by Janet Leigh
~
I remembered the funeral. It was the middle of May in the tiny Baptist church in Mount Pleasant. The entire family was crowded into the small sanctuary, fanning themselves with the program adorned with a picture of a smiling Aunt Elma on the front. She looked happy. For a woman of her age, she was quite spry, and her death was a mystery. My family sat ass to elbows in the church pew listening to Uncle Durr speak of his late sister. He was mopping his brow with a handkerchief and pounding on the podium, ranting on about the unfairness of life. The service was closed casket, which raised my curiosity about my great-aunt’s demise.
Apparently Aint Elma had been up on her roof fixing a leak when she fell off.
“Dad,” I whispered, “how did Aint Elma fall off the roof?”
He looked down at me with glassy eyes and pulled me in close for a hug. “She just lost her grip and tumbled off. If it hadn’t been for her broken arm, she might have lived.”
“She broke her arm in the fall and died?” I asked uncertain.
“No,” Dad answered. “Apparently she was mowing the lawn a week earlier and tripped. She broke her arm, but the weight of the cast she was wearing kept her from grabbing on for support when she fell off the house. She landed on her head and broke her neck.” OK, I thought, this is scary—she was really old. What was an elderly lady doing on top of a house with a broken arm anyway?
My mom leaned in from the other side of me, rattled off a few saints, and made the sign of the cross. “I feel terrible,” she said, full of Catholic guilt. “She called every summer for the kids, especially you, Jennifer, to come stay with her. We always had so much going on, and I wasn’t sure she could take care of you at her age. Now it’s too late.”
My dad reached behind me and squeezed my mother’s shoulder. She rested her free hand on his and reached up to dab her eyes with a Kleenex.
After the funeral services we drove to spread her ashes at the ancient burial grounds of the Indian tribe of her mother, Mahalo Jane.
