Thanks for all the really supportive, great comments and emails and cards. It’s always surprising to me how really nice people can be at times when I need it. Surprising and gratifying.
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It’s still weird to think about: on the one hand, my father had been sick for a while, so it’s not especially surprising that during this cold and flu season he got sick and passed away. But on the other…the guy who used to pull my loose teeth and take me sledding in Elizabeth Park can’t be dead. He just can’t.
I thought the funeral would help me get a handle on really understanding he was dead, but it didn’t. When we showed up at the mortuary to see his body, I didn’t react much at all because to me the figure in the casket didn’t look like my father. The face was different. The color was wrong. Clearly the mortuary had made a mistake and put a wax dummy meant to represent my father into the casket, because that wasn’t my father.
After the viewing we drove to St. Dominic’s, my father’s church, for a mass, and then drove to the cemetery for the burial. (The graveyard’s in Colma, of course—graveyard to the Bay Area!) One of the prominent members ot he cemetery is Joe DiMaggio—my sister said, “That would make Dad happy.” My Dad was a lifelong baseball fan.
The workers lowered the casket into the ground and we threw roses on top of the casket. Well, all of us except Sophia; she didn’t want to give her rose up.
We’d explained to Sophia what had happened, and she seemed to understand what we were telling her, if not exactly the proper etiquette. She went up to my Mom and said, “Your husband died. You’re a little sad.” Sophia was much more interested in playing with her cousins than in being quiet and still. Actually, all four cousins were well-behaved (given they’re all 4 and under) during the day: the viewing, the mass at St. Dominic’s, the burial.
We went back to my sister’s house for a luncheon/wake, and then late in the afternoon we headed home. We were all exhausted.
Diane:
What you described about believing the mortuary made a mistake and replaced your father with a wax figure is exactly how I felt after I lost my brother in a car accident. I dreaded going in to see his body, but when I got there, I thought “Oh, my goodness. There must be a mistake — this is clearly not my brother”. It really rang home how much the body is just a shell. Once the person is no longer occupying the body, they are truly gone.
The numbness you are feeling is totally normal. I can’t tell you how many times I saw something funny and tried to dial the phone to tell my brother something that he would get a kick out of.
Take care.
I comment you for bringing Sophia along. Some folks dissaprove of bringing young children to funerals. Claiming that they’ll disrupt the assembly, that they’re too young to understand etc etc..
True, they’re too young to understand. Nonetheless it will provide an inkling, also when they’re older they (Sophia and other children) can take some comfort in knowing they participated, that they are part of the family, not something to be shunted aside.