This funeral home smells like flowers, the dust from old tissues, and strong perfume. There are paintings of angels in golden frames, and bouquets of flowers all over the place, plus my painting of Grandpa Bill, propped up on a metal stand. The room is packed, and I actually know some people: Grandma. Trullia. Mike. Henry Jack. His mom, Faith. George. Mary, the Bearded Lady. And of course, mean Fire-Eating Charlie. He’s wearing the spurs again, and it sounds like death in a Western movie when he walks on the wooden floor of the funeral home.
Grandma, Trullia, and I are lined up beside the casket, greeting people like this is a party. A line of three, all related by blood. I’m trying not to look at Grandpa Bill’s abandoned body.
The windows are open and you can hear birds chirping, like this is any old ordinary morning. The birds don’t know any better, and neither do the people driving by in their cars. The sky is blue and the sun shines. The world just goes on like normal, while the little universe of its own inside the funeral home is all about time standing still.
This part of the service is the viewing. It’s where people look at the body.
“It helps the family to accept that the person really is gone, and to find closure,” Grandma Violet explained to me last night. “It helps the loved ones to go on.”
Not me. I don’t feel like accepting or finding “closure” or going on anywhere. Not without Grandpa Bill.
So I just stand there beside the casket and greet people, a wet and crumpled tissue clutched in my hand. Everyone keeps raving about how tall I am, how much I look like Grandma, how much they loved Grandpa Bill, how I was the apple of his eye.
Sometimes, over some stranger’s shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Henry Jack, sitting in one of the chairs. Every time I meet his eye, he tries to smile and he gives a little nod, like saying, It’s all right. Go on. You’re doing fine. Breathe. You’ll be okay.
Seeing Henry Jack’s face is keeping me sane.
It’s time for the service, and pictures of Grandpa Bill are projected onto a screen. Grandma sits in a folding chair on one side of me. Henry Jack’s on the other. Trullia hides somewhere in the very back. I can hear her hacking, and the sound of Mike clearing his throat.
We’re in the very front, so now I can’t help seeing Grandpa Bill, all laid out in that casket. He looks like a creepy wax version of my grandfather, and I keep imagining what would happen if he just sat up and started talking. That would totally freak me out.
“I keep thinking I see his heart beating,” I whisper to Henry Jack. “Like something is moving on the side of his neck.”
“A trick of the eyes,” Henry Jack whispers back. “It’s just what you wish was happening.”
I’m wearing the jeweled pink flip-flops and the nice flowered sundress from Trullia, and Henry Jack is sporting a dark blue suit. His tie is splashed with old cartoons from the 1960s.
My grandma cries really hard but quietly, shaking with trying to keep it inside. Her hair is in a braid, and she’s wearing a long tie-dyed hippie skirt and a black T-shirt. She grabs my hand every now and then, which makes me have to bite my cheek. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. I will keep it inside.
A funeral director—a tall bald man in a crisp black suit—conducts the service. He includes Bible verses along with funny little stories about my grandpa, like how one time he tried to run a marathon but had to stop. There’s the song “Amazing Grace,” and I can hear people blowing their noses and snorting. I guess other people try not to cry, too.
The song comes to an end and the beehive-hairdo lady named Kathryn who is playing the piano gets up and clicks in little red pointy heels back to her seat. There’s an awkward silence, with just the nose honking and the snorting.
A horrible noise trumpets suddenly from outside. It sounds like a combination of a monster blowing his nose and the sky falling and an airplane crashing. Some people put their hands to their ears and others look at one another, all puzzled and scared. One man stands, as if he’s going to save the world.
And then I see the source of all that racket: Queenie Grace, standing near a window behind my grandfather’s body. She’s looking straight in at the casket, and she’s wailing at the top of her lungs.
I look at my grandmother. She seems to be in shock. Henry Jack leans forward to look at Grandma, too, then he looks at me. I mouth the word “wow.”
Grandma pulls herself up from her seat with a heavy sigh, swishing in her long skirt to the exit door.
People turn around to watch. A somber silence hangs heavy in the room. Trullia gets up from the back row, mouth turned down, and she follows Grandma outside. Mike hustles out, too.
At least all this excitement has made some people stop crying.