by Todd Harra
“My husband died,” the old woman said.
“Oh, my. I am sorry,” Howdy Doody said. He didn’t sound sorry.
Pick me! Pick me! I silently willed him.
“Heather will help you take care of everything,” he said and made a motion with his head as if to dismiss me.
Needing no further urging, I nearly ran out of the meeting. As I turned the corner I heard Howdy Doody pick up his monologue where he left off.
I led the frail old woman, whose name I learned was Mrs. Brewer, to the arrangement conference room and poured her a glass of water to drink while I went and gathered my papers. “Okay, Mrs. Brewer,” I said when I returned, “when did your husband die?”
“Last night.”
I wrote down the previous day’s date on my paper. “Which hospital did he die at?” I assumed it was a hospital because a nursing home surely would have called us to come take his remains as soon as he passed.
“He died at home,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Home?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Last night?”
“Yes,” she sounded slightly annoyed at being questioned, but looked so meek and mild sitting across the vast conference table from me. Her withered hands were folded neatly on the polished surface.
“Mrs. Brewer?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Why didn’t you call us to come pick your husband up last night?” I asked slowly, trying not to sound patronizing.
“Oh, dear,” she said and waved a hand at me, “it was far too late, nearly half past eight. You wouldn’t have been open; it was too late.”
“We never close—” I stopped and collected my thoughts. “You can always call us. Anytime. Day or night. We’re a funeral home. That’s what we do.”
“Well, it was no matter, Heather, dear. I got to sleep next to him one last time. The only thing was that I had to vacuum the ants off of him this morning. I didn’t want them on him when you all arrived.” She smiled at me.
I shivered.
“Okay, well,” I stalled, “why don’t we go on over to your house now and get Mr. Brewer. I’ll follow you.”
“Oh, no, dear,” she laughed. “I don’t drive. I walked to town this morning and took the bus in.”
“Where is the nearest bus station?” I asked. I had never seen buses anywhere near the funeral home.
“About two miles from here.”
“Two miles!” I nearly shouted.
She laughed again. “That’s nothing. When I was a little girl I used to walk over five miles to school—”
I gently cut her off. “Mrs. Brewer. Why don’t we ride on over now and get Mr. Brewer. I’ll make arrangements at your house and my colleagues can bring Mr. Brewer back here.”
She frowned. “I don’t see what all the hurry is about.”
I thought quickly. “I am just thinking of the ants. Keep him safe from those ants.”
She smiled. She liked that idea. “Okay. Let’s do it. Can I ride with you or do I have to take the bus back?”
I laughed. “You can ride with me. Hang tight here and I’ll be right back.”
I went and got one of my colleagues from the never-ending meeting and, in hushed tones, told him about the current situation. He nearly yelled, “What?” down the hallway after I told him about Mr. Brewer, Mrs. Brewer, the bus, and the ants.
I called the Medical Examiner’s office and asked them what they wanted to do. The deputy examiner told me she’d call me back.
We drove over to the Brewer house in two vehicles (fuel efficiency be damned, Howdy Doody). On the way over I received a call from the deputy examiner; she had sent a paramedic over so the death could be pronounced. She had talked to Mr. Brewer’s doctor’s office and his death wasn’t unexpected. He was eighty-one, after all.
The Brewer house turned out to be a small cabin on the river, about three miles from the closest town. We had to wait a few minutes for the paramedic to show up and hook Mr. Brewer up to a wireless EKG machine so a physician at the closest hospital could pronounce his death. My co-worker and I performed the removal and then I sent Mr. Brewer off with my colleague while I stayed to make arrangements with Mrs. Brewer.
It was unseasonably clear and sunny for this part of Oregon. Mrs. Brewer invited me out to sit on their deck that overlooked the river and offered me a drink. I declined. She brought out a large glass pitcher of iced tea anyway. Real brewed, she informed me, complete with slices of lemon floating among the ice. How could I pass it up? Birds chirped and swatches of sunlight managed to penetrate the great leafy barrier above us as the sound of the river coursed softly in the background. It was a magnificent morning.
