Make Mine A Vanilla Shake

Next to eating at Cracker Barrel after church on Sundays, Mama and Daddy’s favorite social activity is visiting the funeral home. My, how they love a good visitation followed by a stop at Dairy Queen. I’m not sure what it is about going to the funeral home and viewing a body that makes them crave a Dilly Bar, but apparently, something stirs their appetite for dairy while they’re at a wake.

They’re at the funeral home several times a month. They go to the funeral home the way some folks go to the Piggly Wiggly. It’s like a reunion of family and friends when they show up, and they sit and visit until the cows come home. I guess some of that comes with age or maybe it comes from living far out in the country where you have only one neighbor, but Mama and Daddy take their visitation duties seriously. If someone they know or the loved one of a friend or family member passes, you can count on them to show up at the funeral parlor at the appropriate time. And don’t be surprised if they bring food. That’s what we do in the south during any sort of tragedy you know, we send food. Nothing soothes grief like fried chicken, baked ham or a green bean casserole, and every church below the Mason-Dixon Line has a Feed the Bereaved committee. Yes, Mama and Daddy are serious about funeral home duty, and it was obvious last night they are ready for me and my brothers to do the same. I’m not quite ready to admit that I’m old enough for that, though. In fact, I try to avoid the funeral home whenever possible.

I was in my old hometown last night for the visitation of a family member’s relative by marriage. It’s kind of sad, but a funeral or wedding is often the only time I make it to my old hometown. It’s a small town, so if you don’t know which funeral home to go to, you just show up at the first one and if nobody’s there, you drive across town to the other one. In fact, it’s such a small town, you could probably stop at the bank on the way into town and ask any clerk where the visitation for so and so is, and she could tell you off the top of her head or ask the teller next to her and get the right answer. I love that about home.

My plan was to visit with the family for a little while and scoot home to get things ready for a new work week. I arrived shortly at the start of visitation and sure enough, Mama and Daddy were already there, had spoken to the family and were starting to make their rounds of talking to other visitors. (Mama had dropped off the spiral ham earlier in the day.) Mama latched onto me, made sure I signed the visitor’s book, took the appropriate card and led me around to introduce me to folks. She was on a mission to make sure I did all the right things and understood the process, and frankly, acted as if I’d never been to the funeral home. About thirty minutes into it, it hit me that she was grooming me for future funeral home duties. Grooming me for her position. The position she expects me to take when she’s gone. As if I don’t already have enough dairy in my life.

We made the rounds, and much to my surprise, I ended up staying longer than I expected. I saw my old Sunday school teacher, an old grade school classmate and the parents of three people I went to school with as a kid. Before I could help myself, I was kicked back on a sofa in the front parlor, yakking it up with folks I hadn’t seen in a long time, and talking a blue streak. SuperCop came in, and I stayed a little longer to see him. (And guess which favorite nephew climbed up on the kitchen table yesterday and flung a pepper shaker through the air? Yee haw, somebody’s walkin’ now!) Anyhow, I stayed longer than I ever expected and shall I say it? I enjoyed seeing some friends, cousins and an aunt and two uncles I haven’t seen in a while and left feeling satisfied with the dose of “home” I got while I was there. Is this what Mama and Daddy get out of those visits? Does this account for why they go so often and stay so long? Am I getting old? Is that why for the first time in my life, I didn’t mind going to the funeral home? AM I getting old? Are Mama’s instincts right in that it’s time for me to start getting used to that kind of thing? I don’t know, but I can tell you, I had to fight like heck, the urge to pull into the DQ drive-thru for a vanilla milk shake on the way home.

If Heaven Had A Window

November 9, 2009

I slide into the driver’s seat and crank the ignition, leaving right on time for a change. I don’t want to be late today. It’s the day we will lay to rest a cousin who died too soon and without his freedom. Freedom lost several years ago to the lure of drug money. I’m not looking forward to another funeral on the heels of Sissy’s death. The memories of that loss still burning so hotly into my heart and the sympathy I feel for my aunt and uncle’s new burden of loss puts me in a funky mood. Funky and sentimental, but surprisingly, not terribly sad. I take a deep breath and start the task that looms ahead.

The drive gives me the rare opportunity to travel about forty five minutes through the countryside where I grew up. My path takes me through my hometown and into the back roads of southern Illinois. The roads of my youth. The roads that meander through farms and woods, past small communities that have more dogs than people. Towns whose names spring from the bible. Where the only travelers are the folks who live there. This is the land that sired my parents and grandparents. It is the land that sustains me and from which I draw my strength.

