Knowing the Music, We Did Not Agonize over the Words

WPA poster." Image via Wikipedia

Saturday we spent four hours at our cleaning lady's funeral. Since she was from El Salvador, we had assumed she was Catholic, which would have meant a nice hour-fifteen funeral and then on to a solstice party in the hills. But as it turned out, she was a store-front Evangelical, as more and more Central and South Americans are these days.

As my wife caught on almost at once, we were not so much at a funeral but at a church service wrapped around a funeral, some of the attendees loud, joyful and exuberant, others perhaps a little contemptuous, arms folded on chests.

We were somewhere in between. Candida's brother-in-law Ernesto sat next to us to translate -- for, indeed, not a single word of English was part of the service. But we did not really need translation. We come from Fundy backgrounds (and that does NOT mean we are Canadian), so we knew what was being said, as if we had spent our lives lisping in the pure Castilian.

The preacher was a lady, and darn fiery. That's a positive thing, don't you think? Maybe the Evangelical urge among Hispanics has something to do with the Catholic church's disempowerment of women. I'll have to Google on that topic, which you can do as well as I -- and why should I enforce your curiosity on the topic?

There was only one musical interlude, early on, but it was quite beautiful. A woman with a very strong very pretty voice -- pop quality, even -- sang with the audience joining in when they were inclined. Her song (or songs; it could have been a gospel medley) went on for 15 or 20 minutes, with key phrases repeated again and again. Ernesto translated those key phrases when he wasn't singing along. I don't recall what they were, though I thought I would.

Something about heaven, I think. Many references to "our Savior." Not being able to understand, I was reminded of how the beauty of religion can be divorced from the substance of religion. Paganism is growing ever more popular in the U.K. I heard on NPR yesterday. How nice to have vague, and vaguely comforting, ritual that is unmoored from the exigencies of a personal god.

Anyway, the hours at the funeral went by surprisingly quickly. We were the Star Gringos, I guess. Candida had cleaned for us on and off for seven or eight years, starting when E. had her hand troubles and had trouble gripping things. Candida worked very hard, excessively so -- and thus was a true soul sister of E.

Last spring she quit working quite so hard. Areas of the house were suddenly dusty for the first time in .... well, seven or eight years. We thought about maybe saying something. Then her niece called to tell us Candida was in the hospital, recovering from surgery for stomach cancer.

We visited her in the hospital. She said -- we were pretty sure; conversation between us was always well intentioned but not always crystal clear to either party -- that she would be back cleaning for us in six weeks. We did not think that was likely, E. whispering to me that stomach cancer is not a "sexy" cancer, not one that has been much studied with a less than impressive cure rate.

So we kept paying Candida. It was pretty clear she did the heavy lifting (metaphorically) when it came to supporting her family. We kept paying her until she died.

As a white Southerner, little makes me as uncomfortable as hiring what they euphemistically call "domestic help." Back in Durham, when I was in grad school and E. was teaching, we hired a black woman for a while to do some light cleaning and some ironing. But we couldn't take it. The inherited guilt was too much. We started overpaying her, and as a result we couldn't afford her.

I wrote the preceding sentence intending it to be funny, but it's certainly not making me laugh. But back to Candida. We kept paying her not out of guilt or noblesse oblige. It was just that we liked her, and paying her was a way of saying we thought she would get well, and telling her that and also that we were waiting for her.

If I were a religious man, at this point I would say: "But now she is waiting for us." I'm not, so I won't. Feel free to imagine it on your own. Enjoy my music even if you don't agree with my words.

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So Far So ... What?

Duelling wills, the new one placed in E.'s hand after the visitation tonight. Cue the music. Play us off, cat.

The Haircut. The Visitation.

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Got a nine dollar haircut and some advice besides from J. the stylist, who tells everyone -- me, the salon cat, his parents -- that funerals weird him out so he will never ever go to any. His parents understand, he says. I think they have spent their lives understanding.

And now to the visitation, 5p for family, 6-8p for hoi polloi. This will be a moment. We have not seen mom's body. If tears heal, let's drag in the lepers and the hard of heart because I think I know what's to come. If not now, when? J. the stylist said one of the things he does not like about funerals is what he considers how many of the tears sad are false, or at least irrelevant, since (and I'm paraphrasing here):

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?

