14 June 1999: Third Day

I had asked CLH the day I booked the flight what I should wear to the hospice. The next day I learned that we wouldn't have to go there but to a funeral, which made the wardrobe choice easier. Black, all black. I brought a black work dress that I flatly despise in large part because I have to wear heels with it. I brought a long black cotton skirt and a gray top, with which I at least could wear black sandals without stockings. I was caught between excess formality and undue casualness, but CLH said she had a suit I could borrow.

As soon as CLH got up, I folded up the couch and packed what I could, but I refused to put my bag in the car until I changed Afterward. The day was humid and the house, as ever, was close. I shoved my legs into thigh-highs, zipped up the hated dress, stuffed my feet into heels. Now I remembered that this is distinctly a winter dress, long sleeved, heavy, lined.

CLH pulled on her black linen shirtdress and almost immediately shucked it off, pulling on a tee shirt and shorts and resolving not to change until the last possible moment. I told her BJWL would ask her if that's what she planned to wear to the funeral. She grunted (she'd had no coffee).

I strode out into the kitchen for water. BDL wore a shirt of a color I'd never wear to a funeral and my mother's dress was black floral. Her feelings were mixed, I knew. My grandmother emerged, never a wearer of black and now unable to shop for herself: she wore lavender and grey. BDL whistled at my sleek appearance, which strengthened my conviction to wear something else.

When CLH came out, our mother asked her if she was going to wear that to the funeral. I waggled my eyebrows at CLH. She giggled and BJWL wanted to know why and CLH told her and BJWL insisted that that would have been a fine outfit and ya ya ya--by which point we were ignoring her. This is the same woman who told us we could wear ripped up jeans to attend her wedding and told us that so repetitiously I had to call her on its falsity just to shut her up.

I tried on the suit and understood why my size 6 sister wanted to get rid of it: the waist swam about my size 10 waist. My mother helped me pin it together--that was nice of her--and I wore my grey shirt and carried the jacket, not to wear that until the last moment.

Leaving the house, I asked CLH if there would be a chair for DEW. "Of course." And I believed. We stopped at the hateful Bess Eaton that has popped up like a mushroom in the middle of town and given an obvious source to the litter. From the new convenience store next door--I swear it's only Old Lyme zoning that's keeping indie stores alive: Michelle's Convenience Store--I bought water. Back in the car, CLH told me to look at her coffee cup. It had some passage from the Book of John on it. "And the coffee's not even good."

BJWL had directed us to exit I-95 onto a particular road in Clinton, even though the cemetery is off another road which has its own exit. This way we got to pass another coffee shop, though, at which CLH bought another cup, non-religious this time. BJWL had instructed us to take a left at some building or other with Doric columns. As we turned left, I griped that those were Ionic. "I knew that was coming," said my sister, who's startled if ten minutes elapse without my saying something against our mother. Doric is not synonymous with Greek, damn it.

We passed the cemetery, found the highway less than a mile later (following our mother's directions had meant backtracking several miles), composed ourselves, and returned to the cemetery. I stripped off my shirt and threw on the jacket, possibly scandalizing BDL's brother, if he was indecent enough as to notice me before I left the car (or that I closed the gaping lapels with another safety pin).

Our cousin was cleaning off the stone, which was filthy and covered in grass clippings. There was no chair, something that didn't actually occur to me until the service began. Before the service, DEW was being greeted and comforted and I was saying hi to family myself, so I didn't notice.

A woman emerged from a backseat and came forward with a wheely walker. This was DEW's friend with MS or MD or something like that with whom she used to walk on the boardwalks of Hammonassett. She asked me which granddaughter I was and I told her and her face lit up as she said how often DEW speaks of me. I was proud.

The pastor arrived with his stupid guitar. I had asked my mother if he was going to drag amplifiers into the graveyard or settle for acoustic for the day. I was thankful to see it was acoustic.

My great-aunt and -uncle arrived with their spouses. Two of my mother's cousins came also, and I was again thankful that the elder was not accompanied by her husband the rapist Jack.

Everyone stopped talking and my great-aunt gently pushed my shoulder. I joined the front line of mourners, nearly: I stood behind DEW, having tardily realized she had no chair. By the time I noticed a bench under a tree a score of paces away, the pastor had entranced himself and I, Best Behavior Woman, lacked the 'nads to interrupt. So I stayed behind DEW, willing my young muscles' strength into her atrophied legs and for her hand not to slip from her cane and for my uncle to unclasp his stupid hands so as to put an arm around his mother's shoulder and for Queequeg to appear with some people furniture. I seriously considered going down on all fours for DEW to sit on me myself, but I figured that would cause as much commotion as interrupting the ranting.

I noticed the stone next to my grandparents' and stared--the stone must be so dirty I wasn't reading the dates right. One stone, three dates. 1986-1990, 1988-1990, 1990-1990. No, those Sesame Street figures and other toys on the stone meant those dates were right. Afterward, I asked a German Shepherd (they live in the same town) what had happened: she told me about a fire in a trailer without smoke detectors. Then I remembered the case, in whose aftermath Connecticut passed a law that all rented residences must have detectors at the landlord's expense. I am not sure if it is tragic that my grandparents will lie next to such a tragedy or if the children will be a comfort to them. Then I reminded myself we're all just ashes.

