36 Hours in Mourning

Tragically beautifully and depressingly familiar, funerals are homecoming occasions that too often we underappreciate. Often, we dread weekends spent dressed in funeral blacks. On the worst of these occasions, we’re forced to arrange the details of a morbid party. Calling florists, Aunt Cara insisting Calla Lilies are too predictable, Cousin Jordan trying to haggle down the price of an urn. In the best-case scenario though, we leave the weekend, heart and belly full, a chapter gently closed. The book on the shelf, the dust ready to settle on the pages. In the below article, we’ll investigate 36 hours spent in mourning. 

Recommendations: 

• Tissues. Seems obvious, but they’re so easily forgotten. Helpful hint, if you dab your tears with a fingertip, snapping your fingers will flick the water off and leave you with dry cheeks and fingers. It will garner some sour looks, though. 

• Get a haircut before you go. Even if someone doesn’t make a comment about your unkempt coif, you’ll be self-conscious about it the entire time. Then you’ll feel vapid and vain, concerned about your hair when a man is dead.

• An Uncle will suggest going to a movie, either to change the mood or to kill two hours of time. The Uncles and Cousins will vanish int cinematic darkness. Don’t go. Sit with your Mom. Just sit with her. Ask her if she needs anything. Turn on the Taylor Swift album she likes. Offer to pick up Starbucks for her. Maybe try to bake her famous sugar cookies, and let her show you how. 

Saturday 

3 A.M. 

Stir from your sleep. Blink your eyes open. Your boyfriend mumbles, debating over an Uber or Subway. You wonder if you had woken up in the middle of a conversation, you didn’t know you were having. You decide on the Uber. Brush your teeth. Brush your hair. Stuff an extra book into your backpack, in case you read through the first too quickly. (You will read neither book.) Get in the Uber, driven by Manuel. He plays dance music. This is a hilarious contrast to the sleep-deprived scene.  

4 A.M 

Find a seat on the too-crowded Amtrak. “Where is everyone going this early? It’s not even a holiday weekend.” “I guess everyone’s grandad died this week.” Stern look. Stifled laughter. Try to sleep. Neck ache, foot asleep. The short man in front of you HAS to lean his seat back. Your knees press against the unforgiving plastic tray table. 

7 A.M 

Arrive in Washington D.C. Take breakfast at a small coffee shop around the corner. Buy a decent latte and a slice of pumpkin pecan pie. Talk about Bob Dylan and the end times. Lament on D.C.’s lack of accessible public transport, but laude them for having an organized mutual aid fund for certain houseless populations. Roll your eyes at your pretentiousness. Gaze out the window, marveling at the window washers’ shoes, which descend slowly from flights above. 

10 A.M 

Meet up with your boyfriend’s father, at a metro station’s kiss and ride. At first, he appears sallow, sullen. Quickly though, he warms up to conversation. “When was the last time I saw you?!” It’s been over a year. He talks about new music, and how hard the last month has been. Yet, he seems happy. You pull into a Dunkin Donuts to go pee. Realize the last time you’d used the restroom, you were still in Manhattan. You call your mom. You wish you could see her. You exit the Dunkin, to see father and son, sitting in the hatchback, playing their guitars. A jam sesh in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot. 

11:30 A.M. 

Arrive in Solomons Island, MD. You wake up as the car pulls into the retirement community. It’s a sunny, fall day. Every home, linoleum siding. Every tree, bristles in the wind. You enter the small home, it smells like cleaning products and comfort. You say hello to the nurse. Unsure if you’d met her before. Hello to Grandma. How can you help? What can you do? Nothing? Alright, I’ll go get ready then. Change from your black train clothes, into your black funeral clothes. They actually used to be the clothes you wore at the fancy French restaurant you used to work at. You scratch your nail against a leftover Gruyere stain. “Fuck.” You curl your hair. And as you’re about halfway done, the cousins arrive. Introduce yourself, half curled, half straight. Your boyfriend and his dad have their guitars out again. This time, joined by one of the cousins. Rehearsing for a funeral. 

