Dearly Departed
By Bob Beach
As I pulled my Volkswagen Bug into the parking lot of Parnell’s Funeral Home, I noticed the difference right away. Instead of the usual assortment of pasty colored Civics, Focuses and Darts, the small lot was overflowing with full sized Lincolns and Cadillacs. Gold, silver, black. A big red Mercedes was parked under the portico.
There was a crowd at the door and I caught flashes of black spandex, leopard skin, fluffy boas, big hair and miscellaneous sparkly things. Could this all be for my client?
I’m a celebrant. I perform non-denominational funeral services and weddings, mostly for families who don’t have a regular church connection. My funeral gigs almost always come from funeral homes, sent my way as soon as they find there’s no pastor involved. I don’t have a divinity degree or any religious training, but I spent six months taking courses on line and made two trips to Chicago for seminars for my certification. Despite this lack of letters behind my name, however, I am a legitimate, official, card-carrying minister.
***
The whole thing had started as a lark while helping plan my niece’s wedding two years ago. Paula and her fiancée Josh were decidedly not religious and, I felt, were much too cavalier about their preparation for the upcoming union.
“Well, really, Paula, if you’re not going to have a minister or hold the service in a church, what are you going to do? Run the whole party over to the courthouse and tie the knot with a Justice of the Peace standing in the hallway?”
“Chill, Aunt Kat. Don’t be such a rain cloud. There’s lots of good options. We were just now talking about having it outside at the Botanical Garden. That’s a great location and I don’t think it would cost much. And we can always find somebody interesting to do the ceremony.”
“Like who, if it’s not a pastor or a Justice?”
“Heck, anybody. How about you? You could marry us.”
“Hey, actually, that’s a good idea,” offered Josh, “You’d be a great minister. And you probably wouldn’t charge us anything, either.” He paused. “You wouldn’t make us pray, would you?”
“No, listen, I’m serious. Who would you get, even if you did have a good location?”
“Oh, my God! That would be so cool! Having Aunt Kat marry us.”
“No, really…”
“Yes, really, really. I love it. Let’s do it. What do you think, Josh? Can we pull it off?”
“Wait a minute, you can’t have just anybody marry you, it wouldn’t even be legal.”
“I’m on it,” shouted Josh, as he popped open his laptop. “Ask Google and ye shall be answered.”
Two days later, I was an officially ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church, duly empowered to officiate marriages, baptisms, funerals and burials. And five months later I performed my first wedding ceremony, on a beautiful, sunshiny day at the Botanical Garden.
The event was a great success. Everyone was so happy with the ceremony that they insisted I should seriously consider a new career. For my part, I had thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, and the idea of a part time retirement occupation had a great appeal. After much family discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that the best market - the greatest need - for services of this sort was not in weddings, but in funerals. After all, everybody dies sooner or later.
So, after six months of emails and seminars, I was certified as a Celebrant, dedicated to helping the unreligious and the non-churched bear their passage through this brief formal window of pain and grieving.
***
I pulled around to the back of the building and parked in the employees’ section. I locked the car and let myself in the small door which led directly into the office. Harold Parnell, the son of the owner, and Cathy, one of the secretaries, were sitting, sipping coffee.
“Hi, Harold, hi, Cathy. Looks like the circus is in town.”
Harold rolled his eyes. “Don’t I wish. Better clientele.”
I turned to Cathy with the question in my eyes.
She raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t you know your client was a streetwalker?”
“What? Dawn Hart was a hooker?”
“Yep. Got beat to death by her pimp.”
I sagged. “Oh, my God. No. I didn’t know that. Her family said it was a violent death, and they mentioned her having troubles, but that was all. That’s so sad. She was only nineteen. They wanted to focus on her high school days. What a world.” I wandered around the room as I talked, picking things up and putting them down, unfocused and a little confused.
Harold gestured toward the hall. “It’s a circus, all right. Three ring.”
I thought about the material I had prepared. Was it still appropriate, given what I knew now? I didn’t think so. Maybe I should skip the more personal part of the service. I handed Harold a CD with the music Dawn’s family wanted to play. It was a collection of her favorite songs, mostly Carly Rae Jepsen. I’d never heard of her. I hoped it wasn’t rap - I didn’t think I could handle that just now.
I floated over to the door and peeked out the tiny window into the hall. It was as outlandish a collection as any troop of circus clowns: fringed micro miniskirts; fishnet stockings; exposed garters; zebra stripes; giant fuzzy angora sweaters; huge spiked hair; fluorescent purples, oranges, greens; sparkle everywhere. One tall black girl had platinum blonde hair hanging nearly to her knees, while a short white girl sported a rainbow fro. Several of the girls were weaving and shimmying together, probably to the music of an iPod. Two others near the back were fighting – one had pulled the other’s wig off, revealing a shaved and tattooed head. The pimps, nearly as garish, slowly paced the floor in intricate patterns like big cats, aloof, suspiciously measuring their property through razor thin wraparound sunglasses.
