August 30: Sister's Funeral, Eulogy, New Poem, "Strawberry Picking"

My sister's funeral was this afternoon.  It was not without its share of family drama.  In the end, no blood was shed, and everybody was well-fed and happy at the end.  You will forgive me if I am not witty or profound this afternoon.  I was up until about 2 a.m. finishing my eulogy and poem.  It is now after 7 p.m., and I am practically comatose.  The only blessing is that I don't have to work tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or the next.  For the next five days, all I have to do is create lesson plans and teach.  Basically, I'll be living the life of a tenured full-timer.  No jumping jobs in the middle of the day.  No late nights at the medical office.  Basically, I will have a normal existence for the next week.

The funeral was beautiful.  My sister's best friend, Lydia, gave a moving eulogy with a Nightingale tribute.  My sister was a nurse for 32 years. And then I gave my eulogy and recited my poem.  My friends sang the "Pie Jesu" by Andrew Lloyd Webber and "I Have a Dream" by ABBA.  At the end of the Mass, I turned to Lydia and said, "I think Sal would have been happy."  Lydia hugged me and said, "Sal is happy."

So, I am exhausted.  When I got to the church, I cried.  When Lydia showed up, I cried.  When I gave my eulogy, I cried.  When my friends sang, I cried.  When I ate my stuffed shells, I cried (they were really hot).  When I got home and saw the rum my wife's cousin dropped off for me, I cried.

Saint Marty misses his sister a lot.  Or he's pregnant.

Strawberry Picking

for Sally

You took me strawberry picking
once, drove out to a farm
where we paid to squat in green
beds laced with tongues of red.
I could feel my ears and neck
tighten under the punishing
sun as we filled Morning Glory
ice cream buckets with our
harvest, each berry looking to me
like some vital body part,
an organ or muscle necessary
for life.  You sat on your haunches,
fingers staining red, as if you
were some battlefield surgeon
patching up the fallen with only
your hands.  Every now and then,
you would lift a berry to your lips,
eat it in a hummingbird moment,
smiling the smile of the freshly
healed at Lourdes, where miracles
are common as empty wheelchairs
or dandelions in a July field.

The days since you've been gone,
I see strawberries everywhere,
in a welt of blood on my lip
after shaving, a stop sign,
a friend's dyed hair,
my son's sunburned shoulders,
oxygen in the gills of a perch.
Last night, I stood outside, under
ribbons of borealis, watched
them glide between the stars
like garter snakes in a midnight
Eden.  The Bible says that, in the cool
of the day, Adam and Eve heard
God taking a stroll through
the garden.  There were probably
peacocks nesting in the pines,
a stream talking with moss and stone,
the scurry of mole and spider
in the ferns.

That's what I believe you heard
in your last moments of breath.
You heard peafowl screams,
brook trout leaps.  Grasshopper wing
and corn silk.  And you heard
His divine toes in the grass, walking
along.  When He came to you,
He couldn't resist.  He reached down,
plucked you from the stem.  You were
ripe.  Sweet.  Ready.  He put you
in His Morning Glory bucket, continued
on into the dew and sunlight.

August 29: The Wake, Family Drama, Wendell Berry, "A Warning to My Readers," Confessions of Saint Marty

The wake lasted only a day and was held at an Amsterdam Avenue parlor, Kennedy's, not far from the church.  Everyone from the neighborhood was there,  The MacGuires came in from Long Island, Annie's three policeman brothers in their dress blues, with their shoulder cords and medals, sat in the back.  Her father and mother and various cousins came and went throughout the day, but her brothers stayed, and going outside to smoke cigarettes, marched up and down the street in front of the parlor, Ives by their side, regarding all passersby, street drunks and junkies as well as decent citizens minding their own business, with contempt.  A lot of strangers came with flowers, and so many prayer cards, rosaries, and crucifixes were left in Robert's coffin that every few hours a lady who worked for the parlor would come up to remove them.  Young seminarians and many priests came by.  A lot of neighborhood fellows came in around two in the afternoon, half-drunk, paid their respects, and stood about the parlor entrance in thin-soled shoes shivering.  Flowers arrived from New Jersey, where his friend Mr. Messmer lived.  And he got a telephone call from Mr. Mannis in London; he had called during intermission of the theater where they were presenting Stop the World I Want to Get Off, with Anthony Newley.  A number of Annie's teaching colleagues showed up or sent flowers, and about twenty-five people from the agency came, among them Mr. Freeman, who traveled on that soggy day with his wife and one of his sons from Chappaqua; Morty Silverman, Alvarez, Martinez, Dinnerstein, and Fuentes from the Spanish division of the company; many people from accounting; and secretaries from the sales department, some of whom came in from the Bronx and Queens.

Everybody comes to Robert's wake.  He was young and spiritual, sang in the church choir.  In a few months, he was going to enter the seminary.  Everybody loved him.  When a young person dies, there's always an extra layer of tragedy.  Robert was gunned down on a sidewalk in front of a church at Christmas time.  He's almost a martyr.

Tonight is my sister's visitation at the funeral home.  For two hours, we will gather, hug, probably cry, share stories, and say a rosary.  All day long is going to be a prelude to that event.  My daughter has a dance lesson.  I have to play for a Mass at church.  Then, the wake.  Afterward, I will go home, make a brownie trifle for the funeral lunch, and finish my poem and eulogy.

The drama has already begun with my family.  I will not go into detail.  Suffice to say, there is always "fun" in "dysfunction."  There will be a lot of both tonight.  My goal for this evening will be to make it through the 120 minutes with a minimum of slamming car doors and squealing tires.  (You laugh, but both of those things are distinct possibilities.)  I have no energy for my family's particular brand of mental illness tonight.

I may come off as gentle and full of compassion.  An understanding soul, if you will.  My well of grace is running a little dry at the moment.

Saint Marty needs a big, stiff drink . . . of grace, of course.

A Warning to My Readers

by:  Wendell Berry

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

Confessions of Saint Marty