1 P.M. 

Get to the event space of the retirement complex. It’s part church-part rec room. The back windows show off a great lawn, and on the horizon, the Chesapeake Bay. Its rich navy, offensively gorgeous. At the front of the space is a cloth embroidery of Jesus, a podium, and an altar. Jesus lay on the cross. On his hands and feet, a stitch of red. In the back closet, you find some colorful dumbells and blue yoga mats. “I could teach us all a yoga class!” His Grandma gives a soft smile at your effort at cheeriness. “Is there anything I can help with?” You offer. “Call about 500 people,” she smirks. You’re the one smiling now. 

1:30 P.M. 

Walk around, aimlessly. Notice that along either end of the complex’s hallway, are items, with small number placards placed before them. A clipboard sits on a windowsill. A silent auction. Some glass figurines in display classes. Some books splayed out on a coffee table. Resist the urge to comment, “I wonder if these were things donated, or just left behind.” Things are maudlin enough. Look at the photos of a man who lived. Really, lived. The way you hope to live. An observation, “He wore a lot of funny hats.” A laughing response, “He sure did!” The man’s daughter, the dad’s sister, your boyfriend’s aunt, has a beautiful smile and a big laugh. Your boyfriend’s brother arrives with five minutes to spare. There’s a large attendance. Practically every seat was filled. He dashes in, behind the Pastor and the dad. He says hi to his father. Loops a guitar strap around his neck, and starts to play along with him, and your boyfriend. 

2 P.M. 

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The service begins. You realize this is the first church service you’ve been to in at least three years. You remember the prayers though, and the hymns. You tear up as the Pastor says, “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, they will pass away. For we the partial will pass away.” You ignore the fact that one day, you will have to perform this ceremony for the people you love. The people you really love. You thank God for youth, and for ignorance. You really start to cry as his Grandmother gives her eulogy. They met in a church group. “It took 3 ½ years for him to ask me for a date.” On their third date, he asked her to marry him. She married him within 3 weeks. They had to get married in Maryland, instead of Virginia, because Loving vs. Virginia had yet to be passed. Interracial marriage was illegal. An audible “aww” was elicited from the audience as she mentioned “Dick saw me on the weekends, and always wrote me a love letter that I would receive during the week. I still have and reread those letters 62 years later.” Your boyfriend squeezes your hand. Your own box of love letters tucked on your bookshelf at home. 

She continued to detail his life beautifully, eventually reaching this story: “He loved to grow strawberries.” the woman behind me sighs, “Oh I know this story.” Grandma continues, “One spring he played out his own version of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit.’ As he was readying his strawberry patch, four small bunnies popped out of the hole in the patch. Three made a beeline to the fence and ran under it. But bunny number four ran into the fence and got stuck. He was rescued by Farmer Dick, who snipped the wire and set Peter Rabbit Free. In closing, Dick believed that your best legacy is what you contribute to the lives of others.” 

No one gives you sour looks as you snap away your tears. 

3 P.M. 

The man’s sister, your boyfriend’s great-aunt, steps up to speak. She is an alarmingly beautiful older woman. She opens, softly, her voice a lilting melody, “I was the youngest of three, and now I am the only one left.” Don’t think about your older brothers. Don’t think about their funerals. Don’t imagine being unmoored from the life you began at birth. 

She, along with her older sister and brother, grew up in Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation. Your boyfriend once told you about how his grandfather used a makeshift slingshot to launch rocks at Japanese snipers. 

His sister tells a story. “Once, my brother told me to go with him to the roof, because it was a beautiful place to have a tea party. Naturally, I wanted to go. So, with Dick’s help, I climbed out our parent’s window, onto the roof. As soon as I was through, he locked the window behind me and left me there. Luckily, a maid discovered me, and let me inside. I don’t think Dick got in trouble for what he did.” 

His children go up to speak. Both sweetly, and succinctly. A man who works at the Marine life museum bounds up to the front of the room, to show off a photo of Dick, volunteering on a paleontology excavation. He smiles, proudly. “I always loved telling people, ‘One of our volunteers was a rocket scientist!’” The pastor blinks at the Grandchildren as if offended none of them go up to witness. Your boyfriend leans over to his brother, “If I stand up, then we’ll all have to say something.” He sighs along with his cousins, and brother. Your sensitive heart, adoration for attention, and love of words almost make you stand up, as though this were a Quaker meeting. Impelled to speak. You stay seated. Palms folded, legs crossed. 

