March 26, 2006 – A Morning at the Burlington Coat Factory

March 26, 2006 – A Morning at the Burlington Coat Factory

It’s mid morning on Tuesday January 31th, 2006. My sisters, niece, and Dad are all sitting around the breakfast table in Dad’s place, the second day after Mom passed away in the intensive care ward of William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso, Texas—a fatal embolism after her vital signs had returned to normal and her prospects for recovery had improved. Dad has just gotten over a flood of tears. The breakfast table is the trigger that floods us all with memories of Mom. No place in the house is she more missed than in this room and at this table, where she would serve meals she had prepared and then insist that each one of us eat beyond the point of having satisfied our appetite. It was a reflex she harbored from days during the Second World War in the Philippines, when finding the next meal became everyone's preoccupation. I’m speculating since she never said as much.

Mixed with the message of eating to excess, she would chide us if she thought we were putting on weight. All three of my sisters and my niece are skinny in spite of Mom’s obsession with having us eat. Dad too is relatively slim for a big-frame fellow just over five feet ten inches tall though in recent years he’s begun to build a paunch that a belt fit for a 34-inch waist would just contain. He’s been housebound by leg injuries that have plagued him for couple of years; housebound too fearing to leave Mom by herself too long. If you look at pictures taken of Mom and Dad side by side over the past sixty years, you begin to see them resembling one another more and more over time. Sixty years of being together turns two people into Siamese twins bonded emotionally as strongly as if by skin and bone.

Being away from home for the better part of forty years, the emotional tie holding me to my family had loosened far more than the bond that tied my sister EV and LC—the two middle children of the family—and my niece CB to both my parents. My sister DD the youngest sibling and I were the two that left home and found lives outside of El Paso. When I would come home, usually at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and/or the occasional summer vacation, I would notice the ritual of the extended household of Mom and Dad, EV, LC, CB and in more recent years EA—the family housekeeper who has cared for my parents for over a decade if not longer. The weekend ritual would begin with the household awakening to breakfast smells wafting up the stairs— predominantly that of frying bacon and coffee. I would have returned from my run. If our two daughters ME and RB—in recent years each would have husbands and kids—were with my wife IM and me, the upstairs would be chaos coming from the two upstairs bathrooms and four bedrooms. Downstairs EA would be cooking or on some weekends my sister LC would come over and she would be chef. About the time everyone was finished upstairs, they would descend on the dining room where they would be joined by EV and CB and we’d have a raucous meal with jokes flying back and forth.

It was that same way this morning only without Mom. Sitting around the table were Mom’s four children, her husband and one grand daughter and we all felt the lack of Mom’s presence. I could easily understand how my father would suddenly tear up. The conversation around the table this morning was lighter than at the same time yesterday. CB was describing Mahjong games she played with Mom and her friends, HM and PG, and the banter that would go on among all of them. We spoke about the pictures that we were sending over to the funeral home for the video they would be preparing. There’s a head and shoulder’s photo of Mom as a young woman in a print dress, her black, shoulder-length hair in the 1940s style. The photographer is at her right and her gaze is fixed along her right shoulder seemingly unaware of his presence. Another picture also taken in the late 1940s shows the young Mom and Dad sitting side by side on a picnic blanket. Mom has a Mona Lisa smile and Dad a slight grin. Dad recalls the memories associated with each of these two pictures: the first of Mom just arrived in the U.S. and the second he and Mom on a picnic at an Army base in North Carolina. Another photo taken in the late 1950s shows Mom in a black sheath dress, her hair cut short, a serious look on her face. She is looking straight at the camera. This was a picture taken of Mom right after she became an American citizen—her dream had finally been fulfilled. She was a card carrying member of the promised land.

As we talk, our housekeeper, EA moves among us refilling empty coffee cups and removing dishes and silverware no longer being used. We would offer to help but she would refuse, insisting we not bother. EV interrupts the reverie engendered by the photos of Mom we’re going to deliver to the Martin Funeral Home this afternoon, by asking Dad if he had a dark suit to wear to the funeral. He hadn’t, of course. Dad’s formal attire consisted of an assortment of western boots, light brown and beige dress pants, western shirts with bolo tie, and western style suit jackets. None were appropriate for the somber event we were attending on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. It was decided that right after breakfast we would all go to Burlington Coat Factory to find Dad a suit. I was reminded that I had to complete Mom’s obituaries, a brief notice that the El Paso Times publishes without charge for the public record and a longer one that we can run with a photograph of Mom for an additional charge. We have a credit of a couple of hundred dollars that Martin Funeral Home says we can use to pay for the larger notice.

