Mesmerized

I fought the urge to yawn as the preacher droned on about God’s timing, how my grandmother was in a better place because she walked with the Lord now, blah blah blah. All the usual nonsense spewed after someone dies. I’d heard the same phrases too many goddamn times for them to resonate with me. My mother’s quiet sobs kept me from mentally checking out. As her daughter, being her rock was my job while she grieved the loss of her mother. It was a job my sister, Zara, decided wasn’t worth undertaking.

I squeezed Mama’s hand, the pop-up canopy shielding us from the pouring rain. The weather was perfect for a funeral, mimicking the attitude of the attendees; gloomy and all-around sucky.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” my Grandma’s favorite pastor droned, quoting Romans 8:38-39 now that he finally ran out of platitudes about Miz Susie, as the town knew her.

He stood in front of my grandmother’s casket. The box was propped up on the bier that’d give her over to the earth.

After hours of enduring the sight of a dead woman’s face, I’d get a respite when the pastor administered the last rites, and her overly priced body box lowered into the ground. I swallowed. She’d never see the light of the sun again. Aware of what was coming, my mother’s sobs increased. Her grief echoed through the graveyard.

 “Go forth upon your journey, Christian soul, in the name of God the Father who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ who suffered for you; in the name of the Holy Spirit who sets us free; May you rest in peace in the love of God. Amen.”

Subconsciously, I recited the words with him, a relic of the summers spent with Grandma. She adored the bible and prayer, ensuring that my mother and I memorized the most important verses.

With her body again blessed, it was time for the casket’s descent into the ground. As a funerary staff member operated the lever on the bier, emotion blossomed within me. We’d grown apart years ago, but knowing she was now bound to a single location for the rest of eternity filled me with melancholy. My mother untangled her hand from mine to observe the casket descend. The pastor used the opportunity to sing ‘Too Close to the Mirror’ by Eddie Ruth Bradford, a hymn that used to be sung in church regularly, and one Grandma loved. I wondered if that was another request of hers, or if the holy man simply wanted to sing.

Gradually, more people trickled to watch the descent, but my feet remained rooted in place; something in me couldn’t bear to watch.  Grandma was dead, never to return to the living. I knew this, but seeing the wooden box lowered into the ground just felt too final. With Mama gone, I was sandwiched between two empty chairs. One was meant for Zara, but she’d chosen to stay in Miami with her father. The bastard had pumped her head full of lies, creating a rift bad enough for her to skip the funeral of her mother’s mother.

Thunder boomed as the spools turned, loosening the straps, and allowing the casket to descend into the grave. Unbidden, a scowl spread across my face. The weather was being a dramatic bitch, amping up everyone’s dejection, with all the damn thunder and rain. The pouring sky muddied the ground, annoying me further. We were dressed in our Sunday best, only to end up stained with dirt.