So I told the funeral director that. And the funeral director responded using a special voice that I think funeral directors learn in funeral-parlor school.
He said, “Yes. I understand.” And then he went back to the funeral parlor, and he called the Maine State Police.
He said, “I think you should know that your trooper’s widow wants to see and dress and take care of the body herself.”
And the state police freaked out.
So all night long, phone calls were ricocheting back and forth across Maine between the state police command staff and the funeral parlor and Tom, the trooper who had been specifically assigned to manage me.
In the morning Tom arrived, and he said, “Kate, we’re gonna let you do this thing. But you have to take me with you. And we’re going to bring Sergeant Drake and Sergeant Cunningham along as well.”
My mom said, “I’ll go, too.” Good ol’ Mom.
And Tom said, “Because if we don’t like what we see, we’re going to take you out.” And I pictured three troopers all drawing their sidearms and taking aim in the funeral parlor.
I said, “I think it’s gonna be okay.”
Mom was reassuring. She said, “You know, she grew up on a farm. She’s used to dead things.”
I had to fake absolute confidence in this. I didn’t have absolute confidence. Because I’d never done this before. But I faked it. I took my mother by the hand, and she and I, surrounded by troopers, did a weird sort of perp walk up the street to the funeral parlor, where we were welcomed by the funeral director in his “special” voice. And they were all watching me as I walked into this cool room where Drew’s body lay.
And he was dead. But that’s all. He was just dead.
And it was okay. I was okay.
So the troopers and my mother and the funeral director all left. And I had about twenty minutes alone with my husband’s body. Then they all came back, and we got him dressed in his Class-A uniform—his dress uniform.
And it was hard. (I mean, if you’ve ever tried to get someone into a Class-A uniform when they’re not cooperating, you know what I mean.)
But it was fine. Actually, it was better than fine. It was actually kind of great. It was beautiful and sad and funny, and it was okay.
But there are baby game wardens who need a less personal, more biblical example. So I remind them that Mary Magdalene went to see and touch and anoint the body of Jesus, and she didn’t have to overcome the protective skepticism of the disciples to do that. When she got to the tomb and found it empty, she didn’t have to justify her distress at finding the body gone.
Well, nowadays we’re persuaded that it’s the presence of the body, not its absence, that is most distressing. But in my experience—and I have a lot of experience by now—people are far more likely to regret not having seen the body than they are to wish they hadn’t.
So in the warden service, we’re actually training our wardens to be pretty proactive about this. To really try to make space within our operations for the family to be with the body. Give them a moment where all the strangers and officials get out of the way and let them take care of their own.
And let me tell you, the mourners are gorgeous. They’re gorgeous. They are brave and tender. A mother will smooth the hair back from her drowned son’s forehead, and the dad will hold his hand. A spouse will bring a flower and put it on his breast and murmur endearments. They’re beautiful.
But okay. Nina was five. She was five.
And her cousin, her best friend Andy…was four.
Nina—she didn’t grow up on a farm. Maybe there’s a dead goldfish in her background somewhere. But if you’re five, there’s not a lot of background to work with.
Suffer the little children to come unto me. That was this biblical phrase that kept going around in my head. Although, as the wardens and I kept assuring each other, the one good thing you could say about Andy’s death was that he didn’t suffer. He was killed instantly when an all-terrain vehicle driven by a neighbor rolled over on him.
When we had cleared the scene that day, they had taken his body to a funeral parlor, and that was where Nina wanted to go, to visit him.
“We want to protect her,” her dad said.
But her mom kept saying, “I know, but she’s so sure.”
And finally I said, “You know, you’re her parents. You know her. You know what’s right for her much better than I do. But I do believe it would be okay. I believe it would not hurt her more to see him.”
So three days later, I went back up to this little town, because Andy’s family had asked me to preside over the service. I got to the church a little early, and Nina’s mom was there, and she was arranging stuff on the altar table—photographs and Tonka trucks and teddy bears, flowers.
She said, “I have to leave room for the box containing his ashes, but it’s not a very big box.”
I said, “So what did you do about Nina? Did Nina go see Andy?”
“Let me tell you,” Nina’s mom said.
“Got in the car, drove her to the funeral parlor. Soon as we pull in, Nina’s out of the car, striding across the parking lot. We had to scramble to keep up with her.
“She goes in through the front door, past the funeral-parlor guy. And we stopped her at the door of the cool room where Andy’s little body lay.
“We said, ‘Nina, we just want to make sure that you understand that Andy’s not gonna be able to talk to you.’
“ ‘Yup,’ said Nina.
“ ‘Well, and you understand, he’s not gonna move or get up.’
“ ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ”
And she opened the door, and in she went, and she walked right up to the dais where Andy’s body lay, covered by a quilt that his mom had made for him when he was a baby.
She walked right up to him, and she walked all the way around the dais, putting her hands on him to make sure he was all there. Then she put her head down on his chest and talked to him.
After about ten minutes of this, her parents were awash in tears, and they’d kind of had enough, so they said, “Nina, you ready to go?”
“No. I’ll tell you when I am.”
