SOUTHERN FUNERALS ARE A SIGHT to behold, but you better look fast because they are over almost as quickly as they start. You’ll still be fogging up a mirror,1 and we’ll call in the family and start glazing the ham. The line, from my Instagram sketch “If the Queen Died in the South,” “Grandmaw’s not doing too good, so I just want to go ahead and put that bug in your ear” came from years of experience. I cannot count how many times I heard that line but with different family members and loved ones.
That was your cue to start thawing food or get cooking because a funeral was headed your way. I can remember coming home from school and my mom had made four coconut cakes, four pound cakes, and who knows what else. In disbelief at all the food, I said, “What are you doing?!” That woman looked me square in the eye and said, “Someone could be dyin’ right now.” I thought every funeral in the South followed these same guidelines, or at least every funeral in Mississippi.
Tim and I had only been married for two years when his mother passed. I can remember the look on his face when he got the call. His mom had had a heart attack and would need a quadruple bypass, a risky surgery under normal circumstances but even more risky because she had just spent a month in the hospital with another illness.
Six weeks after her surgery, she passed away, never leaving the ICU. Watching my husband lose his mother was gut-wrenching. The weeks before she passed had been a roller coaster of emotions… She is getting better… She has pneumonia in one lung… She has it in both lungs. Finally, they had to make the decision to let her go.
When she passed, there was a sense of relief—not that she was gone, but that she was finally healed and free of pain, and the roller coaster was over. My North Mississippi brain thought, Ok, it’s Friday, so we’ll have the visitation on Saturday with the funeral on Sunday. But no… This was a Catholic funeral, not Baptist, and we were in South Mississippi, not North Mississippi.
I saw signs leading up to her passing that this wasn’t going to be done the way we do it in North Mississippi. Before she passed, Tim’s brother was gathering details to start writing her obituary—red flag number one. Where I’m from, old people start writing their own obituary around age sixty-five, keep it in the family Bible, and add to it as needed. Obituaries are too important to leave to someone other than yourself.
Red flag number two came when his dad said, “What are you doing? Stop doing that! In this family we do not bury the living.”
Oh, in my family we absolutely DO bury the living. I’m not just talking about calling in the family while you are alive. I mean, during my grandmother Goolsby’s funeral, my mother whispered in my ear, “Do you see how she has the flowers on the casket and the matching arrangements on either side on the pedestals? That’s exactly what I want, except also add one of my quilts like when Mama died.” Thankfully, my parents are still living, but they have let me and my brother know that they have already planned and paid for their funerals. The location, order of service, hymns and Bible verses, and who they want to preach their funerals, along with an alternate list in case they outlive the preachers.
The absolute nail in the coffin icing on the cake for Tim’s mother’s funeral was when the discussion turned to the flowers. The wake would be held at the funeral home, but the actual service would be at the church, which meant no flowers at the funeral. They believe that a funeral is a solemn occasion, and the focus shouldn’t be on flowers but on praying for the deceased. I agree, but flowers, along with the food, are the standard by which all funerals are judged. We’re really about to have a funeral without sprays of mums and gladiolas? No acetate ribbon? None of it.
Tim’s mother passed on a Friday and his dad told us the plans. “We’re going to do the funeral on Monday,” he said.
Ok, this Monday is waiting a bit, but that’s fine—we’ll do it this Monday.
“This Monday?” my husband clarified.
“No, next Monday,” my father-in-law said.
Such a joker—look at him joking through his grief.
He went on to explain, “Your mom’s best friend is in Tuscaloosa this week for her daughter’s wedding, and we need to wait until she is back in town so she can be there.”
“Dad! That is ten days away, and it’s on the twenty-fourth. We’re going to bury Mom on my second wedding anniversary?”
“Son, this can’t be helped. Plus, we’re not burying your mom on your anniversary, just having the funeral. Your mom is being cremated, and we’ll do that later.”
I called my mother to let her know the plan.
“Ellen, I’m already loading up the car to get to Hattiesburg for the funeral. Listen, please don’t think I’m crazy, but does your dad need one of those beanies for the funeral?”2
“Ok, Mom, first off [googles name of hat that Jewish men wear in church], it’s called a yarmulke, and second, Tim is Catholic not Jewish. But hold off on loading the car. The funeral isn’t until Monday.”
“Oh, ok. Well, that will give me more time to pack this freezer full of the food I’m bringing—”
“No, Mom,” I interrupted, “it’s next Monday.”
“Ellen, you stop it! Is this some sort of Catholic thing?”
I was starting to suspect that it wasn’t a Catholic thing, or a South Mississippi thing, or her best friend’s daughter getting married—it was a love thing. I don’t think Tim’s dad wanted her passing to be real. Where I’m from, we bury people quickly, and the mourning begins once the funeral festivities have settled. Stretching out the funeral gave a little more time before he had to face day-to-day life without her.
My suspicions that this was NOT normal in South Mississippi were confirmed when I stayed at the house to receive the food and keep up with who brought what. Just as in North Mississippi, the food started to come almost as soon as she passed, and each dish came with the same comment: “Now, I haven’t heard when the funeral will be…”
“Oh, it will be next Monday.”
“Reeeeallly?” they would say. “That is so long!” I would explain the reasoning, and they would pretend to understand, but I could tell they were with me, that we should be having the funeral already.
We stayed in Hattiesburg the full ten days between her passing and the funeral. I gently floated the idea of going back to Jackson and coming back for the wake, but it was gently knocked down.
My friends would check in:
How are you holding up?
Fine… just listening to Streisand on a loop.
Seinfeld???
No—Barbra. His mom loved her, so his dad won’t let us turn on the TV and he’s playing Streisand records on a loop.
Until the wake finally happened, along with the funeral. It was a beautiful service complete with bagpipes playing “Amazing Grace” as a nod to her Irish roots. And the repast/funeral meal was everything I expected from a Southern Funeral. The church provided the fried chicken. And when word got out that there was such a long break before the funeral, the South Mississippi ladies kicked their cooking into high gear. They kept a steady stream of food coming day after day, so there was gracious plenty for the visitors during those ten days and for the day of the funeral.
The morning after the funeral, the phone rang. It was my mother.
“Hey, Ellen. Listen, Granddaddy’s not doin’ too good, so I just want to go ahead and put that bug in your ear.”3
1 Back in the old days, they used to hold a mirror under someone’s nose to see if they were still breathing/alive.
2 I don’t have many regrets in life, but telling my mom that Dad didn’t need a beanie is one of them. He would have worn one.
3 My grandfather passed a few weeks after Tim’s mom. His wake and funeral were on the same day and less than three days after his passing.