The chaplain clears his throat. “Well, in the Greek Orthodox tradition, they don’t usually allow that. I think only the priest speaks.”
“Well,” I say, “in my tradition, that’s just too damn bad because Sam made it very clear that Stan is to give his eulogy.”
Our wedding planning fiasco comes crashing back and I recall another stipulation his church would’ve placed on us, had we been married here: Stan couldn’t have been his Best Man simply because he wasn’t Greek Orthodox.
“I’m sure it’ll all work out,” the tall chaplain says.
There’s only one way this can work out—so this church is gonna learn how to operate with some goddamn flexibility very quickly.
The Hope chaplain comes out of the hall and confirms the priest has agreed to allow Stan to give the eulogy. Damn right.
Then, through the front doors of the church walk three very official-looking men, gripping their clipboards in front of them like shields. They’re introduced to me as the staff sergeants and inspectors in charge of planning Sam’s funeral. Sam made the ultimate sacrifice and it’s these senior officers’ jobs to make sure his final tribute is one of respect. This I understand. It’s the way these men are looking at me that is of concern: I am a deer in headlights. Sam isn’t the only one paying the price for his dedication and these officers know it. Deer don’t always make it off the road in time.
Inside the hall, the police sit at one end of the table, family members at the other, and the Orthodox priest, two police chaplains—God’s reps—and me take the middle.
The chief of police walks in and everyone stands up. She shakes her head, and we sit back down. She walks over, gives me a hug and then takes a seat beside her officers.
The meeting is a tennis match as police protocol, family requests and religious traditions are lobbed back and forth over the net. I’m just the ball girl struggling to follow the game.
“How are we going to drape the Canadian flag over the casket if it’s open?” someone asks.
“Does it have to be open?” asks another, whom I could kiss with gratitude.
“Yes,” Sam’s priest assures us, “it has to be open.”
No kisses for him. I keep my mouth shut. This isn’t a battle I can win.
Will the piper be piping both before and after the service? How many people will be attending from the Greek community? Where will Sam’s teammates and recruit classmates sit? How long will it take for people to pay their last respects? Who will be giving speeches? Will communion be offered? Will it be OK for me to receive Sam’s hat, badge and Canadian flag while Sam’s parents receive a provincial flag and special plaque? Will the police helicopter do a fly-over? Will alcohol be served at the reception? What songs will the police choir sing?
“A choir?”
Play stops. All eyes turn to me.
The officer who suggested it clears his throat. “Well yes, Adri, there’s a police choir that could sing a few songs…perhaps from the balcony of the church.”
I scrunch up my nose. “Um, actually Sam wasn’t too keen on stuff like that.”
My objection is met with nods from around the table. Play resumes.
I appreciate the effort going into Sam’s funeral but if I learned nothing else from our wedding fiasco, I did take away this valuable lesson: despite the disagreements between the Orthodox Church and our families, the day itself had come and gone and our wedding had been lovely. In the end, it was our marriage, not the ceremony, where our most worthwhile efforts had been directed. Likewise, Sam’s funeral will come and go. My job will be to come to terms with Sam’s death—and my own life without him in it.
After the meeting ends, the chief comes up to me. “Are you OK with all this?”
“I guess so.”
“As you heard, I’ll be giving you Sam’s hat and badge during the service and I…”
I tilt my head to one side, not quite sure what’s coming.
She sighs. “I just want to try and prepare you for how difficult that is going to be.”
I nod. “All right.”
She takes my hand and looks me in the eye. “That moment is going to be extremely tough.”
MONDAY MORNING, I wake to the sun streaming through my window and a sickening sense of dread creeping over my heart. Sam’s been by my side for nearly a dozen years—listening to me when I complained, laughing when I was being an idiot, boosting my confidence when I was down, hugging me when I was upset. How am I going to get through his death—without him?
I feel like one of those dying birds you see on TV after an oil tanker spill where the volunteers are gently trying to wipe away the sludge from her feathers.
The familiar knock on the door comes.
“Hi Googie.” It’s Harry.
Katrina pops her head around him. “Dare I ask?”
“Tell me again,” I say, “how I’m supposed to do this…without Sam?”
She starts back at square one. “You’ve got to take it one day at a time. You cannot focus on the future right now.”
“Well it’s a little hard not to.” I struggle to sit up in bed as my six foot four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound brother tiptoes out the door.
“Let’s just get you through these days, OK?” She sits on my bed. “You have some big decisions ahead, so try and concentrate on those.”
But managing my mind is not going to be easy. After the usual agonizing shower, I head into the kitchen for coffee.
Katrina follows me in. “I made my bed, Adri.”
I smile politely.
Harry explains: “She never makes the bed at home.”
“It’s just that I know how important a tidy house was to Sam,” she says.
“And I’m trying to keep the kitchen clean,” adds Ed, theatrically wiping the counter with a dishrag.
I laugh. They’re right—Sam needed order. He couldn’t sleep if there were dishes in the sink or newspapers lying around.
