I’m sitting in my brothers home the day after the flight from hell. It is February 2018. I didn’t make it in time for goodbye and she is gone. For the first time in years, our family is in one location at the same time. Even Aunt Becky, carrying her bag of disfunction. Her husband, who she no longer speaks to. Her daughters too, who have made no effort to speak to one another in years. The church Elder knocks on the door and my younger brother lets him in. Dad and the siblings are in the room, planning the memorial service. This particular church member was chosen for his history with our family. I haven’t seen him in years and when he enters, I am reminded of my youth. The time I sat in a morose room as a teenager while he and other authoritative men berated my choices with boys. I look at him as he enters. He has not aged during the past twenty years. I give my warm regards. The rest of the family welcomes him. Here we all are, the gang who used to play Clue. But something is wrong. Instinctively, my eyes keep searching the room for you, mom. How can any plans be approved if you’re not here to tell us it’s ok. Not a single thing is ok.
Earlier today, we chose your favorite songs for the service. You would have loved the attention we paid to considering the choices. The pictures we selected for the program. The laughs we had about your fashion. How we focused on the beauty and realness of the words that will be said to celebrate you. During all of this, I feel a sixth sense hovering, mocking our efforts. It’s asking if everyone properly sad? Emotions are confusing and years of pain are bottled. In a way our activities are surreal, as though we are going through the motions. Feelings of relief are unspoken. We simply can’t.
My younger brother leads decisions about the service, falling into his most detached communication style. I stare at him, wondering who he is. Sad that we’ve grown apart. He has had it the hardest; living here watching every step of your health unfold. I wince. Then I look around for you. I need to talk with you about everyone in the room, mom, exchange our thoughts and exhale the snarky parts. The Elder proposes what he will say at the service and I gasp, then cry. His words are impersonal, as though he could be talking about anyone. Impersonal the way much of their unloving religious rituals are. Robotic. It aches that certain things have stayed the same.
I share my opinion openly. Everyone looks at me the way I know I’m viewed, the outsider. The contrarian. There I am again, that teenager. Years evaporate instantly. But I keep talking. For you I think.
“But mom won’t be there! How can we have a funeral for her if she’s not here? I just can’t believe she won’t be there,” I shrill hysterically. Quiet stares pierce me.
My siblings are remembering the way I broke at the hospital that time we waited for results of your stint procedure. The screaming. I’ve become a zebra at the zoo. They gawk and I look back. The room energy sizzles with everyone’s thoughts. You aren’t able to reach out to hug me or provide comforting words and it feels wierd. Dad sits clueless, his capacity to comfort was castrated by you years before. My brothers look away, not understanding what to do with me. My sister had already left the room, walling off her sadness with the humor she relies on for sanity. I hear her cackling in the other room.
The sixth sense whispers, “Fakers.”
A flower arrangement arrives the next afternoon, just an hour before the service. We are under the influence of wine. I have on the black dress I bought in a hurry. The one I will throw away the next day. My sister in law walks into the room carrying the flowers, fragrant with Stargazers. The same arrangement I had purchased for you in the hospital when you and the nurses enjoyed them so much. My heart pounds heavy with regret that I had not sent another arrangement while you could enjoy it. I remember you asked for it. I lower my head to my chest involuntarily.
When it’s time, I’m looking for you and dad, always the pair, hoping for a sense of normality for the drive to church. Letting the old ways you taught us wash over me. The past being a comfort. God being the truest part of our family that you and dad most believed in. The way you felt a mother should be. The best you knew how.
Framed pictures are placed on tables throughout the lobby alongside the Stargazer arrangement. Your face is so happy and young, shining from the frame. The family pictures convey a life that is beautiful and pure as it should be. I feel gratitude for you and the love you raised us with. Your laugh from the Nebraska family reunion comes to mind and makes me smile. Then I feel angry at myself for not making time to be better and listen more. The years that have slipped by. It disgusts me that I’m thinking about my own issues when this service is about you. I walk over to the Stargazers and breathe in the scent. My chest sobs and I choke back sound in my throat instead of letting it out, to save others from me. It’s time to go sit between Dad and my sister. The only possible way to get through the next hour. After sitting I look around the church. And here I am again, in the seats we grew up in, making God proud of us. Which seemed more important to you during my whole life, rather than being close and understanding one another. I’m glad God is here since you aren’t.
Today it is as if you’ve closed your bedroom door again all day. And it will never open when you are in a better mood. You’ve locked it forever.
We Are Always Blooming 