Rosemarie
We were sitting silently at the breakfast table after Mass. Shovie, over her strong protests, was at school. Mary Margaret had brought the Good April home from Mass. April was in a good mood. Everyone had been so nice last night. Not a word about Jane, not even as “poor dear Jane.”
I had consumed my orange juice and fruit salad. He was list— lessly stirring his raisin bran and bananas. He would also polish off some of the remaining sweet rolls from yesterday. The soand-so never put on weight.
“Chucky,” I began uncertainly, “I owe you an apology …”
“You apologized last night,” he said glumly. “There is a general amnesty for all fights in the present situation.”
“I can’t believe how terrible I was.”
“You and Peg, but it’s okay, I understand.”
“I can’t remember when I have been worse.”
“Even at your worst, Rosemarie Helen, you’re not very bad.”
His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, poor dear man.
“I thought I’d say that it’s not easy being the head of the family, but you were the head of this family when you were ten.”
He grinned, his old Chucky Ducky leprechaun grin.
“You noticed that?”
“The last time you were so angry at me was when I got drunk in Stuttgart.”
He pondered that, not enjoying the discussion.
“No way,” he said, slurping up the remnants of his cereal.
“Last night I knew I was just a substitute target for Jane. It was all right. You had something to be angry about. If I’m a useful target, be my guest.”
“Poor Chucky Ducky, an inkblot for all the Crazy O’Malleys. Except Mary Margaret.”
“She was right, of course … I hope you apologized to her.”
“Certainly!”
“Jane,” he went on, “is in a bad way. Tough to be a first child when the next three were what they were.”
“I never understood that till last night … Ted has to do something about her.”
“I wonder if he can.”
“You’re not angry at me anymore?”
“No way.”
“Wonderful! Now finish your sweet roll. We have work to do.”
“Sweet rolls,” he said. “I need my energy.”
In the afternoon we went through the Ave Maria again and “When the Saints.” Neither effort had the professional polish that I would have liked, but given the circumstances they would be fine. Chuck and I had a cool vocalization around “Go marching in.”
After the practice, he summoned Peg and Ed and me to a conference.
“We are dealing, gentle souls,” he said, “with two challenges and two imponderables. The challenges are the musical pieces we just practiced. They are unorthodox. There’ll be a lot of priests at St. Ursula’s. They may be shocked at our Ave, we must be prepared for their disapproval.”
“Many of them will love it,” Ed interjected, “We are the Crazy O’Malleys after all. There are separate rules for us. Everyone knows that.”
“Precisely.” Chuck nodded sagely. “What we propose to do at the cemetery will be discussed far and wide … I don’t know who the kook was who thought it up. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s for Mom and Dad, both of whom will love it, each in their own reality.”
“We Crazy O’Malleys have a reputation to live up to,” Peg said.
She had called me earlier.
“Did you apologize?”
“Over breakfast.”
“What was he like?”
“Sweet.”
“I’d better call before he changes his mood.”
“Fine,” Chuck continued. “I always like unanimous consent in this family. The imponderables are Jane and Father McNally. We cannot anticipate what either will do, especially when we sing the Ave during Communion at St. U’s. I would not imagine that either will be at the cemetery, but again we must be aware of the potential for mayhem. I think we must all concentrate on keeping cool at all times.”
“Chill out,” I said.
“Precisely. Jimmy has been instructed to head Father McNally off at the pass if he tries to disrupt our prayer at Mary’s altar. I think, by the way, that we should do our best to make it a prayer and not just a performance.”
We all laughed, because we knew it was true.
On the way over to the wake, he whispered in my ear.
“A funny thing is happening to me, Rosemarie.”
“Oh?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you again.”
I felt my face flush.
“I am forewarned. I’ll have to remember to lock the doors.”
“It won’t do any good.”
A reversion to teenage is not an unusual phenomenon for men. It is not merely that they want more sex, they also want to lavish more attention, more affection, more admiration on their spouses. A lot more of what we called in the old days petting and necking. Chucky seems to be unique in that he solemnly announces that it is happening, which is good strategy I suppose. Some women find these reversions disgusting, others think it is silly; yet others, like me, find it amusing and even delightful. I adore being adored. Yet Chuck had certainly picked an odd time and place for this reversion to adolescence.