I don’t get in a hurry. A funeral day from work is a little like a snow day. It’s a legitimate reason for a break in the normal routine, a free pass for pushing deadlines aside. There is no need to rush, and it’s an opportunity to savor the season which is unusually warm and still dotted with the shades of brilliant autumn. Within fifteen minutes of leaving work, I am on a two lane highway headed north, with the window rolled down and the smell of leaves tickling my nose. It is a pretty day, a fitting day to bury someone who loved the outdoors. I drive with the comfort of knowing that despite all of the craziness in this world, not much changes around home. In fact, any changes that do occur happen so slowly you are taken by surprise when you finally realize something is different.

In my hometown of 7,500 people, the sign in front of the auto parts place notes the recent loss of the owner. The tavern at the edge of town bears the same name it has for years, and a police car cruises the main drag looking for an occasional speeder. The two lane pulls me into the countryside where the hum under my wheels seems as familiar as the houses along the road. My mind clicks off the houses where my school bus used to stop twice a day and spots the place where my childhood friend once fell from a horse. The songs on my iPod seem hand picked for the trip, even though it is randomly shuffling along, and when it shuffles into Neil Young’s Beautiful Bluebird, I can’t help but smile because it seems so fitting for the moment.

Two verses later, I pass the old feed store where daddy spent many an hour swapping lies and cards. It used to come alive at lunchtime with farmers savoring ring bologna sandwiches and sweaty cold Coca-colas, but today it sits empty, finally closed for good. A spray painted sign on the porch advertises an upcoming indoor yard sale, and I am offended by its intrusion on a sacred memory. I keep driving, looking for familiar landmarks. I am now deep into the country.

My entrance into the tiny town that hosts my large family today makes me smile at its familiarity. White clapboard houses that have looked the same since I was a child line the main drag, interrupted only by a diner, the Methodist church and the barber shop where my brother got his first haircut. I still remember watching snips of his hair fall into the floor under the watchful eye of a man who had long lost count of the young victms of his overzealous shears. Next door, I look for the doors that once housed the pool hall where daddy got an education in everything grandma didn’t want him to know, and I am pleased that the screen doors are still there, even if they are hanging on by a thread.

I am almost to the funeral home, but I’m not ready for the drive to end, and the clock tells me time is on my side, so I make a right turn onto a road I’ve never traveled. It takes me past an old box factory that stands shakily on its foundation, covered in vines and unrecognizable growth. The old railroad depot is just across the street. The windows are broken, and the roof is falling in. It hasn’t been used in years, and I know it will remain untouched until it’s gone, because like the farm store, some things around here are just sacred and are allowed to disappear on their own schedule out of respect for the role they once held in this community. I make a note to take a picture of it on my way back. I’m in wetlands territory now, where the ducks and geese will stop on their way south, where standing water sometimes creeps over the road, and rushing water sometimes takes you by surprise. I stop in the middle of the road to savor the old railroad bridge and yield to the urge to preserve the moment.

As I stand under the canopy of trees in the middle of the road, there is no traffic to worry about, only the sounds of water and birds. My head is a kaleidoscope of childhood memories, some of which include the family that is gathered in the funeral home a couple of miles away. I let the memories wash over me until I feel clean. Renewed and ready to move on. I climb in the car and head toward the funeral home, softly singing a chorus.

Beautiful bluebird

See how she flies

Looks like she's always goin' home

If heaven had a window

Where the sun came shinin' through

Like a beautiful bluebird

I'd come flyin' back to you

Parking in the grassy lot a few minutes later, I see many cousins, aunts and uncles who have traveled these same roads. I reach for the door handle but pause to think about what the people gathered there mean to me. What this area means to me. I say a quick prayer of thanks for my sturdy roots.

It is the land of my youth. It sustains me and gives me strength, and for that, I am grateful.

The Reason I Ended up with Briars All Over the Seat of my Dress on the way Home From A Funeral in the Country

And had to hide my backside with my purse when entering a McDonald's in order to pluck them off in the bathroom.

October 9th, 2009--Rural southern Illinois

Bury me With my Boots Off

Hubby has a way of hitting me up me with funny questions on a daily basis. Like today when he called right before I got ready to run and said, “Guess what I just had?” He proceeded to tell me he had just polished off a foot long chili dog at the Dairy Queen an hour away from here known for its “foot of chili”. Doo doo head.

That’s still better than the question he posed to me the other day. We were truckin’ down the road, and out of the blue he asks, “What do you want to be buried in?” (Insert wrinkling of my brow here.) I said, “What?”
“What do you want to be buried in?”
“Are we talkin’ coffins or cemeteries because I thought we had settled the cemetery thing?”
“Clothes. What CLOTHES do you want to be buried in?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Well, I need to know in case you go first.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Just pick out something nice.”