“Jim loved it here,” Mrs. Brewer informed me, breaking my reverie. I noticed she had poured me the glass of tea. I sipped it. “We moved here from Maryland after his first heart attack in the late ’70s. He just couldn’t take the stress of litigation anymore. So we moved out here, he lost forty pounds, and we both learned to enjoy the simple life.”
“You’ll miss him, huh?”
“I will, but I won’t. Jim is all around me… here. This place gave me another twenty years with him.”
“I understand,” I said, but in fact I didn’t understand her not missing her husband. Her acceptance of his death and her total peace were puzzling to me.
“After he’s laid out so our few friends and acquaintances can come pay their respects, I want him cremated so I can pour his ashes on the land he loved… the land that gave him—and me—his life back.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to go on. She did.
“We had the cars. The money. The clothes. But that’s about it. We didn’t realize it at the time—you know—what we were missing. When we moved to Oregon we found that the void was our relationship. Out here we discovered the simple joys of just living an unhurried life, together. Jim and I created a world out here where money is of little consequence and folks don’t call each other after regular business hours.”
Taking another drink of iced tea, I realized she was right about what really matters. After that, whenever Howdy Doody tormented us with his boring rants, I pictured myself on Mrs. Brewer’s porch, enjoying the tranquility of nature’s beauty.
CHAPTER 6
Grandma Talk-Talk
Contributed by an entrepreneur
Death is a fact of my life. I’m around it all day—everyday. But I had never buried a family member until my grandmother died.
When she passed away my relationship with death shifted from professional detachment to real human grief. Burying my grandmother was a strange and humbling experience. And, surprisingly, it was my grandmother who got me through it.
Grandma Talk-Talk helped raise my sister and me and was a real presence in our lives. She did all those grandmotherly things like letting us stay up late (blazing a trail of candy wrappers across her nice rugs), and slipping us a one-dollar bill to spend on even more candy. But she also did things that I didn’t understand until much later.
She encouraged me to pursue my dreams. When I told her I wanted to be a funeral director, I can still hear her saying to me, “Kenny, open up your own mortuary. I know you can do it. Make something of yourself. You’ll never go anywhere working for someone else.”
I took her advice and now own a successful mortuary.
My sister, as a five-year-old, said about our grandmother, “all she does is talk, talk, talk…,” hence the nickname. Grandma Talk-Talk had the same soft accent as Blanche on the Golden Girls—but Grandma Talk-Talk had more bite. There was a crispness to her speech that matched her dry humor. She danced with elegant, lightning speed from one subject to the next, wasting no time on breathing. Her “talkees” never stood a chance of talking.
When the mortuary phone rang and it was Grandma Talk-Talk, I knew I had to clear my schedule for at least an hour. I’d hear what food is being served in the retirement community; what birds she spotted that morning; what those “s
coundrel Republicans” were up to; and the line she never failed to say, “Kenny, when I die, I want you to take care of me. I don’t want some stranger who won’t do nearly the job you do. You promise?” That request always made me uncomfortable, but, luckily, I knew she’d change the subject fast.
Burying a family member was still an abstract concept to me. Friends and neighbors, sure, but family? I figured that Grandma Talk-Talk had always been there—and would always continue to be there.
Then the day came when I felt for the first time that she wouldn’t always be around. Her retirement home called my mortuary: Grandma was in the healthcare center and was fading fast.
Her retirement community is a seven hour drive south from where I live. With a cot and my dog, Roxy, I reluctantly set off. After Roxy and I were on the interstate for a bit, I started to notice the pavement whizzing by, butterflies collecting in my stomach, and I felt an uncontrollable urge to turn around. Instead of running away, though, I took deep breaths and slowed down. I wasn’t sure I was ready to do this, but knew I had to. I was about to provide a woman who gave me so many gifts with the last gift I could give her.
