Funerals and Family

On Friday, we buried my dad. But I discovered that this past week was about my mom.

Despite the fact that I had returned to SmogCentral to mourn and bury my dad, the whole week was a remembrance service for my mom. Every person (no exaggeration - with the exception of one) with whom I visited or who called me to give their condolences ended up talking about what a great woman my mom was. All the brown people who came to my dad's funeral service said how sorry they were to hear about my dad, but that my mom really touched their lives.

I shouldn't really be surprised because at her funeral there were over 500 people in attendance. My mom was a family physician with a focus on obstetrics and as a result she delivered a huge number of children in the community and treated many, many people. But still, I can't believe that after so many years people still remember specifics of how she affected their lives.

One man told me he remembered calling my mom in the middle of the night because they had a sick child. And she came to the house to treat the child. She always came, he said, no matter how late. Another woman mentioned that my mom delivered all three of her boys. She remembered my mom because my mom slipped her phone number under the woman's pillow in the hospital and told her if she needed anything to call. My mom would often treat immigrants and their families even if they didn't have health care coverage and in return we would get random things coming to our house, such as meat, baskets of food and clothing. Another man's mother refused for the longest time to go to another doctor because she only wanted to see my mom.

Then as if speaking for all of these people, a family friend finally said the one thing that so many have wanted to say - she didn't deserve to die that way. Not your mom.

Her presence first appeared on Sunday in the form of a family friend, TheImam.

My dad died on a Friday but his second wife, TheBanshee, decided that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday would bring her bad luck if he was buried on any of those days, oh and Thurs was inauspicious. Thus the funeral should be held on a Friday. In reality, I nor my sisters were given any choice or voice in the matter. I was informed of the funeral arrangements via email from a friend of my dad's who belonged to the same BoysClub. This meant that my dad's body would be left in the hospital morgue for a week. In the traditions of my father and mother, a person is supposed to buried within 24hrs. Despite the fact that TheBanshee claimed to follow similar traditions, keeping my father in the hospital morgue didn't seem to phase her. But it made my sister (a.k.a Wisdom) and I irate. So Wisdom called everyone she could.

Enter TheImam. On Sunday, he moved my father's body to TheReligiousHouse.

The weird part was that on Monday when I, my sister, and HippieHusband drove to TheReligiousHouse so I could see my dad's body, we talked about how we had been left out of the funeral arrangments. Wisdom was quite upset about how no one thought to mention this fact to the TheBanshee. No one. None of the BoysClub friends of my dad who were 'helping' with the funeral arrangements, not my dad's sister, nor my mom's brother. They all were silent. And TheBanshee refused to talk with Wisdom - she would simply hang up. Wisdom rightly wanted our grief to be recognized because it wasn't now and it hadn't been when my mom died.

Then something weird happened. When we arrived at TheImam's place, he sat us down and told us that he was here on behalf of our mother. He said it is our right as daughters to be part of the funeral arrangements. He was here to act as the older brother to ensure that my mom's children were recognized and their grief acknowledged. Silence, he said, is acceptance. This was all Wisdom wanted, someone who heard our grief. Upon hearing this, Wisdom began to sob.

While we couldn't change anything about the funeral service, we were able to ensure that my father's body was prepared following the traditions of his culture. And because he was male, only male members of the family can participate in this cleansing ritual. We had three members of our immediate family (my uncle and two of our closest first cousins who we view as brothers) represent the three daughters. For me this meant everything.

Before burial, the body is stripped of all its worldly items like jewelry and clothing. It is cleaned and a prayer ritual is performed. The body is not embalmed instead a plain white cloth is wrapped around the body and it is put into a simple cedar coffin. The idea behind this tradition is that we should leave this world the way we came, with nothing. This ritual was not performed for my mom because of the circumstances around her death. Instead, her body bag was simply wrapped in a white cloth. Then again, my mom did not leave this world the way she came. She may have entered with nothing but it was clear that her presence came to mean something.

At the funeral service for my dad, I heard many of his BoysClub friends and business associates talk about how compassionate and kind he was. I could definitely see how people would think of him that way but without specifics or personal anecdotes it was just amorphous descriptions that reeked of the don't-speak-ill-of-the-dead fear. It lacked the personal connection. The connection to family and friends. Not a single family member nor family friend from the earlier part of his life was given the opportunity to speak.

As I sat there I realized that the funeral service for my dad was a metaphor for the disconnect that had taken place in his life, but it shed light on how the clear and warm water of my mother's life had gently wrapped its arms around the people of our community.