4 P.M. 

Face down, in the plush of the hotel sheets. Sleep hits you like a ton of bricks. 

5 P.M. 

Wake up in a pool of drool. Your boyfriend, shaking your shoulder. “We’re late.” Pillow-scarred, and half-asleep, you wind your way down the island to the waterfront seafood restaurant. It’s homecoming night at the local high school. In your leather jacket and loafers, you look out of place compared to the neon and pastels of too-small cocktail dresses worn by the fifteen-year-olds. Order a sweet tea, shaking with laughter as you do so. So relieved to be able to order one. They don’t do sweet tea well up in New York. You slurp the first down within seconds. You order a second as the waitress makes her rounds. Talk to your boyfriend’s dad about the new Taylor Swift album, he jokingly nudges “You’re Obsessed!” Admit that you are. You love a good Swift Bridge. 

7 P.M. 

Meander back to Grandma’s, for birthday cake. Arrive just as the birthday candles are being stuck into the thick, chocolate icing. She blows them out, and you wonder what she wished for. You delve into the cake and devour it. Your sweet tooth compels you to ask for another. You resist. His aunt tucks an extra piece into a Tupperware container for you. You all sit around the dining table, looking at pictures and discussing the family history. It’s funny to hear a tobacco farmer’s daughter talk about her family’s ancestral connections to Shanghai. Eventually, you all sit in silence. You’re unsure if it’s because all has been said, or if you’re too tired to say anymore. 

10 P.M. 

Fall asleep to U.S. Men’s figure skating. Tonight, Ilia Malinin lands the quadruple axle. The first man to do so in competition. He’s from Virginia. You are too. Neglecting to take off your makeup, or brush your hair, your eyes shutter. Forcing your day to end.  

Sunday 

7 A.M. 

Wake up. Wash your face. Read Twitter. Pale light. You love hotel sheets. You're afraid of bed bugs. Push and pull. To and fro. 

10 A.M. 

Wake up again. Whoops, you fell back asleep, and you were supposed to be at breakfast ten minutes ago. Your boyfriend’s brother is waiting for you downstairs. He’s usually the late one. Now you are. Throw on your clothes. Brush teeth. Check out of the hotel. Sit silently in the backseat, and let the brothers talk to one another. “Remember that bet we made when we were kids?” His brother torts back, “Which one?” Little laughter. “The one that I’d be taller than you by the time I was fifteen?” Older brother sighs. “Yeah, I do. Mom loves that story.” “Did you ever pay me for that?” “Yes!” Little brothers always get too tall. 

10:30 A.M. 

Coffee, cinnamon rolls, quiche. More pictures. More stories. A little talk of politics. “How many siblings do you have, Jet?” “I have two older brothers.” Your boyfriend and his brother pick on their guitars again. Their dad having left for home the night before. Their Grandma requests, “I Can Tell We’re Gonna Be Friends.” They oblige. She leans back, her cheek turned towards them, her eyes closed. Sit with your boyfriend’s cousins, talking about college, and fathers and what life must’ve been like without Instagram. You do most of the talking. Afraid of sucking up all the oxygen in the room, unable to stop breathing it in. Say goodbye. Hope it won’t be too quiet as you close the door. 

12:30 P.M. 

Drop off the cousins at the airport. Glad to now have the small backseat to yourself. Sad to see them go. “Nice to meet you! Come visit us in New York sometime.” This is the first time you’ve been the New Yorker. 

1:00 PM 

Get Dim Sum with your boyfriend and his Aunt. Take too much food from the carts. Ask his Aunt about living in Shanghai. Talk about how you two met. Waddle out of the shopping center, bloated, slow, and happy. 

4:00 PM 

Catch the train home. Find a window seat. As the rain comes down, open your laptop. Take out the copy of the eulogy his Grandmom sweetly gifted you. Highlight the bible verses you most enjoyed. And write this piece. You think about fathers’ carelessness and wives’ legacies. You pass an abandoned parking lot. You think about how eulogies and obituaries can be the most beautiful things to read. The train whips past warmly lit skipped stops. You think about your proximity to death. A train moving in the opposite direction breaks through your line of sight, startling you away from the plexiglass. Your boyfriend breaks out the Tupperware of saved cake. And you eat. Home soon.