January 4, 2009
Mournful Remembrance
There is truly no point to this; it’s a funeral vignette, no more, no less. Here goes. The Deceased was the mother of my friend’s girlfriend, and the funeral was held in one of those American cities with more rich folks than cultural cachet. And my friend took it in mind that the occasion called for her girlfriend to wear something other than what she customarily wore to the gym or to rehearsals or to the dance classes she taught. So she gussied the girlfriend up in a costume befitting, oh, I don’t know, Sophia Loren, maybe, or possibly Anjelica Huston. Fitted black jacket, short-but-not-too short black skirt, two-and-one-half-inch heels, and a wide-brimmed black hat topping the girlfriend’s long (dyed) (black) hair. Dramatic (but not whorish) make-up.
So the girlfriend made an impact at her mother’s funeral – an impact matched by her father, divorced on more or less friendly terms from The Deceased. As he stepped forth from the limo that conveyed him to the event, he slipped (he was dead drunk), but catching sight of his daughter dressed to the nines, he managed to call out, “It’s show-time!”
Nope. No point to my telling this non-anecdote. Just popped to mind in connection with mourners.
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No point at all, but priceless – which I guess is the point and it made me smile, so thank you, Sheila.
Groovy. Now all of a sudden I’m reminded of an Italian-American wedding I attended in Chicago. (Actually, it was in Oak Park, in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple.) The bride was my friend, and the ceremony was simple and loving and touching — and almost completely upstaged by the bride’s older sister, in her Schiaparelli-pink fuck-me suit and matching hat, and the bride’s ninety-year-old grandmother in her Schiaparelli-pink fuck-me suit and matching hat.
Yikes!
Next time I have a wedding or a funeral to attend, I want Rick Neece as my wardrobe consultant and personal shopping assistant.
I love this, Sheila.
Oh Jesus, Sheila, you’re on a roll. I just read this out to Cindy and we are still laughing. We want to see your social calendar so we can shadow you.
My social calendar is not busy, but it is intense.
I still bear scars on my inside cheeks from trying to make myself stop laughing at Daryl’s grandmother’s funeral.
okay, you’re definitely going to have to spill the beans on that (unless it defies translation).
I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it. I will say that I was doing all right until the side door of the church blew open while the minister was delivering the eulogy.
that’s a good glimpse.
Where have I been all day to miss this? I have a little story. I’ll make it brief.
At my grandmother’s funeral (Grandmother Neece, Pearl, her first name.), the minister said, “Now, God’s a jeweler, and he’s making a bouquet.” Danny and I looked at each other from across the room (I was sitting with the pall-bearers, Danny was sitting with my Mom and Dad), I raised an eyebrow. Danny quickly bowed his head.
A little later, the minister said, “Sister Pearl feared the Lord.” And I couldn’t help thinking she feared a lot of things, not the least of which would have been sitting in the back seat of a two-door car, because “What if there was a wreck and you couldn’t get out?”
Rick, I love it that Danny quickly bowed his head. How else to deal with the trauma of mixed metaphor? And aren’t preachers the worst for that sort of thing?Shepherds bringing the lamp into harbor on the wings of a dove.
Daryl
I wish I had the whole sermon on tape. I would totally co-opt it into a fiction and call it my own. But I don’t, and I won’t. I’ve often wished I could make it up, but I can’t. Some things are meant to be experienced only once.