I thought about trips to the beach with my sister and Grandma Talk-Talk. Grandma Talk-Talk in the driver’s seat with no regard to (minimum) speed limits. Her giant boat of a Cadillac with its enormous front bench seat that the three of us shared, inching at 7mph while she talked nonstop. My sister and I hanging our heads out the window like happy summer dogs.
I dreaded the next few days. It would be so quiet. I had never been with my grandmother without her talk-talk. Roxy sat on the passenger seat, staring at me. She liked to stick her head out the window during car rides but, despite my offering a rolled-down window several times, today she just sat still.
By the time I arrived, Grandma Talk-Talk was dead.
My mother and sister greeted me at the door of her room.
“Kenny,” my mom said, coming to hug me, “Grandma Talk-Talk is gone.”
I nodded, didn’t say anything, and opened the door. The lights were off but it was bright and sunny in her room. In the air hung the heavy smell of disinfectant and death. Dust motes swirled in the shafts of sunlight. Her oxygen machine had been unplugged and unhooked. The room was silent. I have seen thousands of dead people during the course of my career. This was the only one I can recall fearing to see.
I crept up to the bed and pulled down the sheet covering the still form. Grandma Talk-Talk looked peaceful, like she was asleep. Looking at her wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. She almost looked like she was smirking in her sleep. I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the sheet back over her face.
My sister took Roxy for a walk while I performed my job. I didn’t want to dally; I had another job to do back at the mortuary. Thirty minutes after I pulled into the retirement community, I drove out of the parking lot yelling to my mom and sister, “I’ll call you tomorrow!”
Roxy knew something was amiss. She lay down on the front seat and covered her head with her paw, something I had never seen her do before. The light was low as dusk set, and I headed for home with my dead grandma in the back.
I flipped on the radio to try to fill the void, but no matter how loud I turned the volume, it couldn’t cover the lack of her talking. I sighed, turned the radio off, and rode in deafening silence.
As I hit a beltway and merged into rush-hour traffic, my grandma’s voice popped into my head. “Kenny, take the HOV lane. You’re allowed. We’ve got three!”
“What the hell,” I muttered.
The silence wasn’t so bad as I hurtled down the HOV lane reminiscing with Grandma Talk-Talk.
CHAPTER 7
A Case of Mistaken Identity
Contributed by a Red Sox fan
I work in a business traditionally recognized as a man’s trade, and though I’m just a little girl playing in the big boy’s club, I can handle it. I’m a Southie. And Southies are tough as nails.
Where I come from in south Boston, each group sticks to its own kind. It’s more a matter of comfort level than prejudice against another ethnicity. The Jews go to the Jewish undertaker, the blacks go to the black undertaker, the Asians to the Asian, and so on. The undertakers for each group are familiar with the customs, rituals, and procedures at their places of worship.
At our company, we service the Irish Catholics. That’s it. Don’t get me wrong. Every once in a blue moon we work with a family that’s Italian Catholic, Irish Protestant or even Russian Orthodox, and we are glad to provide them service. It’s just a simple fact that when a family picks up the phone to dial the undertaker, they usually dial the firm down the street, not the one across town.
I was born to second-generation immigrants. My grandparents came from the town of Carrick-on-Shannon in the county Leitrim in the late ’40s following the war and settled on the west side of south Boston. My grandfather worked as a machinist and my grandmother was a housekeeper. My grandfather is retired but still drinks full-time and my grandmother hasn’t missed a day of work in almost twenty years. My father, whom I have never met, is rumored to have dealings with the IRA. He disappeared before I was born—a deadbeat (I’ll leave out the adjectives I normally use). My mother worked for a meat packer for several years before landing herself in jail when I was five years old. I don’t remember anything from when she was around other than the beautiful steaks we ate every night in our dingy little apartment. After my mother went away, I moved in with my grandparents and they raised me.
