by Thomas Lynch
And though I know his body is buried there, something of Russ remains among us now. Whenever I see hot-air balloons—fat flaming birds adrift in the evening air—I sense his legendary excesses raining down on us, old friends and family—his blessed and elect—who duck our heads or raise our faces to the sky and laugh or catch our breath or cry.
In even the best of caskets, it never all fits—all that we’d like to bury in them: the hurt and forgiveness, the anger and pain, the praise and thanksgiving, the emptiness and exaltations, the untidy feelings when someone dies. So I conduct this business very carefully because, in the years since I’ve been here, when someone dies, they never call Jessica or the News Hound.
They call me.
Tract
Share with us—it will be money in your pockets. Go now I think you are ready.
—WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, “TRACT”
I’d rather it be February. Not that it will matter much to me. Not that I’m a stickler for details. But since you’re asking—February. The month I first became a father, the month my father died. Yes. Better even than November.
I want it cold. I want the gray to inhabit the air like wood does trees: as an essence not a coincidence. And the hope for springtime, gardens, romance, dulled to a stump by the winter in Michigan.
Yes, February. With the cold behind and the cold before you and the darkness stubborn at the edges of the day. And a wind to make the cold more bitter. So that ever after it might be said, “It was a sad old day we did it after all.”
And a good frosthold on the ground so that, for nights before it is dug, the sexton will have had to go up and put a fire down, under the hood that fits the space, to soften the topsoil for the backhoe’s toothy bucket.
Wake me. Let those who want to come and look. They have their reasons. You’ll have yours. And if someone says, “Doesn’t he look natural!” take no offense. They’ve got it right. For this was always in my nature. It’s in yours.
And have the clergy take their part in it. Let them take their best shot. If they’re ever going to make sense to you, now’s the time. They’re looking, same as the rest of us. The questions are more instructive than the answers. Be wary of anyone who knows what to say.
As for music, suit yourselves. I’ll be out of earshot, stone deaf. A lot can be said for pipers and tinwhistlers. But consider the difference between a funeral with a few tunes and a concert with a corpse down front. Avoid, for your own sakes, anything you’ve heard in the dentist’s office or the roller rink.
Poems might be said. I’ve had friends who were poets. Mind you, they tend to go on a bit. Especially around horizontal bodies. Sex and death are their principal studies. It is here where the services of an experienced undertaker are most appreciated. Accustomed to being personae non grata, they’ll act the worthy editor and tell the bards when it’s time to put a sock in it.
On the subject of money: you get what you pay for. Deal with someone whose instincts you trust. If anyone tells you you haven’t spent enough, tell them to go piss up a rope. Tell the same thing to anyone who says you spent too much. Tell them to go piss up a rope. It’s your money. Do what you want with it. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. You know the type who’s always saying “When I’m dead, save your money, spend it on something really useful, do me cheaply”? I’m not one of them. Never was. I’ve always thought that funerals were useful. So do what suits you. It is yours to do. You’re entitled to wholesale on most of it.
As for guilt—it’s much overrated. Here are the facts in the case at hand: I’ve known the love of the ones who have loved me. And I’ve known that they’ve known that I’ve loved them, too. Everything else, in the end, seems irrelevant. But if guilt is the thing, forgive yourself, forgive me. And if a little upgrade in the pomp and circumstance makes you feel better, consider it money wisely spent. Compared to shrinks and pharmaceuticals, bartenders or homeopaths, geographical or ecclesiastical cures, even the priciest funeral is a bargain.
I want a mess made in the snow so that the earth looks wounded, forced open, an unwilling participant. Forego the tent. Stand openly to the weather. Get the larger equipment out of sight. It’s a distraction. But have the sexton, all dirt and indifference, remain at hand. He and the hearse driver can talk of poker or trade jokes in whispers and straight-face while the clergy tender final commendations. Those who lean on shovels and fill holes, like those who lean on custom and old prayers, are, each of them, experts in the one field.
And you should see it till the very end. Avoid the temptation of tidy leavetaking in a room, a cemetery chapel, at the foot of the altar. None of that. Don’t dodge it because of the weather. We’ve fished and watched football in worse conditions. It won’t take long. Go to the hole in the ground. Stand over it. Look into it. Wonder. And be cold. But stay until it’s over. Until it is done.
On the subject of pallbearers—my darling sons, my fierce daughter, my grandsons and granddaughters, if I’ve any. The larger muscles should be involved. The ones we use for the real burdens. If men and their muscles are better at lifting, women and theirs are better at bearing. This is a job for which both may be needed. So work together. It will lighten the load.
Look to my beloved for the best example. She has a mighty heart, a rich internal life, and powerful medicines.
After the words are finished, lower it. Leave the ropes. Toss the gray gloves in on top. Push the dirt in and be done. Watch each other’s ankles, stamp your feet in the cold, let your heads sink between your shoulders, keep looking down. That’s where what is happening is happening. And when you’re done, look up and leave. But not until you’re done.
So, if you opt for burning, stand and watch. If you cannot watch it, perhaps you should reconsider. Stand in earshot of the sizzle and the pop. Try to get a whiff of the goings on. Warm your hands to the fire. This might be a good time for a song. Bury the ashes, cinders, and bones. The bits of the box that did not burn.
Put them in something.
Mark the spot.
Feed the hungry. It’s good form. Feed them well. This business works up an appetite, like going to the seaside, walking the cliff road. After that, be sober.