Today’s paper, in fact, is already neatly placed at the corner of the kitchen table. An extreme close-up of Sam’s scowling face stares up at me. Obviously taken from the police archives, not mine, it’s one of the worst pictures of Sam I’ve ever seen.
Ed opens the paper to Sam’s obituary and hands it to me. “That’s an excellent piece of writing,” he says kindly. “Although it’s the first obituary I’ve ever read with multiple exclamation marks in it.”
AFTER POACHED eggs and toast, Tom takes me, my dad and Katrina back to the funeral home where we meet up again with Nick and Angela. All six of us follow closely behind the funeral director, like a group of ducklings following their mama, until he stops outside a closed door and we damn near run into him.
He turns around to face us. “This is our first stop and I like to warn people that it can be a…bit of a shock.”
We nod bravely.
“Because this,” he says, reaching for the door handle, “is the casket room.”
Sure enough, it’s a room full of coffins. So up and down the aisles we stroll, passing shiny black caskets, ornately carved oak ones and small white versions for children. They have a casket for everyone—except my husband.
“Have you got anything in pine?” I ask.
I wouldn’t have thought a room full of caskets could get any quieter, but it did.
The director clears his throat. “Uh yes, but we keep those in another room.”
Everyone stares at me.
“Would you like to see those?” he asks.
My dad leans over and whispers in my ear, “I don’t mean to intrude but pine caskets are usually for…well, they’re less expensive.”
“So?” I say loudly. “Sam liked pine. We have pine furniture.”
My dad’s eyes widen, perhaps at the inferred connection between one’s casket and one’s china cabinet. “You do whatever you want, Adri; it’s your decision. It’s just that you don’t usually see a pine casket for such a…” He clears his throat. “Public funeral.”
Fine. We
have maple hardwood floors. Our neighbourhood is named after the maple tree. The symbol for Canada is the maple leaf.
“Have you got a maple casket?” I ask the funeral director.
“We sure do,” he replies, visibly relieved.
I choose a beautiful maple casket. It’s simple, with no twirls and swirls, and has the least flouncy of the satin linings. I don’t want Sam looking like a doll lying there in ruffles.
Then the director asks me if I’d like Sam’s casket placed in a vault.
I picture some sort of mammoth safety deposit box for bodies. “Pardon me?”
He explains that a vault is a concrete container in the ground.
“Why would we do that?” I ask, genuinely puzzled.
“Personal preference,” he says. “Or a religious belief.”
But why would we want to delay the inevitable? Encasing Sam’s casket in concrete would certainly make him…you know, last longer. But I can’t fathom why we would do that. I turn to Angela. “Do other Greeks have this vault-thing?”
She shakes her head.
“There’s your answer,” I tell the funeral director.
Next, he shows us a selection of guest books.
Dear Adri, Considering the dreadful circumstances, Sam’s funeral was simply lovely and you both looked smashing! I wish you all the best in your new life as a widow.
“And this is a nice idea,” the director continues, showing me a piece of paper with questions on it. “You can write down Sam’s particulars, as well as a message for him. Then there’s a drawer inside his casket where you can tuck…” He stops speaking, likely noticing the look of disgust on my face. Once Sam’s settled into his grave, he’s not gonna read my note. He barely read when he was alive, for God’s sake.
“Um…what other decisions have to be made today?” Katrina asks him.
“The flowers have to be ordered.”
“Tulips!” I say. “Sam always gave me tulips.”
More raised eyebrows. Apparently, this is a hell of a lot of tulips for October.
As a compromise, Angela suggests white roses for his casket and a special bouquet of tulips just from me. Whatever. I know Sam wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about flowers. How he fell to his death during a routine investigation would take top priority.
WHEN WE’RE released from this wretched place, Tom promptly takes us to another. At the cemetery, we are directed to the section where Sam’s uncle is buried.
“East or west?” the cemetery guy asks me.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you like your husband’s burial plot to face east or west?”
This seems to me an odd question. “Well let’s see,” I say, “I guess west would be better because Sam wasn’t much of a morning person.”
Nick leans in to me. “I think he asked you that because of a religious belief.”
I turn to him. “Now what?”
“Well, some Christians believe that when Jesus comes back…”
Everyone leans toward Nick, cemetery guy included.
“…He’ll come back from the east,” he finishes.
I shrug. “And this has what to do with choosing Sam’s grave?”
Nick shifts from one foot to the other. “The idea is that you want to be buried facing east so that when Jesus returns, you’ll be able to see him.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I say.
He shrugs. “I just thought you’d want to know.”
I sense it’s taking every ounce of willpower for my dad, an atheist, to keep out of this conversation because he’s practically vibrating beside me.
“What I was going to suggest,” says the cemetery guy, “is that Sam be buried on the other side of his uncle.”
He walks us over to Sam’s uncle’s grave. When I read the name on his headstone, I let out a little gasp. It’s the exact same name as Sam’s. I’d forgotten this. Had his uncle’s funeral been foreshadowing?
I walk around to the other side. I look down and see that the plot number is 130. Sam’s lucky number is thirteen. His birthday is May 13th. So far, so good. Then I turn so that I’m facing west, the same direction Sam would be if we go with this plot, and close my eyes—just to get a feel for the place.
