GRIEVING NOTES

Day Five: Friday, October 19, 2007

"When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, you have taught me to say
It is well, It is well with my soul."

From the hymn "It Is Well with My Soul" by Horatio G. Spoffard

(It has now been over a month since my last entry in this Grieving Notes series. My memories of the five days following my mother's death, while still vivid, aren't quite as sharp and palpable as they were when I first started these essays a month after I got back from the funeral. It probably would have been best to just sit down and write it all when it was fresh, but, as I've noted, these posts are damned hard to write. That's why I've delayed this final part for so long. But I'm really feeling the itch to move on, to get back to some normal semblance of my previous life, to get back to the regular grind of blogging, expressing my daily outrages, poking fun at politicians and other powerful figures, all that good stuff. So, what I'm saying is that, even though I don't really feel like writing this, I want to get it out of the way. I'm just going to belt the damned thing out and call it done.

Here goes.)

I looked at my eye in the bathroom mirror. Actually, I had been periodically checking my eye for the last couple of days, ever since I had first seen my mother's dead body and then later noticed that a small growth I'd had for years had seemingly disappeared. Still gone. Maybe it was the lighting or something; I couldn't be one hundred percent sure until I got some better light.

Obviously, this was weird. No, I didn't think some minor miracle had occurred, but belief in spontaneous healing upon the sight of, say, a dead saint's corpse is part of the heritage of Western civilization. Little did I realize that in a couple of hours I was going to see my mother celebrated like a saint, or at least as far in that direction as the very Protestant Southern Baptists are willing to go.

I straightened my tie and checked my eye again. Amazing. Still gone. I checked my watch; it was nearing nine a.m. The limo would be there to pick us up very soon. I went downstairs and drank some coffee while my father and older brother fussed around, getting together whatever they needed to have at the funeral and burial. My younger brother Steve, along with his soon to be wife Lesley, and soon to be step kids Caitlyn and Abigail, arrived. Moments later, the limo was there.

I had never been in a limo before, and this one easily met my expectation. Full bar, which was empty--I guess this company did more than funerals. We didn't say much as we rode to the church, just the occasional remark like "what a beautiful day" or "be sure to get that ring before they bury her." My dad warned us that he wanted to keep as much distance as possible between us and Mom's family--there had been a falling out with most of her sisters some years before in the wake of their mother's death; it was all a bunch of bullshit that Mom never deserved and never asked for, but it meant essentially the end of our relationship with them.

Because the casket would be closed during the service, we spent about a half hour with her body once we got there. I had a strange and wonderful moment. An old friend from my Southern Baptist youth days had gone on to work for the funeral home running the show. We were never really pals; he's a couple of years younger than me, and was a bit awkward back in the day, so our social circles simply didn't overlap. But we shared some experiences together while young, and I always liked him. More recently, he had befriended my mother while I was off in Louisiana getting my MFA. Floyd approached me at the front of our old church while I was looking at Mom. We didn't say anything. He just hugged me, something that would have never happened while we were teenagers. It was totally unexpected. In that moment, it was as though a particular era in my life, not just one person, was comforting me, telling me everything would be okay. No words. Floyd retreated as quickly and quietly as he appeared.

When people started arriving, we were hustled into a sort of pastor's lounge to wait for it to start. I went to the bathroom twice during the forty five minutes or so that we waited, again checking my eye each time. My father said his chest hurt, and my cousin, a psychiatrist, managed to find a nurse to take his blood pressure and vitals; it was just stress--he would make it through the day. My dad's weird brother, Uncle Dean, a Catholic priest, the Choctaw who had lived on reservations on and off for years, joined us with his wife. I asked him to explain the relationship between his Catholic church, which allows priests to marry, and the Roman Catholic Church, which is the one with which I am familiar. He then regaled us with some European history and alternative theology, which was quite interesting, but more valuable for helping us pass the time.

Then it was time. I had an idea of what to expect because I had been with my ex-wife Becky's family at her father's funeral back in 1998. Nonetheless, it was all very unsettling. We entered the sanctuary in a rush. There were hundreds and hundreds of people in attendance. A woman I had known for over twenty years was playing hymns on the organ. Familiar faces, faces I hadn't seen in I don't know how long, dotted the crowd. We took our seats on the front row.

Then it began. Everybody who addressed the crowd glowingly praised Mom. She was a great Christian woman, who tirelessly labored for the Lord in her chosen ministry, working with children. Indeed, it was becoming apparent to me that she had been doing this kind of work for so long that the kids she first started working with back in the late 70s had grown up and had children of their own, to whom she had also ministered, many of whom were there in attendance. I mean, I had always known that she was doing this kind of work, that she was the much loved "Miss Birdie" of her church's Sunday school, mother's-day-out, and vacation Bible school programs, but over the years it just never occurred to me how many lives she was affecting, probably counted in the thousands. And it wasn't just children: my mother had spent the last few years since retiring helping to run the church's prayer ministry. She facilitated countless prayers for countless individuals, many of whom she had never even met. None of this even gets into the numerous mission trips she had taken over the years to foreign countries, often bringing shoes and clothing to orphans.

And that's exactly what the former pastor spoke about in his eulogy when it was his turn at the pulpit. I had never thought of my mom as some kind of Mother Theresa, a saint, working ceaselessly for the souls of humanity. She was always simply "Mom," extraordinarily important, yes, but important to me. All these years while I had been so narcissistically involved with myself, I had been missing the plain-as-day fact that my mother had been building a legacy. Turns out she was a big fucking deal. How could I have missed it?

Here's why: she never thought of herself as a big fucking deal; she was always "Mom." And the meek shall inherit the Earth.

The service closed with my favorite hymn, which was also her favorite hymn, "It Is Well with My Soul." I stood and sang with the congregation even though I hadn't counted myself one of them for fifteen years. Tears streamed down my face. I got so choked up I couldn't get the words out.

Then it was over. We were quickly hustled into the limo and hit the freeway for the VA cemetery where my parents had plots because of my father's longtime service in the Texas Air National Guard. The graveside was more of the same, with only a fraction of the attendance of the church service. It was a beautiful day, and as the preacher prayed his final prayer, all of us holding hands, a bird nearby started to chirp conspicuously. If you don't already know, my mother's name was "Birdie." If this had been a movie or play, the writer would have rejected it as being way too unlikely--you just don't get symbolism like that in real life. But this is real life. The moment simply capped a week of amazing events.

Hours later, after I had gone home and gotten a nap, a few church people arrived with our dinner. One of them was a man who had worked in the prayer ministry with my mother, about her age, a former Marine colonel who fought in Vietnam, and a football player for Rice University back when they were good enough to beat Texas in the late fifties and early sixties. He led us in prayer while we stood in a circle in the kitchen. As I stood there with my head bowed and eyes closed I felt myself being moved and comforted by his Charleton Heston voice. I allowed myself to temporarily abandon my anti-Christian attitudes and views and let it all envelop me.

For the moment, I was in the presence of the Lord.


My mother at some point in the last five years of her life. This is how I will always remember her.

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