So she sang him a song, and she put his Fisher-Price plastic telescope in his hand, so that he could see anyone he wanted to see from heaven. And then she was okay, and she was done.
She said, “But he’s not gonna be getting up again, so I have to tuck him in.”
So she walked all the way around the dais again, tucking in the quilt.
And then she put her hand on him and said, “I love you, Andy Dandy. Good-bye.”
You can trust a human being with grief. That’s what I tell the wardens.
I tell them, “Just walk fearlessly into the house of mourning, for grief is just love squaring up to its oldest enemy. And after all these mortal human years, love is up to the challenge.”
But I don’t have to fake confidence in this anymore, because I have Nina. And now, with the gracious permission of Nina’s family, so do you.
The daughter of a foreign correspondent, KATE BRAESTRUP spent her childhood in Algiers, New York City, Paris, Bangkok, Washington, DC, and Sabillasville, Maryland. Educated at the Parsons School of Design, the New School, and Georgetown University, Kate published a novel, Onion, in 1990. She entered the Bangor Theological Seminary in 1997 and was ordained in 2004. Since 2001 she has served as chaplain to the Maine Warden Service. Braestrup is married to artist Simon van der Ven and between them they have a total of six children. Kate is also the bestselling author of Here If You Need Me, Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, Beginner’s Grace, and Anchor & Flares.
This story was told on May 30, 2015, at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine. The theme of the evening was Into the Wild: Stories of Strange Lands. Director: Catherine Burns.
I was born a few years after World War II, and lived with my parents in a nice house in a suburb southeast of London—Bromley, in Kent. My parents got married after the war simply because that�
�s what everybody did. The government gave a generous allowance for children; we used to get free milk and great lunches at school.
Both my parents worked: my father was a long-distance lorry driver that delivered meat, and my mother was an assistant at a dress shop in Beckenham. I don’t think my parents expected too much from me. I think they thought I would, you know, leave school, grow up, get a job, possibly get married, and live ’round the corner.
Well, the Swinging Sixties in London changed all of that. It was a great time to be a teenager in London. We had the best music—the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; we had the best fashion—the miniskirt—and we had the pill.
The model of the day was Twiggy. She was a tall, slim thing with a flat chest and flat hair. I was challenged. I mean I was completely out of style. I had this thick, frizzy hair I couldn’t do anything with, and even thicker glasses, and a waist and hips. I wasn’t good at school, I didn’t like school, and by the time I was fifteen, I’d had enough.
So I left school and enrolled in the Evelyn Paget College of Hair and Beauty in Bromley. I wouldn’t say that hairdressing was my dream job, but with my education it was my best option, and as it turns out I was quite good at it. So at the end of my course, I was transferred to the flagship salon, Evelyn Paget’s in Beckenham.
It was here I met Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones was my quarter-to-three shampoo and set on a Thursday afternoon. Once in a while, she’d have a trim, and every now and again a chocolate-kiss rinse. As I’m doing her hair she would talk to me about her son, David.
She would say, “He was such an artistic child,” and “He’s a singer in a band.”
And she was so proud of him, you know? I would nod and smile and listen, as you do, and it wasn’t until she mentioned “Space Oddity” that my ears kind of pricked up.
I said, “ ‘Space Oddity’?”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “Well I’ve heard that song on the radio.” It was a hit.
I said, “Are we talking about David Bowie?”
“Yes,” she said, “I’m his mum.”
Well, I was surprised about that. There was a buzz about David in Beckenham. He played the local pub, the Three Tuns—albeit folk music—but he’d had the hit “Space Oddity.” It had been a while ago, so I thought he might have been a one-hit wonder.
The first time I actually saw David, he’s walking down Beckenham High Street in a dress, and he’s with this girl who had these skinny black pants on. I met the girl—Mrs. Jones brought her into the salon. It turned out it was Angie, David’s wife.
Well, I liked her immediately. She was so cool and confident, and she looked so great—she certainly didn’t shop in Beckenham. She talked to me a little bit about her life. She did lights for David’s shows, and they would hang out all night in London at the clubs and just have the best time.
It all sounded so glamorous.
The next time I saw her, she was coming in for an appointment. It was Christmas week. Well, every self-respecting salon is full Christmas week.
I took her to one side, and said, “I can’t do your hair here, but here’s my telephone number, give me a call. I’ll come to your house.”
Off I went to Haddon Hall. It was about a mile out of town, one of those huge mansions. It was divided into flats. David and Angie had the middle floor.
It wasn’t the sheer size of the place that was overwhelming, it was the way it was decorated: a midnight blue carpet, midnight blue walls, and a silver ceiling. There wasn’t much furniture: a couch; a couple of chairs; a long, low coffee table; tons of album covers all over the place; and a guitar in the corner.
David and Angie were sitting in the middle of a bay window discussing the merits of cutting his hair short—he had this long, blond, wavy hair at the time. They asked me my opinion.
I said, “Well, no one’s got short hair”—because nobody did. “You would be the first.”
He stood up and walked over and showed me this photograph in a magazine. It was of a Kansai Yamamoto model with short, red, spiky hair.