There are two Burlington Coat Factory locations in El Paso. One is at 1144 N Yarbrough Drive and the other at 6020 N Mesa Street. We opt for the Yarbrough Drive location. We climb into Dad’s new white Chevy Uplander—it has less than 2000 miles on the odometer—EV driving, Dad riding shot gun, CB and I in the middle two bucket seats and DD and LC on the bench seat in the back. EV takes Dyer Street south to Monroe Avenue and turns left for a block before merging onto the southbound service road of Highway 54—Gateway Boulevard North. She accelerates off the service road and onto the highway a couple of exits before 54 T’s into Interstate 10, the east-west freeway that runs from the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) in Santa Monica in the west to its terminus at Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, Florida in the east just before 95 heads over the Fuller Warren Bridge for its southward run to Miami. EV takes the McRae Boulevard exit from the freeway and runs along the service road parallel to I-10 until the Yarbrough Drive intersection. Left for a block to another large intersection and right into the Burlington Coat Factory parking lot in front of a discount department store that is easily three-quarters of a block long and close to a half a block deep—store front to rear.

We enter en masse and everyone goes in their own direction, EV and CB taking Dad over to the men’s clothing store. DD and LC are off shopping together and I’m walking about the casual clothing section of the men’s department looking for T-shirts. I had brought enough underwear and socks for a week but had forgotten to pack enough shirts. I found two that I liked then went over to see how Dad was coming. The store had an incredible selection of men’s suits and sports coats and I soon found myself looking at something that might fit me. To my surprise a number of suits, many on sale, caught my fancy and I began trying them on. I found one that fit perfectly and was at a great price. I called IM and told her to forget about bringing any clothes for me as I had found a complete outfit, alterations on the pants cuffs to be completed on Wednesday. Two white shirts, also on sale, two pairs of socks, and a black tie completed the ensemble. My father was not having as much success. EV and CB couldn’t find a suit that had the right pants size to fit him. They opted for a dark sports coat with a slightly lighter pair of dress trousers that provided a good fit. Unknowingly we had spent over an hour in the huge retail outlet and it was close to noon by the time we checked out and headed back home.

We as a culture—perhaps because of mass communications drumming an imperative to shop into all of us—have come to find consolation in making purchases. We shop when we’re happy and euphoric as well as when we’re sad and depressed. All of that pop culture marketing suggesting that our highs can be enhanced and our lows can be raised with a purchase has permeated our psyche; though, my purchase had not had the promised affect on me. Funerals are a ritual with a series of tasks that must be completed to bring closure to a person’s life. It’s intended as consolation for the living and a tribute to the deceased. And after our first meeting with Martin Funeral Home, we had a clear idea of what each of the tasks we had to complete were to achieve the desired end. We had the proper attire for the rosary and funeral service.

EV and CB were continuing to ensure we had notified all those close to my parents of Mom’s passing. They had contacted Mom niece, AN, the daughter of Mom’s older brother Marion, in a suburb of Los Angeles. She plans to attend the services and her nephew wants to accompany his aunt on the plane flight out. He needs a letter from Dad so that his employer will grant him the time off work. Dad signed the letter that EV drafted and she faxed it to the employer. We now begin to plan for housing all the incoming guests. EV is insisting that our sister SY, from Mom’s first marriage, and her husband BB stay with us though they want to stay at a hotel at the airport. After much back and forth, SY and BB agree. With AN and her nephew coming we’ll need two more rooms. DD suggests the solution that works. She and my daughter ME will stay in my parents’ 1950s vintage Airstream trailer parked in the driveway. It’s taken my parents all over the U.S. as well to Alaska and back, but that’s another story. With all the guests invited, we return to our task of getting the obituary written and finalizing the photos to deliver to Martin Funeral Home this afternoon.