“You want to be a teenager again?” I asked him skeptically.
“Why not?”
“And I’m supposed to regress too?”
“That would be nice.”
“Why now?”
“What better time?”
“I was a terrible bitch last night.”
“Only for a few moments.”
I pulled the car into the parking lot on North Avenue for the second night of the wake. Before I could slide out, he kissed me, a very provocative and lingering kiss, and rested his hand on one of my breasts.
“Teenage behavior,” I commented as I got out of car, my face flushed and my body warm.
“What else? … You’re beautiful!”
“Blarney!”
I was in for a lot of touching and caressing. What better time than when we are denouncing death. I was not beautiful anymore. Presentable, yes. Attractive, yes. But beautiful, no, not for a long time. Yet the look in Chuck’s eyes said that he saw me as beautiful. So maybe I was.
Vince and Peg were waiting for us at the wake. Peg and Chuck embraced, celebrating their reconciliation on the phone in the morning.
“How did your talk with Joe Raftery go yesterday?”
“Yeah … He was a little strange.”
“How so?”
“He lost his wife a couple of years ago, second wife, young, married her in church.”
“Poor guy,” I said.
“What’s strange about that?” Vince asked. “Tragic maybe, but it happens.”
“He’s not sure she’s dead.”
“Oh … Did he seem to be crazy?”
“Not at all. Same old Joe.”
Then April and Mary Margaret arrived. I was so proud of my daughter and my mother. They both looked smashing in their black dresses. The Good April seemed quite perky.
“Well, I think we’re all doing just fine! I’ll be glad when this is over, but it’s all going nicely, isn’t it, dears?”
Chuck sometimes calls his mother Dr. Panglossa, the sort of thing a University of Chicago graduate would say.
“Except for poor Janie,” she went on. “Dad’s death has really hit her hard. You’ve all been very nice to her, even Father Ed. I’m sure that up in heaven, Dad is proud of you.”
Mary Margaret and Shovie joined us. The former glanced from me to her father and back and approved of us with a slight smile.
Little witch.
We walked up to the front of the funeral parlor. Father Ed was waiting for us, brooding over the casket. We said a few prayers and stood up to greet our fellow mourners. Our kids—mine and Peg’s—joined us. The great-grandchildren had been left at home. One night was more than enough for them. Shovie and Mary Margaret were at the end of the line, where they could make quick exits if necessary.
“I AM going to Grandpa’s wake,” Shovie had informed me earlier with determination. “He EXPECTS me to be there.”
Family stubbornness, from my side of the family doubtless.
I turned on all my charm as we greeted our fellow mourners. If Chuck said I was beautiful, then I was. So I should act like I was. I don’t know that it made any difference, however, though a lot of women complimented me on, “how wonderful you look tonight, dear.”
My poor husband, however, looked absolutely awful. He was fading quickly. His body clock was a mess, still on Moscow time. The allergy medicine limited his sneezing and coughing but made him drowsy. He should have been in bed sleeping.
As afternoon turned into evening, the procession of mourners became a blur. You smiled at them, hopefully greeted them by name, took their hand, gratefully acknowledged their sympathy, smiled again, and thanked them for their prayers. If you did not know them, you tried to remember their name from the introduction and thanked them by name at the end. They deserved the best of your attention and grace. I tried to provide both.
Occasionally, someone would say that the tribute in The New York Times was wonderful and asked whether my husband had
anything to do with it. I would say with a grin that he might have.
A few would comment on how tired Chuck looked. His father’s death has been a great strain on him, hasn’t it?
“On all of us. Chuck and I just returned from a month of photo shoots in Russia. He’s still on Moscow time and allergy medicine.”
“It’s lucky for him that you travel with him.”
“That’s what he married me for, someone to take care of him on trips.”
Jane appeared about seven in a gray pantsuit and lots of diamonds. I didn’t think she’d been drinking this time. But the rest of the act was the same, sobbing over Mom, elbowing her way into line, assuming control of access to Mom, cutting Chucky out of the picture. She was more embarrassing than obnoxious I decided. Most people would have no trouble reading her act. Poor woman. We should do something to help her, though that would be very difficult because her sad, apologetic husband (“Sorry, a lot of bad traffic on the way”) had taken on the role of protecting her.