Most of the women now had clustered near the casket at the front of the room, whispering and sniffling and clutching at each other for comfort. A few still teetered gingerly around the room in 10 inch heels, inspecting the stock funeral home bouquets and picking with multicolored nails at scrapbook photos of a Dawn they never knew pasted to a drooping cardboard wall. A few plainly dressed white family members sat together off to one side, pretending they were on a different planet.
Harold joined me at the window. “Yep, if we just had an elephant and a cotton candy machine, we could start selling tickets!”
This brought a rash of guilty giggles from both Cathy and me. It was true. It was a comic carnival. But a frayed and shabby one.
In the dark corners of the night, this glittering cortege might possibly seem exotic, even beguiling. In the harsh fluorescent light they were just bizarre.
“Why do they do it? Why don’t they just get out before it’s too late? They have to know how it’s going to end. What makes them put up with it?”
Harold and Cathy stared at the floor. Nobody had an answer.
“Well, let’s get this over with.” I slipped my white tunic over my street clothes and gathered my papers. Harold popped the CD in the PA system.
***
At the sound of the music, the squabbling, dancing, sniffling and pacing came to a halt. The girls settled down in chairs toward the front, while the men, mostly black, drifted slowly to the rear, their body language expressing diffidence and even hostility.
I could feel a cold trickle of nervous perspiration under my arms. How was I going to handle this? Did anybody here really care what I said or didn’t say? The victim was one of their own, but so was the murderer. I walked out the door to the lectern at the side of the closed casket, feigning confidence and serenity. I let my gaze wander about the audience, finally coming to rest on the small family. I began my reading.
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. "Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Life means all that it ever meant. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident?”
Although I had been speaking to the family, they had been turning ever more inward, like a hand clenching into a fist. Their eyes were closed or cast down into their laps as they strained to wall themselves off from the rest of the mourners. What was it Dawn hadn’t been able to find here? I felt no connection. Slowly, I found my words directed more and more to the girls in front. All their eyes were on me. Never had I felt such attention. Their need was enormous, and seemed to suck the very words out of my mouth.
“Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!"
Throughout several more readings and two bible verses, the girls maintained their rapt attention. The pain in their eyes burned with a harsh, direct flame that the pale and banal verses I offered in return would never quench. Nevertheless, choruses of whispered Amens floated up to my ears.
Near the end of the second row off to the side, I noticed a slim girl in a black body stocking and thigh length black boots sitting alone, swaying back and forth in her seat, tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks.
***
I brought the ceremony to a somber close with that old standby, the 23rd Psalm, and thanked the mourners for attending. The music faded and disappeared into the background buzz of the hall. The family had wanted no greeting line, so the mourners were left to drift toward the exit on their own, many of the girls hugging or holding hands. I walked down the row toward the girl in the black body stocking and sat beside her. She was still swaying, muttering to herself. It was definitely neurotic behavior and I was concerned. I took one of her hands in mine. “Are you OK?”
She turned toward me at the sound, but whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t me. The tears were still flowing. “Are you all right?” Her eyes began to focus and she stopped swaying. “All right?” she echoed.
“Yes, are you all right?” No answer. “What’s your name? Mine’s Katherine.”
“Lola.”
‘Lola, were you and Dawn very close?”
“That’s me.”
“I beg your pardon? What was that?”
“That’s me in that box,” she whispered. “I’m as dead as Dawn.” She began sobbing again.
I shuddered inside. I didn’t know if I was prepared for this.
“Dawn’s in God’s hands, now, Lola. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to a better place. A place where she’s loved. Dawn doesn’t need to worry, ever again.
“You’re in God’s hands now, too, but in a different way. You still have some control over your life. You can still make choices, and God will be there to help you.” She didn’t answer.
One of the black dandies noticed us huddled together and detached himself from the pack at the back of the room. He wandered toward us casually, but with obvious purpose. He was short but well muscled, his dreadlocked hair flopping gently as he walked. He wore a bright red sports jacket over a black T shirt barely visible under layers of gold chains. His black pants were a curiously long and baggy variety of shorts, with barely six inches of skin visible between the bottoms and his black silk stockings. His shoes were well polished black snakeskin, with impossibly long pointy toes. Ignoring me, he sat down on the other side of Lola and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Come on, Angel, stop them tears,” he whispered. He put his head close to hers and began to murmur in her ear, his hand now caressing her shoulder and back. Slowly, her sobbing began to ebb and her body relaxed. The tears stopped flowing. He pulled out a huge red handkerchief and began to dab softly at her eyes and cheeks. In a few minutes she was returning his quiet murmurs, an occasional smile fluttering across her lips.
I was astounded by his concern and the obvious affection between the two. It was not at all what I had expected, and it took me totally unawares. Life is full of strange surprises, I thought. Sometimes in the darkest corner you can turn over a rock and find a wildflower growing. Maybe she did have some kind of chance. I felt just a little less depressed.
She turned toward me with a shy smile. “Thank you.”
I took that as a signal that my help wasn’t needed any more. With a last pat of her hand, I got up to find Harold and finish my paperwork. As I turned toward the office, I caught a final flicker of their conversation.
“No more tears, OK, Lo? Don’t want to ruin your face. It still be a workin’ day.”
Coipyright 2012 Bob Beach