Shannanigan's Search for More...

This morning I woke up and donned the ironed black shirt and pants and sqeezed my feet into the loathsome heels to carry out the formality of burying someone who no longer inhabits their body.

My boyfriend drove us to my mother's house where we rode with her, my stepfather, and my brother to the funeral home. What do you say to the guy who's mom died a week ago and is now driving to a viewing he doesn't want to be at? He had been avoiding having to see her lifeless body for so long, and really did not want to see it by the looks of it. The way he thought of it was "My mother and I had our conversation and said what we had to say, and she's no longer in that body and I want to remember her as she was alive, not like this." I can totally understand and respect that.

...we get to the place where the viewing is being held. I've only been to one other funeral in my life, and the viewing room had been in a little separate area in the back of the building so you could walk in and sign the guestbook and pay your respects without actually having to go and see the body. Not this place. I walk in and BAM! right on my right-hand side are a few rows of chairs and then the open casket. Right there all of my walls dropped, I wasn't crying yet, but my defenses had been shattered...

I move around the crowd, hugging and talking and trying to smile and remember good times. My boyfriend finds a corner to stand in and my mother gets pulled away. I'm standing in the middle of the room, all alone, not wanting to take a step towards the casket, and suddenly a head full of curly hair pops out from among the belts and waistlines of the crowd in front of me.

Adam. Little Adam, the always energetic and happy grandson of the deceased...and yet today he looks up and tears are streaming down his face. He spasms, his shoulders shaking as his voice chokes in his throat, and he puts his face into a little handkercheif and sobs. This little boy sobs because his grandmommy is dead, and he will never see her again, while I, 20 years old, still have all four of my grandparents who are all in good health.

I can't take it, my chin trembles. I will not cry, I was not close enough to cry, I've made it a whole week living my life and not crying...I turn around and there is my strong and silent grandfather, who almost never leaves the house. He sees me and nods, and even smiles. He sits on a couch in the back. I look around, my boyfriend hidden behind waves of people, my mother talking to someone I didn't know. I sat right down next to my statue-faced grandfather, who went out on his boat to cry alone the day my mother moved out of his house, and I fought. I fought to keep the burning sensation in my eyes on this side of my eyelids, I took a deep breath, but when I let it out, the tears fell.

I grabbed a tissue from a nearby box and cried. My grandfather got up, and minutes later his truck drove by outside in the direction of home. I think I'm the reason he left.

I find my brother outside, he has been asked to read a poem written by our step-granny, but he's telling my mom that he can't do it, and I can see that he's fighting just like me. Family, closer family than I am, keep walking and driving by, and they see my face and burst out into tears as well. Why do we do this to ourselves? It's so depressing to gather together and make everybody cry just because others are crying. I'm not even crying because I'll miss her, I'm crying because everyone else is crying and I'm thinking that one day I'll have to bury each and every one of my four grandparents, too.

The church is right next to the funeral home. I'm the first person to read besides the pastor. I take deep breaths and pretend like it's just an open-mic night; I pretend that I'm reading a powerful poem and that all the people in the room are crying because so much beautiful poetry has been read thus far. I do it, stumbling only a little at the end, and I feel better. The daughter who is reading the eulogy goes up, and I get scared...thinking that if she breaks down and I have to replace her, that her tears will cause me to cry and I won't be able to live up to my commitment. She gets through it fine, though, and later a woman goes up to read the poem my brother was supposed to read. My brother is outside, unable to bear the cut-and-dry ceremony of this formality when his attachment to her was anything but formal and dry...

We all line up the cars afterwards for the procession to a small family plot. Now it's not so bad, because we're standing in the dirt with history around us...graves with dates like 1922 on them...and I in fact would have been fine if the throwing of the dirt onto the grave hadn't caused everyone else to burst out in tears and for my mother to hold me and whisper to never let her be buried...

Imagining my grandparents' deaths was hard enough...my mother's?!?! There I went again...

soon the heels started to hurt my feet, and filling the grave took such a long time that people began to chit-chat and talk about the house where the wake was being held afterward. Public Works had come to make sure that everything was done properly, and they got invited to the house. I had classes to go to, though I wasn't sure if I would last through them, but once I was in my car and on my way again...everything is back to normal...

except for one little thing: I need to call up all my grandparents and tell them that I love them.