Perhaps, that's true. But give true tears credit, and false tears, too, for I think some don't weep in the moment, but store their sorrow up for later on. It's natural as flowers in spring. Just wait.

And let us remember the rest of Hamlet's thought.

Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

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We Are Working on Eulogies Today

Image by Benimoto via Flickr

I have two minutes. I do my best:

Henrietta Matilda Landrith was born in Frankenmuth, Michigan in 1911. She died in Winter Haven, Florida, in 2009. She spoke only German until she was eight years old. Once she learned English, she made up for lost time.

She was a missionary for eight years, and paraphrasing the poet, we think that she might say, “Open my chest and you will find carved into my heart a single word, and that word is Africa.”

She was the wife of Loren Joseph Landrith for 51 years. At my father’s funeral, my mother asked me if I thought there will be sex in heaven. That is a profound question, and one I would not attempt to answer. But I can say this. Today once more my mother-in-law will lie beside her husband.

Henrietta Landrith is survived by daughters Mary Iaquinta of Venice; Edith Landrith-Robertson of Oakland, California; Esther Hardesty of Winter Haven; Lois Landrith of Weaverville, North Carolina; sons-in-law Sam Iaquinta and Michael Robertson; granddaughters Deborah Iaquinta of Weymouth, Massachusetts, Michelle Iaquinta of Austin, Texas, and Shirah Hartfield of Plano, Texas; great grandsons Elijah, Isaiah and Noah Hartfield. And her name is carved into all their hearts, as it is into those of so many in this room.

So Far So Good IV

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

A very good day in that E. seems to be navigating a straight path between her two sisters Scylla and Charybdis and, in fact, is handling things very well. However, I'm starting to get a little frayed, though it may simply be the result of someone doing a little hit-and-run on the front fender of the rented car. But this is the first time I've had a rental dinged in 40 years, so it was undoubtedly due.

Otherwise, it's just wear and tear. Let me use a baseball metaphor. I'm the catcher -- the hitless wonder -- who has come in to catch the knuckle-baller. There are a lot of bad hops, but I'm getting my body in front of them and taking them off the torso, the arms, the mask. I believe I am developing a case of cumulative woe.

And it's too hot, and I'm not sleeping, and I'm trying to keep up with email, but I'm going to come back home 10 days behind in grading. Also, I have no idea it will take to sell this damn house -- which we will need to do because of the reverse mortgage we got in Mom's name -- and we'll have to pay all the incidentals to maintain the house, and that includes paying a sister to stay in it. We could rent, of course, but wouldn't it be quicker just to blow it up ourselves?

A slow day in a hot and humid place.

Mom and I Give a Little Mouth-to-Mouth to a Dying Industry

Click it big. Click it big.

So Far So Good II

Cover of Soylent Green

This afternoon we went to the funeral home, a trip that filled me with dread because. even though Mom had pre-paid for her funeral, that was 20 years ago, which meant the funeral industry scum had 20 years to lose the paperwork, change the rules, begin operation under new management -- Soylent Green, Ltd. I believe the new group is.

To my dismay -- the dismay of having to improve one's notion of the fundamental decency of one's fellow human being -- when we told the funeral people that You know what? We've lost every scrap of record of Mom's prepaying, they poked around for a couple minutes and reappeared with a photocopy of the original agreement. The funeral director explained several times that mom had bought a $8,500 funeral for $3,700. I didn't mind. It's okay to preen occasionally.

We were so thrilled that we were not being ripped off that I bought several gaudy nonessentials -- yes, Mom will now have an eternal website of pictures and tributes and so on of which I shall be *webmaster* -- because, damn, if I don't go thousands of dollars out of pocket during the next few days.... Well, what's the point of having in-laws?

Though this is my last one. I thought Mom's advanced age -- actually only 98 years, five months -- had steeled me against any emotion other than relief that her suffering, which was wonderfully brief, is over. And I felt quite a lot of anticipation that E. and I will be at home for Christmas for the first time in five years and will be able to spend all of December together for the first time in five years. The relief came washing over me, you might say, before there was pain to wash away.

But at the funeral home today one of our tasks was picking out a bit of poetry for the cards that will be handed out at the service. They had several pages of samples, and I choose a handsome sentiment by Emerson -- though the funeral home spelled it Emmerson, which error I graciously pointed out. And then, just because my Ph.D. is in English Lit, with a specialty in 19th Century British, I read a poem by Tennyson because I thought E. and Esther would like it and I like doggerel because doggerel reads well.

