the funeral

Yesterday was my grandma's funeral.  It was both sweet and sad.  More people than I expected showed up (60 ish maybe?) - that's what you get when you way outlive all of your siblings and most of your nieces and nephews.  I was honored that many in-law types (relatives from my dad's side, as well as my aunt's husband's family) showed up, although I did make the crack to my cousin that maybe some of them come to funerals just so someone comes to theirs.  See?  I'm not that nice, even at a funeral (and I get that trait from my spicy grandma).

It felt like a nicely paced day.  The funeral home and church gave us time to spend with grandma's body - oh!  That's right!  I'm realizing through this process that I need to figure out what my parents want done (cremation or not?  where to be buried?) when it's their time.  Turns out we had differing opinions in the family about what grandma wanted.  She ended up not being cremated, and there was an open casket, which I didn't expect.  I spent hours with her dead body in her room on Saturday and it didn't bother me at all, but when I walked into the church yesterday and saw the casket opened, I got very upset and sort of yelled at my mom, "I didn't know it would be an open casket!!!!!"  I don't like the open casket, for what it's worth.  Put that first my my what-to-do-after-I-die list.

Anyway, after I got over the open-casket shock, I was able to spend some time with my beautiful grandma. It was tearful, but good.  After the funeral, we as a family watched the funeral home folks take off her ring and glasses and close the lid for the final time.  I thought, "THIS is why I don't like the open casket!"  I worried a bit about my kids, but they seemed to be doing ok with it.  I had explained to them, as soon as I realized what was going on, that it looks like she's sleeping but she's not, it's ok, she's not in her body anymore.  "It's just a shell, mom" Two said.  My aunt was pretty tearful and sort of shouted out, "bye mom!!"  It was certainly an emotional moment.

A bit about the service - faithful reader(s) probably realize that I'm not the most religious person in the world, but I do come from pretty strong Catholic roots.  So, the funeral was in a Catholic church, which was ... ok.  I really enjoyed the priest and thought he did a great job of talking about grandma - who he knew a bit from doing mass over at the nursing home once/week - but when the Catholic part of the mass continued on, the rote prayer-stuff, I just tuned out.  It so does not speak to me.  I find no comfort in the ritual of it.  It doesn't (really) offend me either, but it's just pretty meaningless.  I sat there politely, listening to the mass, patiently waiting for it to be over.

The music, on the other hand, was wonderful and very moving.  The musician - a black guy who's family is from Harlem and is "just around the corner" from my cousin's apartment - was extremely talented.  Such a fitting tribute to my musician grandma (she played ragtime jazz on the piano like no one's business, and she was a singing in an orchestra in her 20's).  It was more soulful and bluesy than grandma's tastes, but wow, so well done.  He played the piano and sang, and he played the trumpet too.  Afterwards, I went up to him to try to thank him, but I became so overcome with emotion that I could barely eek out a thanks between my sobs.  He patiently watched me try to compose myself (you know those times when you don't really want to cry but you are, and you can't talk, but you want to? yeah, one of those moments), and in the end I made some crack about how it was good he took up piano too since you can't sing and play the trumpet at the same time.  He generously laughed, and I got out of there before I embarrassed myself any further.

The luncheon afterwards was what you'd expect.  Cold sandwiches, deli salads, cupcakes.  It was a nice time to chat with folks.  The local bishop doesn't allow for personal testimony during funerals anymore, so there was a mike and a stand set up for us to share stories during the luncheon.  However, no one did. I felt a little weird about it, and Julie and I talked a couple of times about how someone should go up and  announce that the mike was available; however, I had not prepared anything so I wasn't really ready to talk.  We did play her record (in 1939, a record was made of her singing - "All of Me" and "Oh Dearie") in the background, and we chatted while the kids ran around a little crazy.

Afterwards, a small group of us went to my parents' house.  My dad has been transferring all of his old camcorder videos to DVD, so we played some videos from 1991 (20 years ago already!).  There grandma was - holding court on the piano and singing and vamping for the camera.  A fitting way to end our day.  We sat, entranced again by her talent and charm.  A bunch of us clapped after a particularly lively performance.  There were no tears, just feelings of gratitude and love.