and opened the window a little. It was early in the day and not hot out but we all felt the same stifling confinement of mourning. The wind and its noise through the open window was the only life in this car of sad thoughts.

Butch sniffled erratically out of nervousness like he did on our first date. Back then I thought he had a sinus problem. Now I know with every sniff he is feeling the dread and anticipation of watching his mother grieve as they lay his father’s ashes underground where we know it is eternally quiet, dark and lonely. My heart grips my throat as I drive down the road and fight back the first tears of the day.

In the 15 or so years since I’d been in the St. James church, nothing had changed. The red carpet was freshly vacuumed and Mary and the saints lined the walls juxtaposed with stained glassed windows. The smell of old wooden pews heated by the humid summer air was unmistakable.
Not familiar but very comforting was seeing the backs of the heads of my sister, her boyfriend Michael and my anti-Catholic parents as I waited in the back of the church for the rest of the family.
When the funeral director had us all accounted for, there we were, the grief stricken, being corralled up to our honorary first and second pews like lost black sheep.
Taking my place behind my sister-in-law Patty who sat aside her mother, I could see Grandma crying. Butch and our son Steven were seated behind the podium and I was wishing Butch was sitting on the other side of his mother. As soon as he and Steven read their obligatory readings, Butch instinctively took his place next to her and Steven next to me.
Ellen, our 16 year old designated wailer, spontaneously surprised me with her uncontrollable bouts of squeaky sobs.

My niece Megan at 19, just a week older than Steven, carefully read her three minute tribute to her grandfather willing herself through the hard parts and graciously mentioning her two cousins. I was so proud of her. She had great memories of Grandpa.

The mass was quickly over and once again the grief stricken were led back down the
center aisle to our cars waiting out front.
How many times had I stood high on that top step of this church after a friend’s wedding and heard the church bells and seen smiles and kissing as we all rejoiced. Today, things were very different.

From our car we could see all those that came to church to bear the load of our pain. They left their jobs, families, obligations and daily routines just to be there for us. Friends from the bank, the builder of our house, our new neighbor, two spouses of employees, a classmate and family members we haven’t seen in a long time littered their way by our cars giving their respects.

At 20 miles per hour, Moosup’s All Hallows Cemetery is a long ride from town. The graveyard was freshly mown. Cars moved slowly around the little dirt roads like ants in an ant farm. Sailors from the Groton Sub base were there and ready to pay their respects and to present the flag. Their starched white uniforms broke the black cloud we made walking toward them.

Herded over to face the little green box that held what was left of Grandpa, Ellen once again sobbed into her hands. Little Grandma stood quietly between her two kids like a sapling between two big oaks. The sun was seasonably warm and I remember wafts of honey suckle from off to my right. Grandpa would’ve liked a day like this one.

During the last couple of years of Grandpa’s life, his mind was becoming more and more like that of a child’s. His conversations were simple and he often got confused. Their neighbor Marie was becoming more and more the only person who had the patience to carry on a conversation with him as he jumped from one subject to another. Her simplicity of mind didn’t seem to care or take notice that a question got answered wrong or that he didn’t understand her foolishness. “They are a good pair” my mother-in-law would joke.
When the funeral director warned us about the heart stopping noise the guns would make, Marie, without hesitation held her ears shut and with her elbows out straight, she looked like a 5 year old on the sidewalk at a parade. Her long purple dress flapped in the breeze. I poked Ellen and she giggled.

The handsome black sailor who stood in front of us played taps before presenting the casket flag to Grandma. The whites of his eyes were stark and intense. He came in closely and softly thanked Grandma for Grandpa’s service to his country in a memorized dialogue. All I could think of was Grandpa noticing his blackness but concluding the thought with, “But the nicest colored guy you’d ever meet.”
Grandma proudly accepted the folded croissant of a flag without a tear.
Grandpa’s life was simple and undemanding. He was proud of his family.

Tonight his ashes lay forever in that green box under loose sod. The flowers that graced the church are now tipped over by the wind. Their ribbon tails declaring Husband, Father and Grandpa. The man he was to all of us. The three-in-one. Not unlike the heavenly Father we believe he greets now in heaven.