I was angry because her brat children had not come to the wake either night. Chris, Ted, Micky, and Jenny had always seemed to me to be self-satisfied prigs, complacent slugs, hollow phonies. I didn’t like them much either. Yet Vangie was their grandfather too. One shouldn’t compare one’s own children with other people’s children. But everyone does. Peg’s kids were wonderful, genial and handsome cousins. No comparisons permitted there, though I was sure that, if there were comparisons, mine would win. But Jane’s kids never seemed to be alive. Well, it was none of my business.
Not much.
Vince brought a chair for Mom.
“Thank you, Vincent. You’re so thoughtful.”
Vince had progressed through the years. Peg did not have to remind him of such thoughtfulness nearly as often anymore.
“Chucky looks like he needs a chair too,” he whispered to me.
“More likely a bed … But you know Chuck. He’d be much happier if he passed out.”
We both laughed softly. Chuck would never pass out.
Father Packy Keenan arrived with his brother Jerry and the latter’s wife, the notorious Maggie Ward, my shrink. I would have to be on my very best behavior.
“These are very difficult experiences, Rosie,” she said, her gentle gray eyes carefully examining my face for signs of strain. “And a troubled woman like your foster sister don’t help.”
Witch!
“She needs a Maggie Ward in her life,” I said gracefully.
Maggie, a lovely little woman with gray hair and a warm soul, smiled.
“You look exceptionally beautiful tonight, Rosie.”
“We Irish defy death,” I said.
“So I understand.”
Maggie’s past, before she married Jerry Keenan, was a mystery. She had apparently married very young and had lost both a husband and a child. In her office there was a small frame with a picture of a very young sailor and a very little child. Somehow one knew that one did not ask about them.
Packy Keenan began the wake service with a reading about the daughter of Jairus.
“You’ve surely noticed the gracefulness of Jesus in this scene. He lets the little girl play. In the middle of all the celebration the important thing for the child is to get back to her play. She doesn’t know that she’s been dead. She does understand that it is the role of kids to play, so she plays. New life is not a big deal unless you can play. I suspect that this is a hint of what the life of the resurrection is like. We will wake up as little kids and begin to play because that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’ll be children like Siobhan Marie here looking forward to life, or teens like Mary Margaret and Rita here were a couple years ago eager for the next surprise, the next excitement, the next joy in our rapidly expanding lives. We who have the faith know that whatever else might be ahead of us, there’ll be lots of fun. And wherever there’s fun that’s where the Crazy O’Malleys will be with their music and song.”
Laughter and applause from the congregation.
“What’s he talking about?” Jane said in an angry stage whisper. “No priest at Faith, Hope would say anything that stupid.”
I felt a charge of rage leap through our receiving line. I wanted to brain the little fool.
It takes a lot more than a stupid woman like Janie to shake Packy’s cool. Like John Raven the night before, he went along the line with words of hope and healing for all of us after the brief wake service. Except Jane, who turned to talk to Ted as Packy left April.
“Rosie,” he said to me, “I hear you’re going to do your music in the church and the cemetery?”
“Who told you that?”
“Your husband, who else?”
“He never could keep a secret.”
“He wanted me to promise to prevent McNally from disrupting it. I promised that I would.”
Packy, a big, burly man like his brother, could certainly do that.
“He’s not likely to go to the cemetery,” Packy continued, “It would disrupt his schedule … The jazz group is going to do ‘Saints’?”
“Yep.”
“I wouldn’t miss that for the world … By the way, Rosie, you look stunning tonight.”
When he had left, Jane spoke up again, “Mom, you certainly have strange priests here on the West Side …”
“Janie, dear, you shouldn’t say things like that. Father Keenan has been a good friend to the family for a long time. We all love him dearly. That’s why we’ve asked him to preach tomorrow.”
“No one talked to me about it.”
I was now convinced she had been drinking.
The crowds continued to pour in. I was astonished to learn how many people Vangie had helped, especially GIs coming home from the War and priests in poor parishes who needed a design to repair their churches. He had not only designed them for free, but sometimes paid for the construction work. Many people who lived in the suburban developments for which he’d
won prizes told us that they had to come to the wake to express their thanks for the wonderful homes he’d built.
