“It’s not the cough that carries you off. It’s the coffin they carry you off in.”
- Old family saying
“Pastor Gordon called today,” Richard announced when I got home one afternoon.
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“He’s from hospice. He went to see June today.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“He wants to speak to you. Does June have a prepaid funeral plan?” Richard asked.
“I don’t think so. I’ll go look in her book,” I said.
I referred to June’s trusty book I bought her years ago, many times. I didn’t always find what I was looking for but sometimes I got lucky. The page I located near the back of the book was titled ‘The Final Dress Rehearsal’. I don’t know why anyone would call a funeral a dress rehearsal. It’s the real thing, final, because the person who is the center of attention at a funeral is dead and gone. It’s the last party thrown in their honor.
A person doesn’t get to lie down in their coffin, hold their breath and then listen to make sure their chosen death march is played in tune. When it’s over and the person sits up, scares the crap out of the mourners, they don’t get to walk into the funeral directors office and tweak what they didn’t like about the service so it can be improved for the real deal.
I knew June didn’t want any kind of service but someone had to come haul her body away when the bittersweet goodnight arrived. She had written, “Advance arrangements have been made with Kraeer Funeral Home.” in the book. The address was listed along with a phone number. The next line was curious to me. “ Copy of vital statistics on file with them and also in steel box”. A document labeled as ‘vital statistics’ is either a birth certificate or a death certificate and June’s not dead yet. Why a funeral home would require a birth certificate left me wondering.
The second part of my search started in her steel box, the one I had also brought home with me after I cleaned out her apartment. It contained another treasure trove of personal papers and notes that were able to instantly invoke sharp emotions. I’d been through this box many times, most of the papers old and no longer valid. This time I searched for her vital statistics, whatever that might be.
The only thing I found with that specific title was my father’s death certificate. Kraeer Funeral home in Boca Raton handled his cremation and funeral. While June allowed me to make the life and death decision for my father, she took complete control of the funeral preparation.
I drove her to the funeral home the day after we returned from Miami. I remember sitting in front of a tiny wood desk littered with papers talking to a very large man in a red jacket who was the funeral director. He loomed over us like the professional wrestler, Andre the Giant.
June picked out the flowers, the minister and the room to rent, including the number of chairs she expected to fill for the service. The funeral director explained the burial at sea she requested for his ashes. Andre the Giant had convinced her Sunday was the best day for a funeral, people had nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon, and she could expect a bigger turnout. The minister was available. His Lutheran congregation retired him a few years back. Andre entered the items they agreed upon on a form, adding up the prices and totaling the charges.
“Mrs. Wright, the cost will be three thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said.
June turned and looked at me. “I don’t have that much money. How am I going to pay for it?”
“We’ll put it on your credit card and figure it out later,” I said. That’s how I handled my finances. I kept emergency funds out of everyday reach and would transfer the money when to bill came. I assumed my father would have done the same thing.
Andre the Giant gasped. “I don’t want you to use your credit card. We’ll figure out a payment plan for you.”
He didn’t want to take a credit card knowing he would add another three percent onto the balance to cover the credit card fee. A payment plan would be far more lucrative for him by collecting interest from June each and every month for two or three years. I was cynical about people’s money motives even back then and June was only sixty-nine years old at the time.
“Oh wait,” she yelled out. “Your father gave me a check for my Christmas present. I can use that.”
“What?” I asked.
“Mrs. Wright, I don’t want you to spend a Christmas present on a funeral,” Andre tilted his chin downward in an effort to show his compassionate side.
I sure as hell hoped she had already cashed this check but I doubted it with all that had happened in the past week. For once, through all this I was glad it was the holidays. Hopefully the bank wouldn’t find out Dad was dead and freeze his accounts before June could negotiate the Christmas gift turned into funeral payment. We’d stop at the bank on the way home.
June and Andre the Giant made arrangements to bring the check on Sunday before the service. He was kind enough to get everything ready and delay her payment since it was Christmas. He couldn’t have lain on any thicker how generous he was being by giving her this reprieve and June fell for it hook line and sinker.
Not finding anything from the funeral home for her own funeral, I called the number in her book. Twenty-five years later, Kraeer Funeral Homes had been sold to a big company that had snapped up little mom and pop undertakers who were drowning in today’s economy. The large welcoming two-story white clapboard house with green shutters that had stood on the corner of a busy intersection of Glades Road and US 1, in Boca Raton, a landmark of sorts, I later found out had been torn down.
My call was transferred from one department to the next before I was finally told they had no prepaid plan for June Wright, only a declaration of her funeral wishes. I already knew what those were so I thanked the woman and hung up.
Pastor Gordon called me the next day. He was clearly on a mission to make sure June would not linger in death as she was in the remainder of her life.
“I’ll send you a list of some funeral homes with estimated prices for their prepaid plans,” he said.
“Do you have any first hand information of any that are better or more ethical?” I asked. The paper printed a horror story at a local funeral home a few weeks ago and it popped into my mind during this conversation.
“I do and I’ll highlight a few of them that I prefer to use,” he answered.
“Thank you, Pastor Gordon. Are you Scottish?” I asked. “Gordon was my grandmother’s maiden name.”
“I most certainly am. Full blooded. I should be wearing a kilt instead of a collar,” he joked.
“She was too. Thelma Gordon Husen. Can’t get too much more Scottish than that,” I said.
