November 22, 2019

I can still remember clutching onto my mother’s pair of shoes and her clothes, a shade between eggplant and fuscia, with sequins, or adornments of the sort. I can’t recall. Kathy, the funeral directors assistant was telling me “she looks good” while leading me to their embalming room. (My mother wasn’t embalmed, that’s just where they thought it best for me to dress her.) For a full second, my brain allowed me to believe she had been resurrected, or that her being dead was a nightmare and in Kathy’s telling she “looked good” meant she was alive and well, but I didn’t wake up then. My aunt Valerie, her sister, saw the instant, fleeting look of shock and confusion and reassured me by saying “she means her body isn’t too bloated.” I snapped out of it and held my head a little higher, and dropped my shoulders back. The director opened the door. I caught a glimpse of my mother’s bald head. Valerie looked behind me, and asked if I was sure with her eyes. I nodded. We walked in. The director, and Kathy, immediately shut the door behind us. Years later I will come to question exactly why they trusted me to do something like this, and eventually understood that if she had rolled off the table, or I had broken her fragile bones, or if I had lost my stoicism and started screaming for her to come back, no one would have to live with that but me, and Valerie. We started with her feet. (My mother was always taking pictures of her feet when she was in the hospital, or bedridden, and posting it on Facebook. I don’t know why.) As we pulled the sheet back, we noticed her toes painted black and orange, from Halloween. She was wearing a onesie with cupcakes all over it. We decided to leave it on, because she was so cold. I noticed that the gurney was moving, and this would be impossible to do unless we locked it. I mentioned it to Val, and she got on her hands and knees under a table that’s been used god knows how many times to prepare the dead, and she locked the wheels. She was saying “Jesus fucking Christ” among other curses, which made me laugh. I wonder if we were being listened to from the other side of the door. We cut the dress in the back, and she lifted my mother up and held her freezing body close as I put the dress on. I said “Oh Valerie”, and she kissed my mom goodbye and said she was sorry. Then, she put on her shoes, while I lifted up her head, and slipped on a cap. I will never forget what that felt like in my hands. I can’t describe that. I will also never forget the smell, or her long black chin hairs, her cheeks, her hands, her dry, cold lips as I put on her red lipstick. If you’ve ever cut chicken after it’s gone bad, that’s what it felt like on my fingers. My aunt asked me if I wanted a minute alone. I said “maybe just thirty seconds.” She left the room for what seemed like five seconds, but I’m sure she was staring at the clock outside the door. In that thirty seconds I silently thanked my mom for giving me life, and wondered if she was in there, and how horrible it would be to wait twelve days in a fridge if she was. I gave my mother a hug, and then her rigor broke. I left the room, and the funeral director, and Kathy, went in, and put her in the coffin. Val heard the goings on- and opened the door. I followed. I wanted my mother’s hands to be placed back over her heart like they were when she died, but they didn’t stay anymore. Kathy pointed to her ring finger. I shook my head. I left her ring on, and turned it so the gem was in her palm. She preferred to wear it that way. It was always turned it up when I was a little girl, when we held hands at the movies. I said thank you, we left, and my mother went back in the fridge to wait for family to arrive for her burial. Valerie and I went out for chicken pot pie, and drinks. We didn’t have much of an appetite because we couldn’t get the smell of corpse out of our noses, but the pie was good anyway. My finger was still stained with red lipstick. I got drunk. After that, we went to the grocery store and got some Kahlua, and then drove back to where my grandfather was waiting, turning pages of books. My grandfather is not an affectionate man, but when I barged into the door, he stood up, so I went straight to him and hugged him for a couple of minutes. He cleared his throat and said “long day.” The day wasn’t over. My sister and her family had arrived and was at the house where our mom died. We drove there. I barged into there too and went straight to my niece, Malia. I was glad to see her, but soon after, the alcohol caught up to me. In moments, I sat on the floor, in a corner, in the dark, with my hair over my face, clutching my knees and rocking myself away from all of the people. They left, and the next thing I remember is my aunt Valerie holding me up in the bathroom, much like my mother’s limp body, while I screamed “that’s my mom” and cried the hardest I’ve ever cried in my life. It hurt. I drove my aunt back home, and I don’t remember what she was mad about, but she slammed the door shut and said something mean when I dropped her off. It didn’t matter, at all, we were bonded and dealing with each other’s emotions. I drove home, and my second cousin followed me to make sure I made it. He was doing my dishes when I finally got there. I told him thank you, but I needed him to leave. I think I just fell asleep alone that night. The next day was the afternoon we buried Felicia. I told my sister the night before that I had just come back from the funeral home dressing and inspecting our mother, so she could say goodbye. She didn’t want to (& I don’t blame her( if mom wasn’t embalmed, but I assured her “she looked good.” I was hungover the day we buried our mom. I drove to meet them back at the funeral home with a blanket apparently mom wanted to be buried in. She was in the viewing room this time, much nicer, and I tossed the blanket over her and kissed her forehead like seeing her dead was normal. My sister and I followed the hearse to the cemetery but I kept driving and tricked her into thinking for a second we weren’t going to the burial. Sibling humor. We both thought it was hilarious. It was cold, but I thought not as cold as moms body, so, it was all perspective at that point. I laid out a barn coat next to her coffin and sat down with my niece in my lap. She asked where Misha was going, and I said “a really far place from here.” She was lowered, and buried with what seemed like too many large rocks. It made a very loud noise. All I could think of was how fast she would decompose. I left before they finished burying her. We all met up at Peppers to eat after. I got French fries. I think I went home, and got my daughter back from whoever was watching her the last two days. I probably pretended everything was fine. She could tell it was not fine, and for years after would get angry if I cried. A few days had gone by, so I bought some hot pink roses and decided to bring my daughter to my mother’s grave, and tell her. She was only two at the time. She’s been there many times now, and likes to place piles of dandelions on her grave. We wave goodbye. She says she remembers that Halloween, the last time we saw her. I do, too.