Mercy
06-09-2004, 04:06 PM
I do not do funerals well. It is not that I fall apart at the sight of a casket or have some aversion to being around death. The pensiveness and austure ceremony always strikes me as preposterous. The mourners walk around awkwardly, barely making eye contact as if they fear some contagion. Children are secreted away to ensure they do not utter some truth of life. The deceased are lavished with more respect then they ever received while sucking oxygen. Old memories are dragged out and polished up and no one seems to mind when the facts do not match the telling of them.
Then there is me, head to toe looking as if I were born in mourning. Other mourners murmur gentle words of condolence and bashfully slink away from my obvious bereavement. No one wants to intrude on someone else's sorrow and I grieve beautifully. The prerequisite tissue is clutched between gloved hands. My face obscured under veiled millnery does not belie the occasional heaving of my shoulders or sporadic, muffled hitches of breath. I appear a tenebrous example of weeping Anglo-Saxon grief. Funerals are solemn affairs and I am surreptitiously laughing to myself.
Funerals give me the giggles. No one is the wiser because they are too busy playing their parts. Amateur summer stock performances for a deceased audience. Everyone mills about quietly as if concerned they may disturb the guest of honor. Mortifying contests of who is more touched by the loss. Shining words of praise showered on a cadaver that was not worthy when it had a pulse. The people amble around like aimless billiard balls to gather in little pockets of awkward comfort before moving on. Eyes are guiltily averted from wailing women. Men clutch each other in embraces less masculine then the tears they are attempting to supress. But my favourite part must be the snarky comments from mourners.
"I can not believe he had the nerve to show up!"
"You know she's only here because she thinks she's in the will."
"They could have picked a nicer funeral home."
So I sit quietly swaddled in my ebony armour, face hidden from prying eyes behind a filmy mask, and chuckle softly to myself. Sometimes the laughter is enough to bring tears to my eyes which only authenticates the moment. Funerals are shows for the living. A chance to make us feel better about missed opportunities and our own mortality. People mistake my heaving frame for someone supressing a crying jag because that is what they want to see. They mistake a show for the dead with respect for the living because that is what they have to see. As for me, I have enough laughter in my life.
Two friends of mine have gone beyond the veil in the past couple of weeks. One succumbed to an over-dose a couple of weeks ago. The other died last night in a car accident. I wrote the above for some of my breathing friends to explain why I skipped the first funeral and will not be attending the second. I guess making you folks read it is my way of mourning. Since I hardly feel compelled to pay my last respects personally, I am not seeking condolences. Hug your parents, call that old friend you still hold a grudge against for stealing your magenta crayon in third grade and tell them all is forgiven, let someone you do not see enough of know that you still think of them. The dead do not care but the living will.
m.
Then there is me, head to toe looking as if I were born in mourning. Other mourners murmur gentle words of condolence and bashfully slink away from my obvious bereavement. No one wants to intrude on someone else's sorrow and I grieve beautifully. The prerequisite tissue is clutched between gloved hands. My face obscured under veiled millnery does not belie the occasional heaving of my shoulders or sporadic, muffled hitches of breath. I appear a tenebrous example of weeping Anglo-Saxon grief. Funerals are solemn affairs and I am surreptitiously laughing to myself.
Funerals give me the giggles. No one is the wiser because they are too busy playing their parts. Amateur summer stock performances for a deceased audience. Everyone mills about quietly as if concerned they may disturb the guest of honor. Mortifying contests of who is more touched by the loss. Shining words of praise showered on a cadaver that was not worthy when it had a pulse. The people amble around like aimless billiard balls to gather in little pockets of awkward comfort before moving on. Eyes are guiltily averted from wailing women. Men clutch each other in embraces less masculine then the tears they are attempting to supress. But my favourite part must be the snarky comments from mourners.
"I can not believe he had the nerve to show up!"
"You know she's only here because she thinks she's in the will."
"They could have picked a nicer funeral home."
So I sit quietly swaddled in my ebony armour, face hidden from prying eyes behind a filmy mask, and chuckle softly to myself. Sometimes the laughter is enough to bring tears to my eyes which only authenticates the moment. Funerals are shows for the living. A chance to make us feel better about missed opportunities and our own mortality. People mistake my heaving frame for someone supressing a crying jag because that is what they want to see. They mistake a show for the dead with respect for the living because that is what they have to see. As for me, I have enough laughter in my life.
Two friends of mine have gone beyond the veil in the past couple of weeks. One succumbed to an over-dose a couple of weeks ago. The other died last night in a car accident. I wrote the above for some of my breathing friends to explain why I skipped the first funeral and will not be attending the second. I guess making you folks read it is my way of mourning. Since I hardly feel compelled to pay my last respects personally, I am not seeking condolences. Hug your parents, call that old friend you still hold a grudge against for stealing your magenta crayon in third grade and tell them all is forgiven, let someone you do not see enough of know that you still think of them. The dead do not care but the living will.
m.