The wisdom of 258 funerals
“Don’t ever vomit honey, let me tell you,” the son of the deceased whispered to me, emerging from the men’s room. A charcoal suit and tie hung over his lanky frame.
“Bees do it,” I shrugged.
Minutes later, behind the podium, he delivered an unremarkable eulogy. Stodgy, formal. He did what he had to.
The family filed out in a solemn daze. No eye contact for miles. I went about my duties. My lower back ached from goat yoga. Those little fuckers weigh 12 pounds.
I didn’t aspire to become a 39-year-old funeral director. I was a mediocre writer hoping to be mistaken for a good one, my life being financed by Alece and her filthy ambition. She ran a landscaping business. But I fucked that up and in a hurried fike of pity my dad introduced me to a guy. I didn’t overthink it.
I had tried to write about Alece, but every line felt like garbage. Or a Jeff Foxworthy comedy special.
She treated me like dirt. But she was a gardener, so it’s not like you think. I just felt used. Cared for, though.
The good thing about funeral attendees is that they often look how I feel, so I can get away with a thing or two.
Irretrievably wasted last night. Woke up at the Holiday Inn next to a tray of macaroni and brisket, drops of condensation still pooled upon the warming cover. I sighed, chewed some beef, drew a glass of the Southwest’s finest toilet water from the tap and trundled into work.
Sometimes I do stuff like that when the loneliness invades my apartment and makes itself a cup of tea.
The job’s been okay. I’ve been to hundreds of funerals. Families invite me along for a most intimate day, every day. It has brought numerous insights about life and mortality. So far I’ve done nothing differently but I’ve heard a lot of great speeches.
One lady said, “Time isn’t sand that slips through your fingers as you fill a container with regret. The toothpaste of time sits patiently, indifferently upon the bristles of your brush, no matter how much you fret and wring your hands.”
Her son, too, was a philosopher: “We go through life a tiny voice in the crowd, asking, are any of you like me?”
At the grave site, he took it hard. He screamed sad sounds. He asked his sister’s corpse for forgiveness as stocky Guatemalan men lowered her tiny wooden home into the earth. I watched and wished never to love anything or anyone like that.
Last week, Cornelius Klinker, husband of the late Bernadette Townes-Snelling, wanted to know if it was gauche to continue using her Safeway Club Card. I suppose he asked me because I am a professional.
“Is it the last thing she can do for me from beyond the grave? There’s a two for one on d’anjou pears. Is it macabre?”
I told him to shop at Trader Joe’s. They don’t have a discount club. And they have those cute bells.
The Canneli funeral ran long and I had to shit something fierce. Collective grief was on my side; if they did see me squirming, it was a day for gentle judgment.
I was standing beside the hearse when word came down, swiftly and suddenly, irreversibly, from stubborn organs. Eyes darting with desperation, I calculated how much longer the ceremony might go.
I wanted to hit reset on my entire life. I wanted to fight homelessness. Pray to god. We haven’t spoken in so long, and now I bring her this. I’ll do anything. We are so weak.
I’m not going to tell you how that resolved itself.
Last week I had a dream that the widow of Klaus Morgensen was nowhere to be found and the family asked me to eulogize him. I stepped forward with a great sense of honor and this is what I said:
Klaus was a very thrifty fellow. When he died, he had just re-upped on batteries. And stamps. At this inefficiency, he would be outraged.
Don’t forget, no one will want your stuff. You will have worked extra hours of your life in exchange for money you cannot use. And your progeny will use it to buy something stupid. Your body will rot, turn black and be eaten by worms. The world will go on without you. Rest in peace, Klaus.
The crowd went wild. I awoke savoring their applause, the corner of my pillow soggy with drool. I was late to work that day.
As for me, I shall have an Irish wake. There will be no religion but there shall be a rabbi who knows how to party. Each eulogy shall be at least twenty-five percent jokes. There shall be a pedantic pot-bellied schoolmaster in seersucker with a large pocket watch who ensures all of my wishes are carried out, or else.
The funeral motorcade began its exhausting descent, engines humming, hazard lights inexplicably blinking. I wrapped up for the day and made my way to the parking lot as the sky turned still deeper orange.
Sunset. Sunrise. We only seem to treasure the end of things.
