The Undertakers

We had known them for years, the Boyds. They were stalwart church goers, a staple at community functions and always sent a Christmas card. We were friends, kind of. That day though, it was different. They were formal and pleasant but with a serious air of concern. He had died, you see. My dad. And the Boyds were our undertakers. Suddenly we were in a business relationship, talking about plots and burial rights, and what the coffin should be made of if there was one. There wasn't. He wanted to be cremated so discussions turned to the plaque that would mark the spot where the urn would be buried. My mom wanted a skep design on there since he was a life-long beekeeper. Perhaps a few bees buzzing around it, it memory of the times he had been called to rescue a swarm from a tree, a roof, a garden shed. He was always the first person the police called. A few years before, the undertakers wife had visited us in St Louis. It was just after our second child was born. She saw him before my mother, his grandmother. Mum didn't take it well at the time, but quickly pushed it out of her mind. Now, for all intents and purposed, it never happened that way. Isn't that right? If it is not remembered, it did not happen. We learned this from the last years of my dad's life. As the dementia took hold, his life diminished to selective events remembered in selective ways. A shortened version, perhaps, edited highlights only. Perhaps it is that way for all of us, dementia or not. He was in the coffin with his waxy face and bright shirt. The Boyd's children took us in to see him. These young kids were in my Sunday School class and to me, they were still kids. What were they doing, all serious and grown up, showing me my dead father as if they owned him now? It seemed preposterous for a second, but then no more preposterous than my dad lying in that box looking as I remember him looking in an old cine film from the 60's. He was so much a part of me and now he is nothing, I thought. I felt the tears I had held back for days seep through my resolve. He was gone, and the Boyds, our friends, were taking care of everything. In the mode they new best, they were proficient and compassionate, in a very practical way. Their sturdiness told us that everything would be alright. That death is normal, we can handle it, leave it all to us. Our job was clearly to grieve and we had all the permission we needed. In death as in life, my father's spirit radiated. As the funeral came and went, and as tears ebbed ad flowed, I dwelled more and more on the influence he had had on me. I realized that his stories and his teachings would still sustain me though he would not. And I went back to my own life, and the Boyds returned to theirs. Still family friends, but with an unspoken intimacy wrought from taking us through death and back, with the one we had so loved.