I stood and watched DEW, the breeze in the leaves, and the birds overhead, and I tuned out as much as possible of "Pastor" Miami Vice delivering the nonreligious nonservice my grandfather requested. When he led the throng in a hymn titled "Fountain of Blood" I soothed myself with images of his being struck by lightning or a dove ripping out his vocal cords or some other vicious act of his god and then chastised myself for such hatefulness. Christian I do not be and violent I struggle against being. As the dreadful ditty droned to its end, he actually thanked the crowd: "Thank you." I finished silently, "...very much," since he clearly had a God/Elvis complex.

The theme of the hymn, whose lyrics I cannot find online, and of his sermon, was that JCW's gone to hell so let's save ourselves. There was no eulogy. There was no word about the man, his family (like his (ex)wife, sister, or children), his accomplishments, his contributions, nothing. A quote: "We can do nothing now about the state of JCW, but we can follow the way ourselves."

Capping the globe was this: "If you want to allow Jesus into your life right now, just raise your hand right now." He raised a hand himself, just to demonstrate. He was soliciting people unto himself at a funeral. The focus throughout the funeral had clearly been the importance of being saved like the sole mourner BJWL (the sole family member whose soul has been saved "Pastor" M.V.'s way), and not on the dead person or his other mourners. Now the cult leader was directing his audience to himself and his own brand of Christianity, which I consider as Old Testament as a Christianity can be. Instead of following Jesus' one new commandment greater than all the others (that ye shall love one another), he pushes a purely Yahweh, eye-for-an-eye kind of faith. He still held his hand up; indeed only an instant had passed since he issued his solicitation. And I had but one thought:

How dare he!

My arm started upward. Out of the corner of her eye, CLH spotted the movement and wondered what I doing. The pastor saw me and I could see the hope in his face. My hand snatched my sunglasses off my nose, the better to deliver unto this selfish hateful man my fatal Basilisk Glare.

The pastor's eyes immediately glazed over, not seeing me. I returned my doting and pacifist attention to my grandmother, who shifted her weight on her cane. Disappointed in his attempt to burnish his personal glory by converting someone to his way, having shown his disrespect for my grandfather and his lack of faith and the audience's several faiths that varied from his own, the pastor wound up. Whew. My uncle and I aided my grandmother toward the drive, and I imperiously commanded BDL to move his car closer, now, for DEW to sit in (and he did). The pastor interrupted this stumbling walk to introduce himself to us, as if we cared, as if he hadn't bothered to remember BJWL's family whom he'd met at her wedding.

Only now did DEW cry, which was the one thing I'd dreaded to see, with exhaustion as much as grief. And BJWL hied herself to DEW too, to gush about what a nice service it was--reassuring, I guess she meant to be. I had forgotten the chair before but now one thing I did remember: "Granny, do you want a flower from one of the arrangements?" "Yes," she choked, "I want one of the yellow roses." Of course: they've always been her favorite.

Before everyone left, DEW moved into my cousin's minivan, the biggest car in the family and her only chance to be alone with her and my uncle. I gave directions to a few people and said goodbye to some others, and CLH and I hottailed it outta there. I really wanted to flash the pastor my chest as I changed back to the short-sleeved cotton shirt, but I was still being Well Behaved, basilism aside.

We were first off the highway back in Old Lyme and CLH wanted moonshine--illegal, hidden liquor. She planned to go to the package store right off Hall's Road, where her car with its distinctive Massachusetts plates would stand out the best, where I could pose all in black with my arms crossed like a Secret Service Agent, so BJWL and her pastor could see her daughters' wanton ways. Unfortunately that store is gone and so we ducked into another, deep in a parking lot across the road.

Back at the house, I swapped suit pants for skirt and could be my barefoot self, neither mourner nor secret service agent. I hung up the rose to dry in my grandmother's room, telling her it was done and telling my mother, too, so she couldn't call it trash and browbeat DEW into throwing it out. I made small talk. I avoided the pastor. I chatted with the females in the living room, where my grandmother sat, and with the males on the deck. Suddenly the deck got crowded and the conversation ceased and I heard my mother's voice screech that she didn't know where CLH was and I asked a family friend what was doing. She told me the pastor was going to pray again--why my grandmother was dragged onto the deck instead of pastor moving his ass inside I couldn't say. But my being on the deck meant that my disgusted flight could more obvious: long skirt and all, I vaulted the rail, landed five feet down, and ran off. My definition of good behavior does not include listening to that man in my own house, which is not and never was my own house, but whatever.

I found my cousin MWC and her husband behind their minivan and from her, who has no agenda, heard what DEW said when BJWL wasn't around about the service. No wonder BJWL wanted DEW to ride back with her: didn't want to allow any time for uncensored speech. I was not alone in my revulsion for the pastor or his idea of appropriate topics for funerals.