“You’re mother is a lovely woman. We had a very nice conversation today,” Pastor Gordon told me.
I declined to correct him. It wasn’t worth expending any more energy on explaining our legal relationship, especially to such a kind, Scottish man of God.
When the list of funeral providers arrived from Pastor Gordon in the mail, he had highlighted the ones he liked best as promised. Top of the list was The Neptune Society. I didn’t think I needed to shop around much for a prepaid plan since June didn’t care enough to do it for herself.
This had become a pattern with June, assuming things were taken care of when in reality they weren’t. Like when she insisted Rosemary and Joe and Darlene, her neighbors, had promised help her if she needed it. They were capable friends and my assistance wasn’t necessary, according to her.
When push came to shove, they wanted nothing to do with June. As soon as she moved out of the condo, none of her so-called friends ever called or visited her again. June built an imaginary sense of security around herself in order to prove she was an independent woman. The rest of the world took a very different view of her imaginary well-laid plans.
She had a successful career and supported herself quite well until she married my father. Then where he worked, she worked. They were a package deal in all facets of their lives. He took the job on the condition there was also a position for her. At Rogers Peet in New York City, he had the job of president and June became the ladies dress buyer. When Rogers Peet closed, he moved to Lytton’s in Chicago and again June took the position of dress buyer.
In the summer during college, after my mother moved to New York too, June would take me on her visits to dress manufacturers on Seventh Avenue. This was an amazing opportunity for a young college coed majoring in Fashion Merchandising. The show room sales people would ooh and ahh over me and offer free samples I wanted so much to take but was never allowed to have. Ethics you know. What I saw during these trips was a strong role model, asserting herself and making quick decisions. She knew what she liked and had a good eye for what would sell and what wouldn’t. June knew her customers.
The vibrant and intelligent side of June faded away so slowly after Dad died and June was left all alone, I didn’t notice. My frame of reference of the kind of person June was, remained grounded in my early and most impressionable memories. She was forty-six years old before she ever married, a good long time to become accustomed to an independent way of life. Those habits don’t miraculously disappear once the I do’s are said. I know because I married at thirty one and even after thirty years of marriage, Richard and I still butt heads over who’s in charge of the basics as well as all the other comings and goings in our lives.
At work the next day, I snuck outside so I could talk at least semi-privately. The Neptune Society was my first call. Beth answered the phone. She had a pleasant voice but often hesitated to answer my questions. She must have been new on the job and I was the sale that was going to keep her employed until another payday.
“Our basic package includes cremation and a biodegradable urn,” she said.
“She wants to be buried at sea. Is that included?” I asked. Dad had been buried at sea and June only wanted to be with him.
“It’s an additional $395.” Let the up sell begin. “And it includes…”
I tuned out the rest of the pitch. I was ready to fork over the money right then and there without hesitation. I wasn’t in the mood to shop around for a better deal somewhere else. I told Beth exactly that.
“Terrific,” she squealed, no longer reading from her script. “Let’s get started on the paperwork. “What is your mother’s name?”
I had to think here for a minute. Do I give her the legal name or June’s switcheroo name she’s used most of her life? I had to make a quick decision.
“Dorothy June Wright,” I said.
The memorized list of vital information came next. Social security number, last permanent address, married or widowed, children, occupation. The questions seemed to go on forever. Until this one.
“What is her father’s name?” Beth asked.
June called him Daddy. I don’t think that was what Beth was looking for.
“Let me think a minute.” I said. Dad called him by his first name, what was it? Harry, Harvey.
“Harold!” I yelled out. “Cockley.” I pronounced it with the incorrect long ‘o’ but spelled it without the ‘a’. Beth would be none the wiser.
“Her mother?” she asked.
“Esther. Esther Wolfe.” The name Esther came to mind along with Harold’s.
The question and hesitant answer period went on for over a half and hour. I finally gave Beth my credit card number. June could now pass from this world without intervention from others. Due to my disinterest in shopping around for a better deal, Beth would also remain employed.
A week later a box arrived in the mail form the Neptune Society. It contained a gorgeous wooden box, with a highly varnished cherry finish. Inside I found a crystal picture frame and a faux leather folder with a button and an elastic closure, and the biodegradable urn. I was most interested in this last item.
The box dimensions were about eight inches long by five inches wide by five inches tall. It was covered in a dark moss green fabric. A cascade of silk autumn colored leaves adorned the top. I removed the lid and looked inside. A plastic bag ready for the ashes. I examined the container more closely, curious about what made it biodegradable. Cardboard. Dressed up. At least June would be doing her part to save the planet.
“Richard,” I shouted. “What am I going to put in here?”
I showed him the contents of the funeral box.
“Wow. What a nice box.” His eyes flickered as his brain created a thousand different things he could use it for.
“Don’t you want to put June’s picture in it and save it for posterity?” I asked.
“You want to keep her ashes? Not in my house.” he announced.
“That’s creepy keeping her ashes. Do people really do it?” I asked jokingly. I kept the dog’s ashes after it died, so why wouldn’t people keep other people? Obviously they did or the Neptune Society wouldn’t figure the cost of this box and all its contents into the price of its prepaid funeral plan.
“Be sure to tell Pastor Gordon the next time he calls, June’s taken care of,” Richard said. “Maybe he has a use for the box.”