He said to me, “Can you do that?”
As I’m saying yes, I’m thinking to myself, That’s a little weird. It’s a woman’s hairstyle, and how am I going to actually do this?
Inside, however, I’m excited—this is a chance to be very creative. He was rock-star thin, white skin, a long neck, a great face—if I could pull it off, it would look fantastic!
Well, it took me about a half an hour to cut, and when I finished, his hair didn’t stand up. It kind of flopped.
I looked at David, and he’s panicking, and I’m not feeling too bright, and I said to him, “Listen, David, the second we tint your hair, the color will change the texture and it will stand up.”
I prayed I was right.
I found the color, Schwarzkopf “Red Hot Red” with 30 volume peroxide to give it a bit of lift. There was no product in those days, nothing to help me make it stand up. So I used GARD. GARD was an anti-dandruff treatment that I used to use on the old girls at the salon—it set hair like stone.
The second David saw himself in the mirror with that short, red, spiky hair, all doubts disappeared. Angie and I looked at him in awe, he looked so good.
A huge wave of relief washed over me: I’d done it, you know, I’d done it! I hadn’t known it was going to work until I felt that texture changing in my hands as I was drying it, and it stood up.
He looked amazing.
I started gathering my things together to leave, and Angie said, “Oh, how much do we owe you?”
I think I said, “Two pounds, please.”
I left, and a week or so later Angie called me and said, “You know, the band are playing in London, why don’t you come and see them?”
I said, “Well, I’d love to.”
It was at a college, so I went there, and I’m still not quite sure what to expect, you know? I walked in, and the place is sold out—it’s completely full—and I stood in the audience, and the lights went down, and some music came on, and it was a real Oh, my God moment for me.
When the band came on the stage, David was in full makeup—his red hair blazing in the lights. He’d turned himself into Ziggy Stardust. The band were all in costumes that looked like curtain material: flat pastel velvet tucked into lace-up boots. They looked incredible. And when they played, the place rocked, it was so good—so unbelievably good.
I went home thinking to myself, Oh, my God, that wasn’t folk music! I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t that.
Well, Angie called the next day and said, “Did you like it, and will you come up to Haddon Hall again?” And off I went.
I met Freddie Burretti. Freddie Burretti was a friend of David and helped design the costumes. He was so fabulous. He minced, and lisped, and was just gorgeous. I was fascinated with Freddie. I’d never met a gay man before. Sometime during that evening, David leaned over and kissed Freddie full on the lips. I didn’t know which way to look, you know?
I looked at Angie, and she’s laughing, and suddenly I felt completely out of my depth. I wasn’t like these people. I didn’t know who Nietzsche was. I’d never heard of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground or Andy Warhol. I’d certainly never seen two guys kissing before. I was from Beckenham!
Later that evening, Angie takes me to one side and she says, “You know, David and I have been speaking, and we’d like you to come and work for us full-time. Come on the road. Go up to the MainMan offices, and sort out your wages, and come and work with us.”
Off I went to the MainMan offices, heart in hand. I met David’s manager, Tony Defries, and by the end of the afternoon I’d got the job.
It’s not till I’m driving home, I’m realizing, My life’s going to really change. I’m going on the road with a rock and roll band! I was so excited.
I went down to Evelyn Paget’s the next day to give in my notice to my boss, and he looked at me and said, “You know, Suzanne, you should think twice before giving up a well-payi
ng, secure job.”
I said, “Yeah, I have.”
Of course, after that my confidence knew no bounds. I took the drummer and turned him into a blond Ziggy, and chopped Trevor’s hair off and made it spiky on top with silver sideburns. The only holdout was Mick Ronson, the guitar player—he didn’t want to look like David.
I started doing shows with them. We did Top of the Pops—David played “Starman,” and when he draped his arm around Mick Ronson during the chorus, I think it shook Britain to its core. Nobody did stuff like that in those days, they just didn’t. (It certainly shook my parents.)
David was always thinking of the next thing to do, he was always very ambitious, and he wanted to do rock and roll theater. So we hired a theater in London, in Finsbury Park, and he built a set—scaffolding and dry ice and lights—and it was amazing.
We were all working eighteen hours a day to put this show together, and he was saying, “Don’t talk to anybody, don’t tell anybody what it’s about, no recording equipment, no cameras.”
Of course, the more you make of these things, the more interesting it becomes, and we opened to a fanfare of press. All the celebs came.
Kids were coming with Ziggy haircuts at that point, and it was a great show. I think the only person that didn’t like it was Elton John. He walked out halfway through, saying, “This isn’t rock and roll.”
But it was rock and roll, because we were then running up and down England in buses, and shows were being added, the gigs were getting bigger, and everything was selling out. And I was with David and the boys all the time during this period, doing everybody’s hair, looking after the costumes, doing the dry cleaning, making sure everything was right.
There were many costume changes, so David would come to the side of the wings, and I would be standing there with a glass of red wine, a Gitane cigarette, and while Mick is wailing ten feet from me, I’m changing David’s clothes. We got quite good at it.
The Moth Presents All These Wonders Page 4