“I feel I never really knew him,” Peg spoke softly in my ear. “He certainly hid his generosity. That’s the way it should be.”
“There was more of Chuck in him than I realized.”
Peg laughed. She knew what I meant. My husband is obsessively generous, not bad for a man who only at his fiftieth birthday party admitted that the Great Depression probably would not return.
Jane was growing more restless. Her show had worn her out. She turned to her husband, “Ted, I can’t stand any more of this. Please take me home.”
Ted McCormack calmly nodded, doubtless glad that it was almost over.
“I have to go home now, darling,” she said as she drooled over the Good April. “My kiddies are expecting me. I’ll be at the Mass tomorrow of course, but I won’t be able to go to the cemetery. You know I can’t stand cemeteries.”
“I understand, Janie dear. Give my love to your children.”
Mom seemed to be relieved to be rid of her.
She left the funeral parlor with a noisy display of distress and weariness, as though it all was too much to bear. Jennifer, her youngest “kiddie,” was three years older than Mary Margaret and was allegedly working in an “alternative” record store at Old Orchard.
That was a nasty thought. I should be ashamed of myself. I glanced at my husband. He had been looking at me. He rolled his eyes and seemed to sway. He might still pass out. Then what would we do with him?
He might be falling in love with me, but there would be no sex tonight, even if we didn’t have to drag him down to Oak Park Hospital. How would he ever give his eulogy tomorrow morning?
Suddenly I was very tired too. My feet hurt, my back was sore, my mouth was dry. Would this ever end? Shovie and Mary Margaret had disappeared. Big sister was doubtless hovering over sleeping little sister. I was thankful that Jane would not be at the cemetery.
Then a good-looking, slender man with white hair was shaking hands with me.
“You’re holding up a lot better than Chuck, Rosie,” he said with a slow smile, “but I bet you’d love to sit down and kick off your shoes.”
“It would be great, Joe Raftery.”
“I was very happy to hear that you and Chuck had married. It seemed a perfect match. If I’d any sense in those days, I would have sent you a note. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s been a happy marriage.”
“Chuck will do until someone better comes along,” I said with a laugh.
He seemed to be a normal, intelligent man, with more grace and courtesy than most. Looking for a dead wife? Chucky knew how to attract some weird stuff.
Finally, it was over. A quarter to eleven. Only the Good April was sprightly.
“It was an evening I’ll always treasure, wasn’t it, Peg dear?”
“A little hard on the feet, Mom, but a night to remember. Dad was truly a remarkable man.”
“Is …” she replied. “Poor Janie took it harder than anyone else, didn’t she? Ted really ought to see that she gets some help.”
Panglossa, as usual, spoke harsh truth under the guise of sweetness. No, that was not right—she mixed sweetness with harsh truth.
My husband was slumped in a chair, his eyes closed, his shoulders sagging, his mouth hanging open.
“Are you all right, Chucky Ducky?”
“Mommy, I wanna go home.”
“Daddy sounds just like me!” Shovie, who had just joined us, exclaimed. “Better take him home, Mommy.”
“Right away, dear.”
“Don’t let him go to Russia ever again.”
“Good idea, hon.”
So I took them both home, put Siobhan to bed, and discovered my husband sound asleep.
Falling in love again, indeed!
He descended to breakfast at seven the next morning in a charcoal gray suit with a black tie, scrubbed, shaved, polished. It was the first time in a major event in our years of marriage that he had accomplished these or similar tasks on his own initiative. His eyes were clear and focused, his back and shoulders in almost military posture. We were back in Bamberg in 1946.
“Take your allergy medicine?”
“Not till after the eulogy … no, just a cup of tea … Afterward I will.”
“Your manuscript ready?”
“Charles Cronin O’Malley should need a manuscript? Come, dear wife, you jest?”
His eyes sparkled. He had put on his fun mask.
“Pardon me, sir husband. I assume you know what you’re going to say.”
“More or less.” He waved off my concern, in a gesture that I have often occasioned. “I am obviously no match for John Raven. So I will be brief and simple.”
“And I’m the queen of Sheba.”