I read the first two lines of the poem, and then I began to weep, pretty damn loud, real weep-track quality if there is such a thing. And for what? Only cliche can come after that question, but if cliche happens to be the truth, well, you can't just go around making shit up to be all cool and Steven Sondheim.

And for what -- as I was saying -- did I weep? For my mother-in-law who gave me my wife (thank you); who said she loved me in spite of the fact I was not handy around the house when I came to visit, though I tried; who was so fierce in her joy and her sorrow and who laughed madly in her gladness, laughed as her daughter laughs, loud enough to embarrass you to be honest, if it happened in public.

Actually, Mom cackled, and it was nice finally to be able to say, So that's what that word means.

And I cried, mind you, over Tennyson. But that's a good thing because it shows the tears were genuine, all mine and none of the poet.


Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

I concede: Isn't it pretty to think so?

So Far So Good I

Just listened in on a call between E. and Esther and Mom's minister. This is sad, but my reaction to preachers is usually: And just how full of crap are you? But this guy is good. That is, he has obviously done lots of funerals and lots of grief counseling, and he knows how to ease the hearts of those in emotional need.

Two problems:

* Mom laid out exactly what she wanted done at her funeral -- hymns, etc. There were apparently multiple copies of her preferences, but no one can find any of them. The preacher was very good at reassuring "the girls" that whatever they decided would honor Mom and make her happy.

* What to do about pallbearers! E. still remembers her dad's funeral 20 years ago when the family members -- cousins and nephews -- who were chosen to bear the casket were so old and feeble they almost dropped him. I (I overheard) am considered pretty old and feeble, and I may be the best of the eligibles. But the preacher said he could find church members to cover as needed. (I am tempted to say something about muscular Christianity.)

By the way, as I tell E., all this family nonsense of the moment -- nonsense I will leave richly vague; just let me say there are other sisters -- all of it just doesn't matter. The job has been done. The job was done brilliantly. The job was taking care of mom during her last difficult six years -- oh, the cash flow, and now all the money gone and no God in heaven to give us credit for it -- and now the job is over.

We have been good and faithful servants. Cool.

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Florida

Well, mom died, and we are in Florida. So far so good in the sense that tensions that will probably arise when sisters are in proximity have been avoided by keeping sisters out of proximity. Let's see how long I can keep that up.

Graveside wrestling. There's the reality TV people want to see.

Mom died okay, lying there with her daughter beside her. Esther said that mom's breathing was labored but regular. And then there was a breath followed by quite a long pause before the next breath. Esther said she urged Mom to *breathe*. But she didn't.

Nine-eight and one-half years is a long time, some of it remarkable But that's something E. needs to write about, herself being one of the more remarkable aspects.

Went to a Nice Funeral Today

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The son of the deceased gave a beautiful heartfelt eulogy. I recall my dad's funeral, where my comments were the turd in the punchbowl. I wasn't planning on saying anything, but my father's church friends -- in that quintessential Fundy god-loves-a-rich-man mode -- insisted on boasting about my father's business acumen.

My sister and I had just started going through dad's records. We knew the house was mortgaged at 18 percent to its last nickel of worth and that he'd been saved from bankruptcy the year before when my mother inherited money from her sister, and that he'd blown most of that money paying off old debts and making new investments, all of which were now debits instead of credits.

But we for the first time looked at his income tax returns *on which we discovered he had claimed real estate profits he had never made* and thus turned refunds into payments. He had been cooking his own books so that he seemed to be making a profit. Not to fool anyone. Not a set of books to lure in new investors. Simply a record of phony profits to fool himself.

So after this endless torrent of lies, finally I got up and said this is the great lesson of my father's life that I want to point out to his grandchildren and great grandchildren. In spite of all his failures, he persevered. (I did not add that the lesson that hatches from this particular iteration of the common virtue is: But if what you are doing is stupid, please stop.)

Did I mention Jesus? Not by name or nickname. After my contribution, the 300-pound preacher (not that there's anything wrong with that, but damn! he's going to be a four-winged angel, kind of like a dragonfly) up he jumped and talked about my father's godless offspring who broke his heart. And everyone stared at satan's emissary in the second row.

In its way, it was a very entertaining funeral, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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