I went to work for an Irish-Catholic funeral home right out of mortuary school. I was the first woman funeral director they ever had in their fifty-plus esteemed years of business. I had it easy in some respects because the men went out of their way to help the “helpless” woman, but in other respects I had it much harder. I had a lot to prove in the all-boys club.
One morning, when I was as fresh in the business as a newborn babe in the woods, Kevin, the supervisor of the funeral home, came charging down the hall. “Katie!” he shouted. “I need you to head up to Lawrence today and pick up a trade job we got in last night.” Kevin never speaks; he shouts.
“Who got it?” I inquired.
“The firm we always use up there.” He looked at me like I was stupid, and his nose glowed like a red turnip on his flat face. “Turnbull Funeral Home.” Kevin, though a blunderbuss, dresses impeccably, and on this day, already had his custom-made Cambridge suit jacket off and had sweated completely through his shirt. He’s a real sweaty type guy.
“Oh,” I said. I had been there once before and didn’t realize Turnbull was the one we always used. But I kept quiet about that and filed that tidbit of information away. “You have the information?”
“Here it is,” he said, pressing a slip of paper into my hand along with a twenty-dollar bill. “For tolls,” he explained and winked.
Though Kevin sometimes has the temperament of a hibernating bear that has been woken, he can be a real sweetheart, too. “Thanks, Kevin,” I said. “You’re a doll.” We both knew that as soon as I pulled out of the funeral home, I’d be pulling into the 7-Eleven to fortify myself with cigarettes and coffee.
He smiled at the praise and his bulbous nose wrinkled.
I loaded up the mini-van with a cot and was off, after stopping at 7-Eleven of course. The funeral home I work for sits outside of the city of Boston in one of the many suburbs, so when a death call comes in late at night from somewhere as far away as Lawrence, we call the local undertaker in that area to do the removal and, if necessary, embalming. There’s no sense tying one of our directors up for three or more hours in the middle of the night, especially if we had a house call come in; the director on-call would have no way of getting back in time to make a speedy removal. Besides, the funeral home we use up in that area knows the hospital procedures, and can do the removal much more efficiently.
The drive took me the better part of an hour, during which I smoked damn near half the pack out of sheer boredom. I drove into the circular dri
ve of the converted Victorian mansion and pulled around back. The grounds lining the drive were immaculate and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a full-time groundskeeper.
I backed the van onto the ramp leading down into the basement and hopped out. After popping into the office to let them know I was there, I went and waited by the van. One of their directors, the young guy I met last time I had been there, appeared. “Hi Charlie!” I said, perking up. I had the biggest crush on him. He was about my age—22—and looked like he played football in high school. I love burly guys.
“Hi.” He flashed me a smile. “What’s your name again?”
I was crestfallen. “Katie,” I replied. We had had at least a twenty-minute conversation the last time I had been to Turnbull. Obviously, I hadn’t plied my charms as well as I thought.
“Oh right,” he said. “Who you here for?”
I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to talk about giving him my phone number. But instead, the only thing that came out was, “Mrs. Walters.”
He made a face. “Oh,” he muttered, “I got her last night. What a night.”
I changed the subject to something flirtier as I unloaded the cot from the van and followed him down the ramp.
He didn’t take the conversational bait. He was only interested in business. “Here she is,” he said and peeled back a sheet covering one of the many bodies in the morgue, just enough so the wrist tag could be read. I noted Mrs. Walters was a very handsome looking African-American woman, but I was too busy sweet-talking Charlie to glance at the tag. I just nodded.
He lowered the sheet.
I was grabbing at straws. I had already been through weather, traffic, and work. “Sorry we got you out of bed last night,” I said and I cringed hearing my own cheesy laugh.
Charlie made another face. “Yeah, thanks.”
I grinned.
“Let’s get her moved over.” Charlie consulted his watch. “I have a wake that’s wrapping up in twenty minutes.”