But that wasn’t a good enough response. He kept pestering me for a solid answer. I think our preoccupation with death and funerals lately got him to thinking about our own funeral plans, and he’s a detail man. He wants specifics. Me? I kind of wing it on a lot of things, and I already know what he wants to be buried in because he’s been telling me for years that it should be jeans, a white button down shirt and casual shoes. Got it.

Truth be told, I just don’t like to think about my own mortality. I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself into getting hit by a bus. I never really gave him an answer that day and hoped the question would go away. A few miles down the road he finally told me, “Well, if you were to die soon and I didn’t know what you wanted to be buried in, I think I would pick one of your Jimmy Buffett concert t-shirts and those cute khaki shorts that go down to your knees. You know, the ones you had on the other day.”
“Hmmm. Works for me.”

And you know what, that does work for me. It’s simple, casual (I want to go casual) and it’s reflective of my personality. I did tell him to leave me barefoot because I hate wearing shoes. And to give my large diamond wedding band set to Teen Angel and bury me with my smaller original wedding rings. Is all of this burial talk making you uncomfortable yet? It makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it. But not as uncomfortable as that foot of chili is going to make him by bedtime tonight. Doo doo head.

Welcome Y'all

I got a good chuckle out of Swampy’s latest post. She had some really funny lines about the things that make Oklahoma folks special, and even though she was talking about Oklahoma, she could have substituted Kentucky for 98% of those items and been right on the money. I didn’t realize Oklahoma was so “southern” in its ways. I often roll my eyes at the amount of redneck-edness that surrounds me, and I hate for the rest of the country to think all Kentuckians are country bumpkins. However, the truth is I’m pretty proud of the area in which I live because despite the way we butcher the English language and act peculiar, we have some pretty good habits that I don’t always see when I go to other parts of the country. I feel an obligation to prop up our image by sharing some of these with you, dear readers, especially those of you who have not visited our fair state and have been led to believe that we marry our cousins and have children named Cooter.

1. We know how to throw a funeral. Each family has a fainter who passes out at the sight of the deceased. (Ours was Aunt Mabel.) Around here fainting is a sign of respect for the dear departed. In case you’re wondering, I’m not a fainter. Drivers pull over for an oncoming funeral procession. It’s an unwritten rule that you pull off the road and wait for a funeral procession to pass, whether you knew the deceased or not. It’s very moving for people to pull over for your loved one. Also, there is always a great meal after the funeral. It’s usually provided by your church family and includes ham and a variety of homemade dishes from the Feed the Bereaved committee. If you have no church family, one will be appointed for you.

2. We know our neighbors. In fact, we know their schedules, their relatives and their vices. I can tell you the last time Mr. R.’s electric meter was read, when the O.’s are going to be back from vacation and how many times last week that R.’s girlfriend spent the night. In turn, they know that my parents visit on Sunday afternoons, that Mama J. is going to have hernia surgery and that Hubby spends a half hour at Huck’s convenience store every morning drinking Diet Coke and shooting the bull. We don’t call this nosiness, we call it Neighborhood Watch. Someone asked me not too long ago if I had an alarm system at my house, and I said, “No. I have Marie”. She’s my neighbor and will call me at work if someone suspicious shows up in my driveway during the day. Heck, she even knows to call Hubby at Huck’s if the prowler shows up in the morning between 7:15 and 7:45.

3. We make friends wherever we go. We will strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere. We make friends in the line at Wal-Mart, in the bathroom at Outback and on the way to the operating room. We also share with strangers all kinds of personal information other folks might not divulge, like our constipation problems, our child’s rehab stint and the name of the dealer Uncle Lester uses to buy glaucoma marijuana. We may divulge too much, but we are friendly people. If you ask us for directions and you seem confused, we will tell you to jump in our pickup and we’ll just drive you there.

4. We make time for pie. We’re good at it. We’re almost always armed with pie and we know how to use it. We use it to feed your face and nourish your soul. Pie is a good and righteous thing. It keeps you from rushing through your meal It causes you to slow down and savor the moment. We think pie cures just about everything, especially coconut cream pie.

So if you’re wandering through the Bluegrass State anytime soon, be sure to wave and say hello. We’ll wave back. In fact, we’ll probably strike up a conversation with you, ask about your relatives and give you directions to a really good restaurant that serves dessert. And rest assured that if you croak while you’re in our fair state, we’ll also give you a great sendoff.