Tag Archives: funerals

sunny days…

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…with probable thunderstorms

38 degrees celsius. Sidewalk sale on Mount Royal street. Noah up at 7 am ready to go to David’s Teas to help his buds sell their wares.

“Dad, why can’t I go now?”

“Because they’re not open yet.”

“I could help them!?!”

“No, its technical, adult, commercial…you’ll go help them out for a couple of hours later, and…”

“….I know, I’ve got to listen to them, help but not get uh, in the way, stay calm, remember I’m eight and a half, blah blah….it sucks being a kid, big time.”

Try being an adult. Now that’s a big time suck state.

My brother is travelling across Northern Italy on a wine trip….across the land of my father.

My sister is emptying her basement so it can become the lair for her teenage kids.

I’m accompanying my little merchant in a beloved activity where selling is not about money but about friends and social gatherings.

We are all returning to our lives?

Hardly.

We never left the daily rumble of sun and rain and thunders and pain and sadness and absurd laughs and occasional pleasures.

Death and life are as necessary as a terminus to a bus or a cleanup to a party.

“Dad, can we go now?”

“In an hour or so….”

“Awwww…but dad…”

“Keep talking and it’ll be in a couple of hours or so….”

“Ahhhhhh….”

He runs off waving his arms in semi-mock despair.

My Mother is dead.

I keep having to say it, to realize it.

But remembering the dead does not mean forgetting the living. Make an effort.

“Noah, wanna go for a soft ice cream? Before you go to the tea stand.”

“Really? Youhooooouuuu….”

He’s already down the stairs.

Take advantage of the hot, sunny days gorged with humidity… they are filled with the threat of lightning and thunder, and that’s a good thing.

It must be since its inevitable.

Like life and death and love and hurt.

rest (4)…

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…final

“Look, another dead guy and I think his eyes are open”, as he peers into the room next to ours.

The viewing of my Mother’s body is done and Noah is running up and down the hallway of the funeral parlor, waiting for the procession to the church for the ceremony.

His initial foreboding has been chased away by boredom. I think he even touched my Mother’s face when no one was looking.

“I’m excited to see how they put her in with Nonno.”

My Mother, who was a cypher to me, will soon be encrypted where my Father has been for seven years, now. They will be head to head.

My Mother who has unmade me as much as she has made me will soon be free from blame. With time, the edges round out and things go into a softer, more forgiving focus.

“Dad, why did they put all that powder on her face?”

“To make her look natural.”

“Yeah, but that’s stupid because she really really looks, like, well not her.”

“You’re right it isn’t Nonna, its her body, but she’s not there anymore.”

Whatever that means.

“Yeah.”

At the church, I almost lose it. I look down at Noah. He’s not far either. Its the music, the readings, the aesthetic emotion. Pressures the glands.

Then, the crypt and the last prayer. And its finally over.

“Dad, are we going home, now?” He pushes up against me.

“Yup.”

We bundle into the car and ride back quietly.

I resist the urge to call my Mother on the phone, to see how she’s doing.

It’ll be a while.

Now that I’m an orphan, going home means my home, not my parents’.

Now, I’m the mature generation.

Should have looked in the mirror more often. I might have seen time passing and leaving traces on me.

Funerals have a way of bringing you down to earth.

 

rest (3)…

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…and freaky stories

Noah is counting fingers on his two hands.

“Nine! Nine hours standing there with a dead body. That’s freaky dad.”

“That’s why I told you to bring books and stuff to distract yourself. We’re Nonna’s family and its a last chance for people who loved her to come and see her.”

“Yeah, but they like come and say hello, then goodbye and they’re gone and we’re there like…”

He stands at attention like an honor guard.

“…forever.”

Forever is what my Mother’s body returns to. Forever are the stories we will continue to tell which will become the tales of my son and his cousins and the distant legends of the generations that follow them.

“Noah, we’ll be the whole family together, that’s what you’ve been waiting for.”

“True, dad, but you know its not fun…its freaky.”

What’s freaky is my Mother meeting my father in war torn Italy. She was 14, he was 21. Their love story ends here, in Montréal, seventy years later, whenshe will be interred in the crypt, head to head with my Father, Fortunato.

To be continued….by three grown children with four growing grandchildren.

All of us taken by emotions and a mutual affection that goes beyond the common lived experiences, that extends deeply enough that my kid, 8 1/2, feels it though he’s seen his cousin Scott, once, his Uncle Enzo, twice, his Auntie Cathy, none.

Its the stories,  filled with meaning and knowledge and mostly funny. That won’t end with that monstrous moment when they will drop the lid of the coffin on my Mother’s face.

“Noah, why don’t you do a freaky cool comic book about Nonna and how though her body is dead, things she knew become things a character like you knows.”

“…like special powers?”

“Why not.”

“And an adventure…oh, no dad, better a quest for a treasure that reveals eeeeverythinggggg.”

The last word in that deep, creepy narrative voice.

“Cool.”

He’s got that, “Quiet, me the artiste is thinking” look.

“Could be a good story…but I would like, you know, not choose that one. I prefer a fun, exciting story with no one I know who is dead.”

“Me too, kid. But that’s why life is freaky scary and freaky cool and why having family and people you love is freaky and beautiful.”

“True dad, true.”

He walks quietly away.

“I’ll go get dressed dad. With my cool white shirt, you know the one I partied with at the day camp. Is that ok?”

“Perfect, Noah.”

From party rock to funeral dirge, same clothes, same humanity.

“I’m going to miss Nonna.”

“Me too.”

P.s. Noah has done a drawing for his Nonna that he will include in the coffin… his Trexx character for which he’s been planning a whole series of world famous comic books, to be published soon, before its made into a movie. With a note, ‘Thank you Nonna for everything and the really good pasta’.

Nonna will have a world preview of Noah’s future creations….stories, stories and more stories.