“Woman, you are not. You are my wife Rosemarie with whom I am falling in love again.”
“Big talk,” I scoffed.
The soft late-September weather of the previous days was followed that morning by a cloud cover that might be described as “preominous.” It fit the mood of the day. The battered family, which assembled at the funeral parlor, seemed eager to get the day over with, something like a necessary but painful physical exam. We worried, as Chuck said we should, about Father McNally and Jane, the latter not present at the funeral parlor. She would surely make another demonstration at the funeral against the rest of us. I did not expect that I would be the target.
Pulling up to the church Vangie had built and for which he had won a prize was a depressing experience. Our marriage was the first one in it. Other marriages, Baptisms, First Communions, confirmations, concerts made it one of the important monuments of our lives. This was the first funeral in the family.
The air was heavy as Chuck and Vince got out of the limo, as were our hearts. April, Peg, and I, all in deep black and with
veils (April’s idea) waited till the mourners lined up on the sidewalk and the casket was lifted onto the dolly, which would bring it into the church. We were signaled to line up and lead the procession behind the casket.
The pallbearers lifted the casket, carried it up the steps, and placed it again on the dolly. The three of us paused at the bottom of the steps.
Then Jane, in a black dress which was too tight, shoved me out of the way.
“You don’t belong here,” she snarled. “You’re an interloper in our family. You’re not one of the family. I belong with Mom. I will walk with her.”
I was astonished though I should not have been. Jane must have believed for a long time that I had taken her rightful place in the family. I was the cause of her unhappy life. I had never noticed the rivalry. Neither had anyone else.
I backed away silently. April and Peg stumbled forward, not wanting to create more of a scene. What do I do now?
Mary Margaret and Shovie eased me into line with them, at the very end of the immediate family. They too were wearing veils. The three of us slowly climbed the stairs. Inside, Jimmy’s seminarians were singing beautiful Latin chant, sad, but hopeful, which is what the Catholic liturgy is supposed to be about. Either way life is a toss-up. Catholics opt for hope, though sometimes just barely.
I was in another world, not far in the distance, only two blocks away on Menard Avenue, but light-years in time. I had barged my way into the family because I knew that my life depended on finding a family of my own. Heedlessly, I had elbowed another child away, as surely as she had elbowed me aside a few moments before. I had never realized what I had done. Vangie and April, always sensitive to their kids’ emotions, had not even considered the possibility that Jane would feel that they had abandoned her. Yet the wound must have festered for forty years.
Dear God, why did You let this happen?
My reverie was interrupted by a loud tapping sound. The choir stopped in midverse. The funeral procession came to a
dead stop. I looked up. Father McNally, in cassock, surplice, and long cape was at the pulpit, impatiently tapping at the microphone to gain attention.
“I am Father James Francis McNally, the pastor of this parish. I wish to make it clear that this liturgy is in explicit violation of the normal rules of my parish. Ordinarily I preside over all the funeral liturgies in this parish. Ordinarily I prescribe the music for the liturgy. Ordinarily we have funeral liturgies only for registered members of the parish. However, this is a special situation and I have acceded to a temporary suspension of the rules.
“I wish to make it clear that in no sense should this liturgy be considered an invitation to receive the Holy Eucharist when it is distributed. Only Catholics in good standing and in the state of grace should approach the altar.”
He turned and walked back into the sacristy.
For a moment there was total silence in the church, Vangie’s church, I thought. Then the choir resumed its interrupted hymn and the procession moved slowly forward. Next to me, my sainted Mary Margaret was stiff with rage.
The liturgy moved forward with stately grace, marred only by Jane’s bubbling tears. What do Peg and April think? Their emotions are probably a mix of anger and pity, with the latter stronger. Poor April, she had lost the love of her life and her firstborn was adding to her grief. She must have wondered where they had gone wrong with Jane. Naturally she would blame herself.
In the back of my head or maybe down in one of the subbasements of my consciousness a story was taking shape that I might send off to The New Yorker. I asked God to forgive me for the distraction, but I assume that God knows how powerful the imagination is when it has fixated on a story.
It was time for the Gospel and the homily. Jesus raised from the dead the little brother of Martha and Mary, silly little teens. He told them that he was the Resurrection and the Life. A very Catholic story.
