3. The Funeral

The funeral procession starts from the home, drives around the block, turns onto Main Street and ends at Nativity of Our Lord, where my grandparents have been members for the better part of four decades. The drive, even at funeral procession pace, takes less than five minutes and I am impressed by just how physically small a life she lived. Born not more than 20 miles from here, she never moved away – not to go to college, not to work. She raised her family in the same ranch house, for nearly fifty years. Her life consisted of that house, the church, friends from the congregation and the miscellaneous errands she ran around town. As disease ate away at her body, her world collapsed inward even more… first restricting her to mass on Sundays and the occasional special event, but then confining her to a solitary wheelchair, positioned in the large, bay kitchen window, looking out on the world moving around her.

This morning, I’m a pallbearer. All of the five male grandchildren are, along with my father and two uncles. I carry the front part of the casket, next to my father. There are tears in his eyes, as we walk into the church, towards the altar, followed by the eighty or so mourners.

As for me, there is only uncertainty. I don’t know what to feel – I am saddened by the surroundings, but also confident in knowing she is at peace. I am nervous that I will trip, or stumble, so I focus on walking straight ahead, head held up and gazed fixed on the crucifix in front of me.

My right hand grips the brass handle of the coffin. It is heavy, much more solid than I had imagined it would feel. I have to hold onto her with my arm at an angle, because my cousins have passed me in height years ago. I have to lift higher to keep her level. My muscles tighten, but still I hold on with only one hand. My feet click – left-right-left – like a soldier’s would.

We place the coffin onto a wheeled cart and begin to slowly roll it down the aisle, between the wooden pews and underneath the arched ceiling. I straighten my shoulders, my hand still gripping, the bones outlined underneath the skin, until we get to the front of the church.
There, we stop in front of the altar.

The priest, a friend of the family, lifts his hand out from his white robes trimmed with gold and makes the sign of the cross over my grandmother.