While we stood in the driveway, a car came up from the wrong way and an elderly lady got out. I waxed hostessy and approached her, and she smiled at me and said, "You don't know who I am, do you?" but I did recognize her as a neighbor from down the road--which explained the odd approach--and her name came to me in a moment. "You made us wonderful Easter baskets every year!" and she was pleased I remembered. As well, one summer I was a companion for a woman whom this neighbor brought to Mass, and I recalled that to her as well. I brought her inside to DEW and lay her salad on the dining table and slid her card--addressed to BJWL alone--onto the mantel.

I know my grandparents are divorced; I mean, people in their mid-70s divorcing is nothing you're likely to forget. I dunno how many people knew about it, but more people than know that do know they lived in the same house for the past four years and lived apart for only less than two. I was distraught that the sermon as well as everyone's attention was riveted on my mother. My uncle doesn't live nearby and I don't expect neighbors to remember him, but for family to ignore him and more important my grandmother?

Later as I stood on the deck, my mother and a relative came out of the house, my mother purposefully, the relative ambling. BJWL was extolling BDL's blood: "Oh yes, he's one-eighth Cherokee; his great-grandmother came over on the Trail of Tears as a baby" (making it sound like a version of The Mayflower). The Relative asked what the Trail of Tears was? BJWL continued on her purposeful mission, because either she had a purposeful mission or she pretended she had a purposeful mission to disguise not knowing. I told the old woman, briefly, and she said, "Well I never heard of that." She's in her 70s and I, forty years younger, didn't learn how deliberately the United States exterminated the native American population until college history.

I pointed out that all history is a matter of perspective [it being a written record, written by someone who is not omniscient and who has an agenda, however benign or unconscious] and, grasping for an obvious, non-offensive example, offered that the U.S. Revolution is taught differently in U.S. schools than in British, to illustrate how European American history might gloss over the destruction of native populations and cultures.

"You sound," said this blood relative of mine, "like my daughter about [voice dropping to whisper] the blacks [resuming regular volume] in Boston."

My eyes glazed over the same way the cult leader's had at my basilism and I turned away. CLH says I have impossibly high standards for people that no one can live up to and I forgive no one's shortcoming(s). Maybe so. It's called discrimination, discrimination by my own individual taste, not this relative's arbitrary generalized discrimination by race.

CLH had told BJWL in the morning we wouldn't stay very long. She had wanted to leave after the service and was displeased to learn the day before there'd be a gathering afterward. (Which no one but me called a wake--whaddya call it?) So anyway that pissed BJWL right off and she immediately blasted at DEW in quite the accusatory tone, "CLH and Lisa are going back to Boston right away." My grandmother might be El Sordo but she's not braindead, and picking up the tone she chose her verb: "Well I don't blame them." And BJWL tried to cover up her conspicuous reaction by attacking DEW: "Who said anything about blaming them? Where'd you get that idea?" and DEW continued, "It's a long drive, after all."

So as people shoved off, so did we. I hope such a gathering helped DEW, and if it had to follow a religious service, well, I know my grandfather's lack of faith was a disappointment to my grandmother so maybe she didn't mind it, and if she didn't mind maybe I shouldn't mind, but that solicitation was entirely wrong, carrying its subtext of condemnation of other paths to God.

We were quiet driving back, at least mostly. On 395, between the coast and the route to Storrs, I barely noticed an Isuzu Trooper until I saw the UConn parking sticker in its back left window. A blue sticker, meaning faculty. I hardly needed the gold-rimmed glasses and baseball cap to clue me in:

"RJH!" I yelled, scaring and then severely pissing off my sister. RJH and I waved frantically as CLH accelerated. I left him a message at home as soon as the phone had coverage and called him again from Logan the next day, and there, without CLH next to me, I could say what I thought at the time: that she was mean.

I couldn't ask her, as I never can, if pulling off into the state police barracks parking lot for a hug would have taken that much time? I knew she wanted to get back to Boston and Brad. We made a quick stop at her place in the Fens and then, on Storrow Drive in rush hour traffic on the way to Lynn or wherever he lives, she asked me why BJWL bothers me so, when she doesn't bother CLH so much. Why? Because I know how mean BJWL is to DEW and I care. Because CLH can dish crap out to BJWL, which renders her more able to accept crap to begin with. Because maybe CLH can ignore the utter lack of personal rapport between us but I can't. Because I resent that while BJWL cares about the lump of flesh she conceived, she shows no interest in the mind that distinguishes my corpse from anyone else's. Because she dares impugn my intelligence. Because even if I don't like her now, I started out liking her but she never liked me, not ever after being me meant thinking and thinking differently than she did.

I can't call that the best of all timing on my sister's part, and if my face had recovered my spirits had not by the time I met Brad (about whom our granny says, "Why buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?"). My first impression of Brad was that he might have buttoned his shirt over his protuding belly to meet his girlfriend's sister. We spent the evening in Newburyport, which was very pretty, and came home and crashed. And I was again on my very best behavior but tragically unable to come up with much to talk to him about. (I knew better than to mention books.) They've been going out over a year and CLH says he might be The One, but he didn't come to the funeral (nor did my husband) and I asked him why not: he could have offered our grandmother a glass of milk.