I couldn’t hear them, but I knew they were waiting for me downstairs. I was in no hurry. Nothing could make me rush. I had locked the bathroom door, and stood barefoot on the cold tile floor, looking in the mirror. The suit I wore was black, too low-cut to be considered appropriate for the occasion. It mattered little. My face was pale white, powdered, with black-rimmed eyes and a perfectly painted set of lips. The dark plastic red of my lips was so stunning, nothing else about me could be noticed. In slow, precise movements, I brought the curling iron to my hanging tresses. Clamped and twisted, I manipulated each section, scorching it and setting it in perfect placement. It took me two hours to place my hair exactly as I wanted, but no one seemed to care. They knew that I had to get it just right, or I wouldn’t go.
No one told me I looked beautiful. They wouldn’t have cared if I came down still in my pajamas, unwashed. They merely left me alone as they pranced about the house with fake smiles as they finished the final preparations, and then lead me to their van.
We arrived at the funeral home a few minutes later, and just as intensely as their smiles instantly contorted to scrunched-up sorrow, my face kept cold and blank. As we went through the large door, I could sense the mass excitement of a party just about to begin. People scurried everywhere, and I still can’t recall why. There were flowers, but the place smelled not floral but strange. It didn’t smell like natural, beautiful death, it smelt distorted. I felt like I was at church, perhaps because a minister was there. They kept me away from the room with the casket. Not until the ceremonies begin. I sat down on a soft-cushioned couch in an adjacent room with a step-cousin who was virtually a stranger to me. He held me to him, and I appreciated it, but also tended to push him away. A procession of people came to me. It was strange, I knew these people intimately, and yet we all fumbled over our words and shifted our legs awkwardly, like newly made acquaintances. This fumbling, unfamiliarity pained my heart more than the fact that my mother lay dead in the room next door. They each gave a card that stated cheesy condolences and side stepped around actually mentioning the word “death.” I said, “Thank you,” but I really wasn’t thankful. I wish they hadn’t given me those cards. It was a waste of money. Nobody liked to look me in the eye, but they all had to touch me. It bothered me, their lack of eye contact. It was partly because they knew they were never going to see me again. I would be moving.
My best friend Kristin came to me and sat on the other side of me. She didn’t say anything but “sorry.” She didn’t look at me. She didn’t touch me. She just sat beside me so I wouldn’t have to be all alone, and then she left. We didn’t even say bye. I will always be thankful for those few moments she sat next to me.
Soon, all my visitors had either left or were seated in the room with the casket. I was finally allowed in. I sat in the very front row, but I wanted to with my sisters. They were so little and scared. They wouldn’t let me. I had to be close to the front because I was going to sing. People got up and talked about the woman in the casket, people who didn’t know her well. I didn’t really listen to them. They couldn’t possibly have said anything of importance anyway. They didn’t know her, because she was an agoraphobic. She didn’t really know anyone other than her family.
Someone next to me nudged me, and I knew it as my cue to stand up. I stood in front of all these strangers, and through the funeral home my static tape of piano accompaniment rang out clear. I was going to sing the song that I sang for contest just a month earlier. It was called, “O, Rest In The Lord.” People still think that I was forced to sing it. That isn’t true. I decided to. I found it appropriate, and we had spent so many hours working on it together, I thought she would have liked it. It was a terrible rendition. My voice cracked several times, and I couldn’t hit the high notes. Everyone thought it was because I was crying. That isn’t true either. I was just nervous. My legs shook the entire time.
My sister Hannah came up to the front after I was finished, and read a poem she had written while our mother had still been in the hospital. They might have forced her to do that. I’m not sure. She was crying. Then it was over. All of those familiar strangers paraded up to the casket where she lay, and said their last respects. I went up to her alone. The top half of the casket was open, and I saw the dead woman. She was my mother. I had never seen a dead body before, and I couldn’t help but stare. Well, I had seen her when she had first died, but then she was still warm and soft. I could see she was no longer warm. I could see she was no longer soft. Still, I leaned over her, to be close to her one last time. It was strange I couldn’t feel her breath on my face. I closed my eyes and kissed her on her cheek. Fear bolted through me like lightning. She was hard and cold, inhuman. Her cheek was smooth and lifeless, like a stone. It was shocking. She looked like my mother, but she felt like something that had never lived. She didn’t feel dead. She felt inanimate.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, but they were not for her. They were tears of fear and loneliness and confusion. I became hysterical. I had to be held, stifled by my cousin’s chest until the passion subsided. To this day, I have never been so afraid in my life. I regained composure. I checked my makeup. I checked my perfectly set hair. I became that same cool, quiet girl from before. I pushed everything down. With cold eyes and quivering hands, I left for the burial.
