wake
I remember it in shades of brown. I don’t recall the pictures on the wall or most of the faces of friends and family grieving, giving me sympathy. I cannot remember the casket color. Was it white and that my memories stained it sepia toned? I was sixteen when my father passed away. I was sixteen, naive, unaware of what stage my father’s cancer was in. I was, at least, far more knowledgeable than my siblings who didn’t question the condition he was in. They didn’t even know he had cancer, or if they did they didn’t want to bother my parents into asking how sick he was. I was the only brave one to ask about it ten months prior that year when his hair started falling out in clumps and when his fair toned skin turned white like death was approaching. I was the only one brave enough to go to one of his chemotherapy sessions. I ended up locking myself in the hospital restroom, muffling my tears so that my father couldn’t hear me.
Before the wake started, I was near my grandfather. He was such a strong man, and could not tolerate public displays of emotion, so instead of tearing up in front of me, he spoke, his Irish accent strong, “When your father was a tad younger than you, he was such a trouble maker. There was a graveyard in back of our house, and your father would come home with flowers for your grandmother. She always wondered where he’d get them from until one day she saw him in back of the house, taking the flowers that were perched on top of the graves.” My father never told me that story and I started to wonder how well I knew him after all.
I approached the room where my father was laid to rest. The last time I had seen him was on a stretcher, at the hospital. I tried my best to prepare myself as I went down what seemed like a long, ever-lasting corridor. The stench of fresh flowers hit me before I reached the doorway. A combination of lilacs, lilies and roses invaded my sinuses as I finally laid my eyes on what I had been searching for. One piece of the puzzle wouldn’t fit together for I was unable to grasp the scent of living floral with the sight of death in front of me. It was nauseating but I couldn’t peel myself from the room. I stood statuesque in front of his casket, oblivious to any social graces I should uphold as I faintly started to hear guests arriving.
As coworkers, friends of the family and other mourners started to flood the tiny room to pay their respects, I sat quietly on a couch on the opposite wall where my father was. I leaned back and rested my head against the top of the Victorian style love seat trying not to make eye contact with anyone. It was hard enough to concentrate on not tearing up and I knew looking at their dejected expressions I wouldn’t be able to keep my misery at bay.
“I’m so sorry. Your father was a great man.”
Startled, my eyes focused on where the voice had come from. It was Mike, my fathers “best friend”. His face was drenched with sympathy and I appreciated the concern he had for me. I muttered a quick, “Thank you” as he walked back to his family.
At that moment, I felt completely alone in a room full of people. The dam was broken. Tears that had finally surfaced stung my tired eyes and I buried my head in my hands. I felt bleak. My mood was black and blue and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I no longer had my father. Why couldn’t this had happened when I was older, when he could see me graduate from college and carry on the family genes? My future husband will never get the honor of being introduced to this “great man”. I get to tell my children that their grandfather was wonderful but they could never get to meet him. My grandfather came over and expressed to me that I should leave the building as I was making a scene and I shouldn’t make guests uncomfortable. Social graces.
An hour passed by, only it seemed like mere minutes. The funeral home director shooed us out of the viewing room and into the foyer. Moments later, we were directed to go into the prayer room for the Rosary Service. After being seated in the front row, the priest began. His thick Southern accent bothered me. Even though I was not a practicing follower, my idea of Catholicism was that it was a more refined religion and the man sounded like he should be a Southern Baptist. I focused on the priest’s wrinkled, aged hands, folding through the decades on the chaplet. The Lord’s Prayer was something I was not aware of at the beginning of the Service, but by the end of it I could recite “Our Father…” well.
The wake was as traditionally Irish as my mother could make it. She said it was what my father wanted. Copious amounts of food and drink were provided and after the Rosary Service my father’s friends spoke greatly of him. I wished that I knew the sides of my father they had the opportunity to befriend. The little boy who pulled pranks on his instructors in Catholic School. The man with the heavy laugh who told witty jokes to his coworkers. I knew of the father who would do anything for his four kids and his loving wife. As the wake began to recess and goodbyes were made, my mother’s pale emerald eyes became glossy and wet with tears, thinking she did a poor job as a hostess. I knew that she was ridden with stress being torn away from her husband of twenty years. It was only her fatigue speaking. The wake was over and a rush of relief flowed through me. I joined my father once again in silence, breathing the haunting redolent of floral until it was time to go home.
