Services

I went to my godmother's funeral yesterday. She'd died at eighty-eight last month. People wait for ages these days to schedule funerals. I'd called her Aunt N. because she had been my mother's best friend since childhood and they remained close until my mother died in 2011.
I arrived at the church just ten minutes or so before the service began. I met up with one of my brother's wives in the parking lot and we entered together. One of my two brothers was ushering, the other was already seated in a back pew and the wife and I joined him. Before I sat, another of the ushers came and introduced himself to me. He was someone I'd gone to high school with but hadn't seen since we graduated in 1977. Hadn't seen in person, I should say. He's an actor and he was in, among other things, nine episodes of a successful HBO series I watched when it was available on disc. Another man there, a first cousin of my sister-in-law, was also that year's class. None of my

godmother's three sons went to the same school, a private all boys' school with just around seventy-five boys in each class, and they wouldn't have been our year if they had, so the coincidence struck me.
The church is in a western suburb of Philadelphia. The service began at eleven and was long: well over an hour. It required much standing. Three long hymns and as many readings. I don't get that. I'll stand up for an anthem, but I don't get the need for it at a church. Is it about power, dominance, submission? They have things to kneel on when you pray but no one does that anymore, I've noticed. At least in the protestant churches I've been to, like this one. I have no religion so I don't sing or speak, but not standing would be too visible and considered rude. Standing for several minutes at a time on one leg isn't easy. Try it. Set a timer for five minutes and stand on one leg. Go ahead a hold onto a chair in front of you, as I did the back of a pew. And it's not like I've ever been averse to standing. My jobs, all in retail since 2002, involved standing for entire work days except for half hour lunches. You'd think that if someone could stand on two feet for eight hours he could stand on one foot for four hours, but it's not like that. Imagine standing still for eight hours as opposed to moving around, never shifting your weight from one foot to the other. Now double your weight. There'd be a huge difference.
Churches aren't designed to be venues for entertainment but even so this church was awful when it came to having a view anywhere past the halfway point from the altar. Most of what was done was done at floor level and the head of the man who sat in front of me blocked everything, even though when the man stood I realized he was only around my height, if that. I hated him for blocking my view. Stupid, I know, hating someone for a circumstance the created through no fault of his own. He was there before me. I sat on the aisle, my sister-in-law was on my left, and then my brothers. My oldest brother's wife did not attend. As I couldn't see much, I focused on the woman in front of me just to the left, who sat next to Mr. Giant Head. She was in her mid-to-late forties, a blonde with thin lips who I imagined had been the toast of the preppy frat at her college. She was probably very successful in her profession, which I'd bet had to do with finance with her role leading to more people being terminated than hired. She wasn't my type, but she did something that delighted me. During the hymns she liked, she twisted her torso to and fro slightly, just a little, in a way reminiscent of how she responded to music when she was a child. I don't know if others would even notice it or if she was aware she was doing it, but it gave her a sweetness I liked.
Two sets of parents had brought a child there; one a toddler, the other, just short of that age. Both made noise at key points of the service and their parents were slow to pick them up and take them elsewhere. Why anyone would take children that age to a funeral is beyond me. This is a well-heeled area and they were easily able to afford a sitter. The funeral had been scheduled over a month in advance, giving them ample time to find one for a Saturday. Having the children there did nothing for the children; they might as well have been in a pool hall. It did nothing for the adults there other than detract from the service; we all get the circle of life thing already. It was not the time and place for children.
One of the wives of one of my godmother's three sons read something brief from a Bible passage and choked up while doing so. The sons stood on the floor and read prepared remembrances together, passing a wireless microphone back and forth. All three of them also choked up as they did, needing to pause. That surprised me a little. They are about the same ages as my brothers and I and have similar backgrounds. And their mother died over a month ago. When my mother died eight years ago my brothers and I spoke at her service to a similarly sized audience six days later and our eyes remained dry, our delivery unbroken. The only difference is that their mother's death came on suddenly. She was diagnosed with lung cancer—despite having been non-smoker—had a stroke two weeks later and died three days following the stroke. My mother had been in poor health for several years. Aunt N's death, then, came somewhat unexpectedly. But still, at eighty-eight is it really a shock? Perhaps my brothers and I are bad, cold people. This is the kind of thing I judge but never tell others my opinions on. We all get a pass when grieving.
Some of the remembrances were warm and humorous and people laughed, but I never do at such things. They never reach a level that I'd call comedy. I violated an exit rule when leaving at the end. I'd waited for the family pews to pass but then, during a large gap, I entered the aisle and left. You're supposed to wait for the aisles in front of you to depart first. People were moving slowly and I'd done enough one-legged standing for the day. I waited for my brothers outside but they never came. A woman named Joan came out with her daughters. Joan is one of the last of that circle of my mother's friends, the circle going back to their elementary school years. She insisted on a hug. "I fall down easily," I told her. "So do I," she said. Why hug, then? One of her daughters asked if I remembered her and I said I sort of did but we'd never spent much time together as kids. Another woman in the church was also a long-time friend of my mother's. She sat alone, which I found odd. I know her husband is unwell, but she was, like my mother and all of her friends, very social and her children live in the area. I feel guilty when I see her because in 2002, at a celebration of my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, she'd approached me for a hug and I politely declined and said I wasn't a hugger and she was visibly hurt. It turned out she was having some issues related to her cognitive health at the time and felt vulnerable because of them. In part because of her I've tried to be more open when it comes to physical contact with people like that, though I never initiate it. I try to avoid doing things I'm bad at.
I had a bag for my brother of a photograph of our family taken by a professional in 1968 I'd scanned in and had printed on metal, which means it won't fade for at least a century, and macadamia nuts, something our father would always put in our Christmas stockings. I caught him as he was walking to his car and gave him the bag. I drove home, stopping on the way at a supermarket where I bought chicken, fish, one of the new breed of apples called Cosmic Crisp, crab cakes which, like the fish, were half off. A woman in line behind me asked where I'd gotten the oat milk I was getting and I told her. She said her sister liked it and I told her I did too and that if I were going to pour a non-dairy milk into my coffee oat milk would be my choice. I'd wanted to buy some eggnog but the store was out of it. Just as well. I don't need all that fat. I indulge in it because it's uncertain whether I'll be around a year from now to have it again. This year, my total intake has been just one quart.

A glass of eggnog.