When I open them again, I turn my head to the right and there, four plots over, is a headstone with a yellow Winnie the Pooh engraved on it. Clunk goes the coin. At Disneyland, Pooh Grandma had fallen right in front of Sam and hit her head. That had been exactly one week before his fall.
I stamp my feet on the earth. “This is it. This is Sam’s new home.”
And if I’m wrong, Sam can just damn well turn around to see Jesus.
BACK AT his former home, I pour myself a glass of milk and pluck a handful of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from the growing pile of baking. My husband died, and they give me cookies.
I go downstairs and begin writing Sam a goodbye poem for the back of his funeral service pamphlet. I’m making decent headway when a phone call comes in. I’m not taking many calls, but do I take this one. It’s Charlie—another of Sam’s recruit classmates and one of the two guys Sam often met for lunch. He tells me about a pin their class had made in memory of Sam. The pins are being sold to police officers but instead of paying cash, they’re donating their court time to a fund set up in Sam’s name. Depending on the officer’s rate of pay and the number of court hours donated, this means that individual donations are anywhere from twenty bucks to hundreds of dollars.
“And we’re hoping that later on,” Charlie says, “you’ll be involved in deciding how to use the money.”
“I’d like that.”
He is quiet a moment. “There’s something else, Adri.”
“Yeah?” I say, nervously reaching for Sam’s pendants.
“I just wanted to tell you that, uh…well that Sam loved you very much.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting this comment—or how much it hurt to hear.
“He loved your smile,” Charlie continues. “Sam told me once how you liked to go to the dentist because they were always complimenting you on your teeth.”
I laugh. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He talked about you all the time.”
When I hang up, I realize I’m smiling…I mean genuinely smiling instead of the forced mechanical grin I have acquired.
AFTER DINNER, the same senior officers from last night come over for a second funeral-planning meeting. They sit on three chairs, lined up all in a row in front of the fireplace.
“We have a few more items to run by you,” Officer A starts off. “First of all, about the choir…”
I roll my eyes.
“We got the feeling yesterday you weren’t too keen on that.”
“Oh, it’s not me,” I say as cheerfully as possible. “It’s Sam. He hated touchy-feely stuff like that.”
“OK, so no choir.”
A small victory but one nonetheless.
“Now about the media,” Officer B, seated in the middle, says, “we need to know what components of Sam’s funeral you want and don’t want filmed.”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“This will be a newsworthy event, so we have to be very clear ahead of time.”
I nod. He tilts his head forward slightly. I nod again.
“Do you want the media at Sam’s interment?” he asks.
I stare at him, having no idea what that word means.
“The interment is the graveside service, Adri,” explains the Hope chaplain.
I jump up. “What? They’re going to film Sam’s coffin going into the ground?”
“Not necessarily,” replies Officer A. “That’s up to you. It’s just that if we don’t cooperate with the media and give them proper direction, then there’s the chance that an inappropriate photograph of you or Sam’s family might get taken.”
“Fine,” I say. “No media at Sam’s grave.”
“Done. OK, next is the seating arrangements.”
I shrug. �
�People walk in and take their seats—how difficult can that be?”
The officers look at each other then back at me. “There will be police officers here from all over Canada,” says Officer B. “There could easily be two thousand people.”
I nearly choke on my gum. What rock have I just crawled out from underneath? I had no clue Sam’s funeral could be anywhere near this big.
“There’ll be seating in the main part of the church,” Officer B continues, “as well as in the gymnasium and in a tent outside.”
“Where are you going to put Sam and Adri’s friends?” Katrina asks. “How can we make sure they don’t get put in the tent while a bunch of strangers are in the church?”
“Ushers,” replies Officer C. “We’ll need ushers.”
It’s sounding like a wedding again.
“Now, about the funeral procession,” says Officer A.
I look at him. “The what?”
“After Sam’s funeral, when all the cars drive to the cemetery together…”
Officer C pulls out a pad of paper and draws a little diagram for me. “This,” he says, pointing to his sketch of a long car, “will be Sam’s hearse.” Then he draws another car behind the hearse. “And this will be you and Sam’s family.”
I lean in and look at the drawing. “Uh huh.”
“Then there will be police officers,” he continues, drawing little stick men all in a row, “lining the streets and saluting Sam as he passes…”
“Oh my God!” I cry. “It’s a parade!”
Officer C stops sketching. The room falls silent. Everyone stares at me.
“Yeah kinda,” Officer B says. “But it’s called a procession.”
“I know that,” I snap. “But Sam and I were in the Disneyland parade a week before he died. We were walking behind Mickey Mouse, waving to the crowd and…”
Officer B clears his throat. Officer C shifts in his chair and puts the cap back on his pen. Officer A stares at the floor.
“And the crowd,” I finish, “waved back at us.”
I look to my family for backup, but Ed’s mouth is hanging open. Harry’s eyes are enormous. Dale hangs his head. Even my mother has nothing to say.
A Widow's Awakening Page 9