John Raven walked down to the edge of the sanctuary to deliver the homily on Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life. He
spoke as the great men of gold and silver always speak, in a calm, matter-of-fact, reassuring voice. Like priests of his generation, he quoted many of the Catholic writers he had read in the seminary. He began with G. K. Chesterton’s story about the ‘bus that ran out of control and raced madly toward the Thames. Faced with sudden death, G. K. realized that life was too important to ever be anything but life. With that as his theme he pointed out all the instances of resurrection in our lives—the baby must die to become an infant, the child must die to become a grammar school kid, the eighth-grader must die to be reborn in high school, the teenager must die to rise as a young adult, the young adult must die to become a spouse, and the spouse must rise to become a parent. Life and death are patterns of life. John O’Malley was now experiencing another death and rebirth, one in which we all would eventually join him.
There is nothing dies but something lives
Till skies be fugitives,
Till Time, the hidden root of change, updries,
Are Birth and Death inseparable on earth;
For they are twain yet one, And Death is Birth.
“Francis Thompson,” Mary Margaret whispered.
“‘Ode to the Setting Sun,’” I whispered back.
And then felt guilty for showing off.
The congregation was quiet and motionless as Father Raven returned to his chair in the sanctuary.
The little kids, including my Siobhan Marie, brought up the bread and wine. She was in charge of course, gently and protectively guiding the smaller ones. Where did she ever learn to do that?
As if I didn’t know.
Then I began to wonder about my own death. I would surely die long before Chuck, who would live to be at least as old as his father. What would he do without me for perhaps twenty years? He would have to marry again. I would insist on that.
Yet what if he died first, as Vangie did? I would not be the
graceful grand duchess with a straight back and firm posture. I’d probably be a contentious, senile old fool, a great burden to my children and grandchildren.
Neither alternative seemed all that attractive.
Our best years were behind us. “Golden years” is a euphemism for “old age.” I never wanted to get old, but I had done it without even noticing.
I could live to ninety like my ancestor, another Rosemarie. Chuck might live that long too, out of meanness. We’d both be doddering old fools—cranky, crabby, crusty, cantankerous curmudgeons. We’d really drive the kids crazy. Serve the little brats right.
Suddenly it was Communion time.
“We will deny no one the Eucharist,” Packy Keenan said with gentle authority.
My priesteen, Jimmy, put the host on my tongue and grinned, I grinned back. I was terribly proud of him. Any young man who wanted to be a priest these days was very brave. He would not be a dead serious cleric like his uncle Ed, who didn’t know how to relax. He’d be a fun priest.
I would have returned to the pew if Mary Margaret had not stopped me.
Oh, yes, we had to sing the Ave Maria. Suddenly I lost my nerve. This was a Crazy O’Malley caper. We ought not to do it. Jane would misbehave. How should we sing it? The rest would follow my lead. Softly quietly, like a monastic choir from long ago, but with deep faith and joy.
We were all there at the Blessed Mother’s altar. My throat was dry. My stomach was churning. This was a terrible mistake. We faced toward the altar. The Good April caught my eye and enveloped me in the most wonderful smile. Chuck was holding my hand. April hummed the key, and, almost unbidden, the enchanted words flowed from my lips.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum;
Benedicta tua in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructis ventris tui Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen!
We worked our way around in simple harmonies, one of them sung by the small ones, backed up against my vocalization. We were all crying when we finished, even the little kids.
I hope you’re not offended, I said to herself, just in case she was listening.
Then we turned to the Salve Regina. I noticed for the first time that Jane was not with us. But she had practiced with us, had she not when we returned from Europe?
Chuck intoned the hymn and the rest of us joined him.
Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra, salve
Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus gementes and flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia ergo advocata nostra,
ilos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria
We really shook the arches of St. Ursula with that one.
Back in the pew I felt much better. Okay, we’d be senile fools in another forty years, but we’d live till then. Maybe we would even have the grace to laugh at ourselves.
I noticed that Jane had maneuvered herself into the front pew so that April was at the end of the pew, Jane next to her, and Peg cut off from her mother. I didn’t like that at all.
Then my Chucky Ducky, looking trim and fit and adorable, came to the edge of the sanctuary, wearing a lavaliere mike, just as John Raven had.
