Turning Out the Lights

Stacy and I have crossed that boundary in life where the funerals start outpacing the weddings. Yesterday we joined the family as Bunny Harris, Stacy's grandmother, was laid to rest, our third funeral in as many months. Previously funerals were rare and unnatural. Lately they are becoming commonplace. I don't know if they get easier with frequency; this one didn't seem much easier. And I don't hope for more opportunities to test the theory.

The day was fine enough. Perhaps too much so. It's hard to be somber on a sunny day. Bunny had loved Hawaii, so tropical flowers and Hawaiian T-shirts were prominent. L and N were stationed at the entrance way to the alcove of the cemetery and given 60 colorful leis to hand out to people as they came in. This delighted the kids but troubled me. I was prepared to be sad, for some measure of grief, and I actually felt I needed it. The cheerful color was disconcerting. Stacy too seemed unable to get her emotional feet planted right. As we took our seats she sat beside me and seemed confused and dazed. The kids sat off with Aunt Claudia who, I suspect, used them as her own emotional distraction.

Pastor Greg Bero officiated the service as he had Lefty's just a few short weeks earlier in precisely the same spot. He read aloud a bio of Bunny that Stacy had pulled together from family and from her own recollected stories. Bunny and Lefty had had a classical American romance. Boy meets girl. Boy chases girl. Boy eventually gets girl after a suitable amount of playful teasing. Boy goes off to war before the good parts, but comes home safe and makes good. The 40's and 50's were played out for us there briefly. There was one story famous in the family: Lefty was smitten by Bunny from the start, but Bunny was already dating someone else. So Lefty managed to ingratiate himself with Bunny's mom, Lavine. He would come over and spend the afternoon talking with her, always just being "around". When Bunny would be out on a date, he would sit up with Lavine in her living-room until Bunny and her date would come home. Lefty, it was said, would turn off the porch light as soon Bunny would walk up so the hapless boyfriend wouldn't be inclined to linger on the front step. It's always hard to know how much is fact and how much is retrograde wishful thinking. I chose to believe it. It made me both happy and sad, and that's kind of where I wanted to be.

After the eulogy Pastor Greg opened the floor for people to share anything they wanted to about Bunny. Takers were sparse as they were at Lefty's funeral. Kirk, Stacy's Dad, did get up and spoke a while, bringing up another favorite family controversy. Kirk is convinced that Lavine, Bunny's mother, had Cherokee blood. The concentration seems to grow with each telling. Other cousins laugh and poo-poo the idea, saying it would be just like Lavine to have made it up for cocktail party conversation. Someone in the family actually told me once that she got the idea when someone in a bar told her she looked Indian. From other stories I've heard of "Nanna", it would seem plausible. I wish I'd met Lavine. I'm not sure we'd have gotten along, but I'm sure she would have been fascinatingly entertaining.

G, demonstrating the traditional Harris Indian headdress.

We didn't linger long at the graveside after the service. Stacy wasn't feeling well and she wanted to get to the reception quickly before her energy failed her. On the way back to the car I walked the kids by the giant replica of Michelangelo's David that stands a hundred yards or so from where Bunny and Lefty are buried. The statue is scandalous to L and N, therefore they insist on going by and clucking loudly about it. L is exasperated at the statue's acute lack of modesty and resolutely avoids looking at it. N agrees, but on the contrary can't stop commenting on it. "Daddy," he said to me out of the side of his mouth in almost a vaudevillian stage whisper, "those two round things under his penis..." (he really whispered that word!) "They look like another bottom."

 

We retreated to the Harris compound on Buena Vista Street. There were sandwiches and drinks, and there were other kids for L and N to engross themselves in. Stacy and I sat down and rested a bit before the bulk of the folks arrived. I remembered thinking at the reception after Lefty's funeral that there wouldn't be many more family gatherings at this good old place. Now I wondered if there will be any more.

As more people arrived Stacy brought her adrenaline to bear and talked and smiled and had a reluctant good time. I was feeling tired, grumpy, and a little unsociable, so I walked out to the front yard. N evidently had the same mindset - he had abandoned the myriad of cousins in the backyard and was out by himself at the lamppost that stands in the front-yard, playing ring-around-the-rosy with it, looking for all the world like a Mr Tumnus welcoming me to an off-kilter Narnia. N is at that age where emotion hits hard and quick like a summer storm, but then leaves again just as quickly. He was merry guarding his light-post; I smiled at him and he beamed one back and I left him to his post.

I wandered a bit, enjoying the privacy and N's happy song. Lefty's roses were all blooming near the entrance and I stopped to admire them. He has some of those old English roses with the blooms as huge as teacups. They are heavy and dense and substantial. As I looked I noticed that most of them were past their prime, which I found odd for mid-April. They were large and full but they had opened up to to show the heart and there were traces of rust and wilt on the edges. I was reminded of the old Dutch Reformed painters of a few centuries ago; they would paint such incredibly beautiful and detailed still-lifes. Microscopically precise flower bouquets and cisterns of all kinds of fruits and meats and breads. But they always included something amiss. One flower would be withered; a mouse would be seen almost out-of- sight, nibbling on the bread; a stark and staring skull would be skillful hidden somewhere within the collection. The Dutch Reformed painters loved the Creation and celebrated it brilliantly, but always insisted on being true to it, for while there is much to show of beauty and wonder, there is always tragedy and decay in its midst. Memento mori. I looked on the roses and I smelled one. At first I smelled nothing - after all it was late in the day. But then very quietly a faint but rich fragrance was yielded up. It would likely have been unnoticeable if you weren't looking for it. But it was there, the hints of a rich and stately perfume.

I continued to walk through the yard as the light started to turn golden and filter through the trees. The noise of the cars that occasionally raced up or down Buena Vista Street were somehow muted by it. N continued to play at his lamppost. I noticed the lamppost was off. No need to turn it on tonight, I thought. Bunny's already home.