The Purple Casket − January, 1995
A funeral is a strange thing. We gather together to view the body of a loved one for the last time, as if the sight of their cold flesh is how we want to remember them. For those of faith, it is a time contemplate the afterlife, and to celebrate the deceased and their entrance into the holy kingdom. They put them on a pedestal in the form of a polished box and hold them up for God to take. They pray for the soul of the passed, and for themselves.
For a child, it is a confusing and fascinating experience.
When I was six years old, my great grandmother died. To me, she was some far off figure whom I'd never met, and it hadn't occured to me at the time that she had meant something to anyone else. Dressed in uncomfortable clothes, I sat restlessly in a pew in a church packed with other people in more uncomfortable clothes. I was excited. I had never seen a dead person before. Had I been older, I probably would have reflected on the fragility of life, or what happens once our hearts stop, and our blood stills and becomes frozen rivers in our veins. Being a young man of very little attention to such things, I wondered mostly if she would smell, and when it would be my turn to see.
Soon, I noticed people getting up, presumably to pay their respects. I said, "Do we get to go up soon?"
"Yeah, just hold on," my mother said.
Finally, it was our turn to shuffle awkwardly into the isle and creep down the dusty red carpet. Agitation mounting, we grew closer, my heart pounding in sync with my footsteps.
What if she wasn't dead, and she wakes up when I get close to her?
What if the casket falls on me?
What if these people see how afraid I am?
I tried to quiet the thoughts racing through my mind, but the nearer we drew, the more rampant they became. Now, there was only one person in front of me, my father, saying goodbye to his grandmother. He turned to me after a time, and motioned me forward. Sucking in one lungful of panicked breath at a time, I stepped up to the casket, and my first thought was, Why is the coffin purple?
Inside lay my great grandmother. There was no since of familiarity as my eyes scanned her face. This was the first, and the obviously the last, time I'd seen her. My mind shrieked, She's dead. You're looking at a dead person. I real dead person. Shesdeadshesdeadshesdead.
And then it was gone. Suddenly, I felt nothing. As I stepped down from the coffin, I was awash in an intense relief. That was it. There was nothing frightening about it. She could have been asleep. Hell, maybe she was. What did I know about funerals, really? I followed my parents from the church and out into the parking lot. The cold cut at my face, causing my eyes to water and my teeth to click noisily together. Ducking the rolling blasts of unforgiving January air, I slipped into the backseat of the family car. I closed my eyes and sighed, wondering what kind of person my great grandmother was.
For a child, it is a confusing and fascinating experience.
When I was six years old, my great grandmother died. To me, she was some far off figure whom I'd never met, and it hadn't occured to me at the time that she had meant something to anyone else. Dressed in uncomfortable clothes, I sat restlessly in a pew in a church packed with other people in more uncomfortable clothes. I was excited. I had never seen a dead person before. Had I been older, I probably would have reflected on the fragility of life, or what happens once our hearts stop, and our blood stills and becomes frozen rivers in our veins. Being a young man of very little attention to such things, I wondered mostly if she would smell, and when it would be my turn to see.
Soon, I noticed people getting up, presumably to pay their respects. I said, "Do we get to go up soon?"
"Yeah, just hold on," my mother said.
Finally, it was our turn to shuffle awkwardly into the isle and creep down the dusty red carpet. Agitation mounting, we grew closer, my heart pounding in sync with my footsteps.
What if she wasn't dead, and she wakes up when I get close to her?
What if the casket falls on me?
What if these people see how afraid I am?
I tried to quiet the thoughts racing through my mind, but the nearer we drew, the more rampant they became. Now, there was only one person in front of me, my father, saying goodbye to his grandmother. He turned to me after a time, and motioned me forward. Sucking in one lungful of panicked breath at a time, I stepped up to the casket, and my first thought was, Why is the coffin purple?
Inside lay my great grandmother. There was no since of familiarity as my eyes scanned her face. This was the first, and the obviously the last, time I'd seen her. My mind shrieked, She's dead. You're looking at a dead person. I real dead person. Shesdeadshesdeadshesdead.
And then it was gone. Suddenly, I felt nothing. As I stepped down from the coffin, I was awash in an intense relief. That was it. There was nothing frightening about it. She could have been asleep. Hell, maybe she was. What did I know about funerals, really? I followed my parents from the church and out into the parking lot. The cold cut at my face, causing my eyes to water and my teeth to click noisily together. Ducking the rolling blasts of unforgiving January air, I slipped into the backseat of the family car. I closed my eyes and sighed, wondering what kind of person my great grandmother was.
