In All of Our Living

Yesterday I watched as my three children laid me to rest. There they stood beside my body, two pairs of blue eyes and one pair brown looking down at me, alternating between tears and sniff-dried smiles as their mother greeted public mourners and they hugged each other with the private arms of vanished memories and inside jokes. If I do say so myself, my wake and funeral were quite an event, something worth waiting for, a real sight for these sore, dead eyes. From inside the box and then from up above I watched the whole thing, and I had the time of my life seeing my life go on without me.

At the church, my wife and daughters stood steady in the first row of benches like the remaining front line of the team that we were - a crowd gathering behind them, they held up well against the searchers staring into the backs of their heads. Given that they had never practiced this play before I was very proud of them. This is not to say that there weren’t a few glitches. As always, the minister badly mispronounced our last name in the eulogy making my middle daughter roll her eyes and sigh so loudly that her older sister scolded her with a head shake which then nearly started a fight between them. For a minute, I thought I might have to come back from my resting place and break them up like I used to when they were small and I’d storm into their rooms to pull them apart with my own hands. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded getting the chance to do that one last time, but in the end they got it together, each ultimately smirking at the idiocy of the moment and grabbing hands across the front of their little sister who then put her hand peacefully upon theirs.

The scene at the cemetery was anticlimactic as it always is with these things – you could tell that most everybody was pretty tired of me by this point. My insistence on dying in the middle of their lives as I had really messed up their work and school schedules not to mention the inconvenience of dark suits and dresses that quickly needed to be dry cleaned and phone calls that they didn’t want to have to make, and so they really just wanted to get the hell away from me by this point. And I can’t say as I blame them. First of all what else could they do or say after days of writing out sympathy cards and making casseroles and salads and uncomfortably hugging my wife and children while whispering in their ears how sorry they were and how strong we all needed to be . And second of all, even though it is now the month of March the bone yard was still freezing yesterday (if you want my recommendation, I would tell you to try to die in late spring or early summer as people tend to want to hang around a little longer – if not for you, since you’ll be dead anyway, then for your family) - even I was looking forward to being placed under the frost line with a nice warm blanket of dirt around me on a day such as it was yesterday.

A decent size crowd gathered at our house after the service at the grave. The were almost more people than could comfortably fit in our kitchen and living room and dining room – I probably had the best view of anyone in the house so believe me when I tell you how packed the place was. I have to admit that my wife was right when she convinced me not to downsize to a smaller house so we wouldn’t have to work so hard any more. Even though I was dead, it was nice to see that people had at least a little room left over to move around inside our home and it’s always good when there are enough toilets to accommodate more than a couple of mourners at a time. I think people were impressed with how nice we had kept up the place and my wife got more than a couple of compliments on the antiques in the dining room and the picture of us and the kids on the fireplace mantel.

Of course, it wouldn’t have been a gathering after a funeral without a bit of drama and that came in the form of a couple of women whom had flirted with me over the years deciding to show up and spend some time chatting with my wife. My daughters were ready to kill these batty old girls - I actually watched my oldest take a knife from the butcher block holder at the corner of the kitchen counter and slam it hard down on a lump of cheese while eyeing one of these crazy women who was showing a little too much cleavage and smiling a little too happily as she walked away from paying her personal respects to my wife. Believe me nothing ever came from any of these affairs of the mind. But as women will do, my daughters rallied behind their mother, soon forming a wedge around her to protect her from that which she never needed to be protected from in the first place. Near the end of the gathering, when almost everyone had left the house, I settled the bulk of my spirit in an ottoman at the front of the wing chair where my wife was sitting and, summoning everything I had left to give, I let my invisible head fall onto my wife’s lap which - although she could not have know it was there - seemed to calm her anyway as she smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt just as if she were stroking my hair.

When all was said and done and everyone gone - when evening had come and the lights in the house were turned off, all except those in the bedrooms where my daughters and wife were resting - I began my last look around the place. I had to leave for good now and, as I always did, I wanted to make sure that the doors were locked and that the coffee pot was off and that the grounds outside the house were quiet and that all possible menaces were as far from my family as my dead eyes could see. I am the father after all, and who else will do these things I am the husband and the man of the house for now and forever and ever and that is just what we do.

I feathered my sleeping daughters with goodbye kisses as I had many times before the early dawn leavings of my business trips – one kiss for the oldest, two for the middle and three to bless the youngest on her cheek - and I then lay down weightlessly beside the warm body of wife waiting a bit before drifting away and away and away.

* * * * *

Yesterday I went to a real funeral and soberly I watched a father’s children lay him to rest. Who he was and who they are will not be important to you, but what I learned may be: step back and see yourself and your family on the day of your parting and you will see yourself in all of your living. Daydream about the ones you love on the days after the final days of your life and you will cherish more all the days you have left to live. All your blunders will be there in plain view as will all your triumphs. The seeds of all the things you never said and all the actions you never dared to take will sprout before you and it will then be up to you to cultivate them before you go.

Don’t miss this chance, my dear fathers (and mothers too) – even as the early spring blossoms into life around us - we are already all on our way.