I suppose that I speak for all the family when I say that our father in great part made us what we are. He was a Cubs fan, I a Sox
fan. He was born a Republican, though, through the grace of God, he subsequently converted. I was even before I was born, a yellow-dog Democrat. He was a baritone. I am a tenor. He was an artist and an architect, I am still in my heart of hearts an accountant When I began to earn my living taking pictures, I claimed that I was a realist. He was, early and late, a pure romantic. He loved the military and took great pride in marching down Michigan Avenue in the armor of the Black Horse Troop. I for my part hated the military with an abiding passion. He never feared the return of the Great Depression. I have only just recently and still very tentatively rejected that prospect.
So we argued before I reached the age of reason and continued to argue for the rest of his all too short life. Yet we never once quarreled. More than that I took it for granted that we should argue, that he expected us to argue, and that I would have been an incomplete firstborn son if I wouldn’t argue with him. It was evident from the very beginning that my father delighted in arguing with me.
At this point Jane pushed her way clumsily over April and out into the aisle of the church. She sobbed her way toward the back, with her husband trailing behind. “You bitch,” I muttered to myself. “You can push me around, but you can’t publicly insult and humiliate my Chucky Ducky.” Sensing my rage, Mary Margaret extended her arm around my shoulder. My husband continued his eulogy without a moment’s break. Well, bitch, I accused her silently. You can make a huge scene but you can’t fluster my Chuck.
One of my great surprises when I returned from military service in Germany was that he would ask my advice, and myself not quite twenty years old. Where did I think we should buy a house on the Lake? What did I know? Yet he was seriously interested in my opinion. This was a new dimension to our relationship. I had been promoted from the role of dialectical adversary to that of a senior advisor even though at that time my WQ—wisdom quotient—was lower than zero. I was now both adversary and advisor, roles which persisted until a couple of days ago.
Only later in life, much later, did I discover that he had polled the whole family about our beach-house-to-be and that we all had made the same choice. We each believed that we were the only one of the crowd he consulted. Each of us reveled in our role of the only coconspirator. I’m still wondering how he managed that consensus. Then I remember that his father had been a politician, albeit a Republican. Dad had inherited deft political instincts.
He knew how to preside over a family so that almost all the time we wanted to do what he wanted us to. He never laid down the law. A father-husband can be that relaxed only if he knows his precinct well from careful observation and analysis. I’m not suggesting that Dad deliberately played this family game. By nature and nurture he had absorbed his style almost automatically. How else can you be a good father?
Or a good president of a firm of brilliant architects?
Dad governed us all, even Mom I suspect, by compromise and consensus. As the father of a brood of my own and with a wife of my own, I have tried to use the same strategy, with what success it is not for me to say, though there is no way I can claim to be the paterfamilias as he was.
Only a secure and playful person can engage in Dad’s family style. He had to know who he was and what he wanted out of life. He was quite incapable of manipulating his children so that they would reflect his own glory.
Dad also delighted in women. He knew how to respect and reverence them. One need only look at the paintings in his books to observe his candid mix of delight and reverence. I have tried to play that game his way too. Again others will have to judge with what success.
He also had great taste in women. I learned a lot from him there.
People have sometimes dubbed us the Crazy O‘Malleys. Dad did not force any of us to fit that paradigm. But his family governance almost guaranteed our “crazy” style. We are men and women who experienced his faith and his love in childhood and were freed thereby to pursue our own destiny, always knowing that there would be a happy home to which we could return. He was beyond all doubt the craziest of all the O’Malleys.
Now we are separated from him, in Jesus’ words, for only a little while. The Crazy O’Malleys have opened a branch office in the world to come. We all miss him terribly and we shall continue to miss him For you, Mom, the loss of your permanent lover will be especially difficult. However, the family has a tradition to sustain. And in the months and years to come we will rally around the Good April and continue to be the kind of family you and Dad created. With your help and God’s, we will prove that love is stronger than death.
Chuck walked back to his place with the pallbearers.
The congregation rose to give him a standing ovation. I hoped someone would report that to my ex-foster sister, the Wicked Witch of the North Shore.
Dear God, I will be glad when this terrible day is over.