This is none of my business. I won’t be there. But if you’re asking, here is free advice. You know the part where everybody is always saying that you should have a party now? How the dead guy always insisted he wanted everyone to have a good time and toss a few back and laugh and be happy? I’m not one of them. I think the old teacher is right about this one. There is a time to dance. And it just may be this isn’t one of them. The dead can’t tell the living what to feel.
They used to have this year of mourning. Folks wore armbands, black clothes, played no music in the house. Black wreathes were hung at the front doors. The damaged were identified. For a full year you were allowed your grief—the dreams and sleeplessness, the sadness, the rage. The weeping and giggling in all the wrong places. The catch in your breath at the sound of the name. After a year, you would be back to normal. “Time heals” is what was said to explain this. If not, of course, you were pronounced some version of “crazy” and in need of some professional help.
Whatever’s there to feel, feel it—the riddance, the relief, the fright and freedom, the fear of forgetting, the dull ache of your own mortality. Go home in pairs. Warm to the flesh that warms you still. Get with someone you can trust with tears, with anger, and wonderment and utter silence. Get that part done—the sooner the better. The only way around these things is through them.
I know I shouldn’t be going on like this.
I’ve had this problem all my life. Directing funerals.
It’s yours to do—my funeral—not mine. The death is yours to live with once I’m dead.
So here is a coupon good for Disregard. And here is another marked My Approval. Ignore, with my blessings, whatever I’ve said beyond Love One Another.
Live Forever.
All I really wanted was a witness. To say I was.
To say, daft as it still sounds, maybe I am.
To say, if they ask you, it was a sad day after all. It was a cold, gray day.
February.
Of course, any other month you’re on your own. Have no fear—you’ll know what to do. Go now, I think you are ready.
Notes on Frontispieces
Page 1: Black and white photograph of Moyarta Cemetery near Carrigaholt, County Clare.
Page 15: Black and white photograph of Rosemary and Edward Lynch on the beach in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, 1963.
Page 27: Detail of street map, Galway City.
Page 43: “St. Stephen.” Illustration from Lives of the Saints for Every Day of the Year, Rev. Hugo Hoever, S.O.Cist., Ph.D., editor, 1955. Catholic Book Publishing Co., New York.
Page 59: “Artichoke.” Black and white photograph by Patrick Young.
Page 75: Black and white photo of page from Kelco Supply Catalogue featuring a cultured walnut golf bag cremation urn with smaller “keepsake” golf bag on its own fairway. Courtesy of Kelco Supply Company.
Page 101: Black and white photograph of Oak Grove Cemetery, Milford, Michigan. Photo courtesy of Patrick Young.
Page 123: Black and white photograph of pedestrian directional sign to “Hospitals” outside of Number 11 Dombey Street, London. Photo courtesy of Nico Sweeney.
Page 137: “Recumbent Woman.” Charcoal and tempera on paper, 1996. Sean Lynch.
Page 149: Black and white photograph of left hand of suicide machine user from files of Oakland County Medical Examiner’s office.
Page 177: “Details from the Casket Trade.” Black and white photograph by M. E. Lynch.
Page 193: Black and white photograph of curbside stone from Lynch Vault in Moyarta Cemetery, Carrigaholt, County Clare.
Thomas Lynch is an essayist, poet, and funeral director of Lynch & Sons funeral home in Milford, Michigan. His most recent book is Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans. Other recent books include Still Life in Milford and Bodies in Motion and at Rest. He published his first volume of poetry, Skating with Heather Grace, in 1987. Following this unique collection of poems, in 1994 he published his next volume of poetry, Grimalkin & Other Poems. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and elsewhere. He divides his time between West Clare, Ireland, and Milford, Michigan, where he has been a funeral director for more than thirty-five years. www.thomaslynch.com
The Emmy Award-winning PBS Frontline documentary The Undertaking is based on this book.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/undertaking
Copyright © 1997 by Thomas Lynch
Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint: Lines from “Old Life,” by Donald Hall. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. “Notes from the Other Side” copyright 1996 by Jane Kenyon. Reprinted from Otherwise New & Selected Poems with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. William Carlos Williams: Collected Poems: 1909-1939, Volume 1 © copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First published as a Norton paperback 2009
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Manufacturing by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
Book design by Judith Stagnitto Abbate
Production manager: Devon Zahn
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lynch, Thomas. 1948—
The undertaking : life studies from the dismal trade / Thomas Lynch p. cm.
ISBN 0-393-04112-3
1. Death. 2. Grief. 3. Lynch, Thomas, 1948-. I. Title.
BD444.L96 1997
814′.54—dc21 96-40900
CIP
ISBN 978-0-393-33487-6 pbk.
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W.W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
More praise for The Undertaking
Also by Thomas Lynch
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Preface
The Undertaking
Gladstone
Crapper
The Right Hand of the Father
Words Made Flesh
The Golfatorium
Mary & Wilbur
Sweeney
All Hallows' Eve
Uncle Eddie, Inc.
Jessica, the Hound and the Casket Trade
Tract
Notes on Frontispieces
About the Author
Copyright
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
More praise for The Undertaking
Also by Thomas Lynch
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Preface
The Undertaking
Gladstone
Crapper
The Right Hand of the Father
Words Made Flesh
The Golfatorium
Mary & Wilbur
Sweeney
All Hallows' Eve
Uncle Eddie, Inc.
Jessica, the Hound and the Casket Trade
Tract
Notes on Frontispieces
About the Author
Copyright
