by Tammy L. Breitweiser
The fancy folding chairs are arranged in soldier rows facing the front. A movie theater of grief; only one showing. All sounds are muffled like there are bunnies lining the walls. Low music plays distinctive to a funeral home. You never hear it anywhere else. To describe it becomes impossible and lives in the same fog as the numbness of death. The sickening sweet smell of lilies I hate fills the space. The call came from 300 miles away. I drove up right away. It wasn’t real until I demanded to see her. Now she is properly prepared and sleeping. It is not helping because she lays in front of me. Her husband is greeting people he hasn’t seen in years, talking about a woman he didn’t like. An obit will cause a swarm. People lie and buzz about her in the corners of the room. The truth is she was a stubborn hard German woman who would tell you shit you didn’t want to hear with the justification phrase, “I’m just being honest.” Her half-German and half-English dialect made people angry and frustrated. I never understood why no one could understand her until my high school German class when all the words sounding perfect to my ears were decoded. My brother and I sit in the back row of chairs watching. My “aunts” walk in but haven’t talked to her over truth vomit. Her dementia made conversation difficult. Frances was the only one listened to nonsense and took random receipts given to her with glow of jewels mined from a faraway place no one had heard of. That was the day before she died. Uncle Southern Illinois blows in with exclamation points. He speaks in uneducated southern boy. My grandfather slips into the same accent by proximity. My brother and I start to laugh. Uncle has no whisper. His stories are loud and he talks about raccoons and shacks and shooting shit and they laugh and upstage the casket. My brother and I join in from back edge view. The more we try to bottle, the more our bodies make earthquakes in our chairs. Then we are crying and I can’t believe she is gone. My face feels tight like it is trying to hold its breath to stop the tears but they come hot and spilling out of my eyes. I can feel the pulse in my temples and I use my shoulder to swipe the tears on the left cheek away and my right hand to wipe away the right. My ears are plugged and people notice. Get the fuck away from me. You weren’t here the last couple years I sure as hell don’t want you now. The closing of the casket whispers goodbye to my heart never to bounce back.
Tammy Breitweiser is a writer and teacher who is a force of nature and woman of honor; seer of nuance; accidental inspirationalist; keeper of the little red doors, and conjurer of everyday magic who is busy writing short stories. You can connect with Tammy through Twitter @TLBREIT or through her blog https://tammysreadinglife.wordpress.com/.
(Don’t miss Tammy’s interview in StoryADay, or her flash fiction story Ironic Honeymoon. – Elephants Never)