I was asked to visit a funeral home here in San Antonio, near my place. It's a small place near my apartment, and it's been the scene of many deaths from the days of my youth to today. KB Toys, Steve & Barry's, Boston Market and even Papa John's pizza are all gone, but this funeral home is still here.
I like some things solemn, and church and a funeral should be among them. In the end, it was a roast, with giggling and stories being told that were more about the family than the departed. I know it was said in love, and with a deep sense pleasure that everyone could share in the joy of knowing the dear-departed, but that should have been done outside. It should have been done outside of the funeral room, separating the mourners from those 'celebrating the life lost' with happy memories.
The good things in life are how we should remember those who have gone before us into the great adventure. We should be cackling, laughing, and holding our stomachs unless we're in the outer alcove. I was thinking back to 1896, when a friend of mine committed suicide, leaving many of us heartbroken. I was asked to be an usher, and I was unsure of what to do with my feelings: the guy had been like a brother to me. We ate bad food, drank a lot, and he taught me how to drive and how to crash bars with confidence. Now he was gone, and I was floundering in the water, like in a pool, unsure and thrashing with the fear of drowning and the lack of a life preserver.
We were quiet. very fuckin' quiet, and we told stories at his folks home, having beers and showing off pictures of all the things we did together. But it was unnerving, being here in the noise 23 years later with the family going on and on about just how it could have been and what fun-blah-blah-blah.
I felt like I was 19 years old again. We were told to wait as the family was sheparded out the door, told we'd be carrying the casket, and after the room was emptied, the place was closed. The funeral director told us to say our final "good-bye's", and staying silently in the front of the funeral home as the family said their final good-bye's. This was the only time I was uncertain of wanting to be in an exclusive place. The parents went up, and the mother stayed quietly as the father & his sister stepped back giving her a final word with her late-son. A moment later we heard a wail, a god-awful, stomach shaking cry that went from the front of the room with the casket to God's ear itself. She was inconsolable, and we didn't know what to do. We, our late-friends' ushers, were all shallow in experiences of the world. One of us, just back from his new Naval station, walked up, took the woman by the arms, lifted her bodily, always cooing her name, saying "He's gone. Now we have to go."
The funeral director closed and sealed the coffin, and we, the pallbearers carried it out by the brass handles. It always felt as if it may slip from one hand or another, mine or the guy next to me, or in front of me, or opposite of me ... i was never suere who'd drop it or if this would be no problem.
Sadly, it was no problem. We carried our dead friend to his hearse, into the church, out of the church and to his final destination at a hillside spot next to a small grove of trees behind a minor airport. I wept quietly behind my sunglasses, and know I still miss my faux-brother, who taught me so many lessons in my life, and who made me a different kind of man. Maybe he partly made me the man I am today from the experiences we shared, and maybe I made myself one with the things we went through, but I am still someone special simply because he was in my life, even for a few years.
Many things haunt me. Many things make me smile. Many things shape me.
I guess that's all I can say for now ...
Blessings,
Julian
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