May 20, 2006 – Preparing for the Rosary

May 20, 2006 – Preparing for the Rosary

Thursday morning arrived on schedule and I woke just before 7:00 AM and went for my run up to the first hill at the entrance to McKelligon Canyon and back. I returned to find Dad reading Mom's obit in the El Paso Times delivered this morning. I read the piece over his shoulder and watched him give way to grief as he lay the newspaper down. I gave him a hug and after he composed himself, I Phowent upstairs to get cleaned up in preparation for what I expected to be a very emotional day. My wife IM and older daughter ME would be taking off within the hour leaving Oakland on Southwest Flight 1162 at 8:40 Pacific Standard Time, arriving El Paso at 1:10 PM with one stop, no change of plane. I would bring them home from the airport to get ready and we would all be going to Martin Funeral Home for the rosary service that would begin at 3:00 and run until the last mourner made their final farewell.

Our sister SY and her husband BB would also be flying in from Oakland leaving on an earlier flight but would be getting their own car and driving themselves to our place from the airport. Theirs would be a brief visit coming in for the rosary today and funeral tomorrow and flying home late Friday afternoon. Life goes on, death notwithstanding: "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me;..." Emily Dickenson. This time Death had stopped for Mom. This week is an uncomfortable hiatus in my otherwise busy life of work and daily routine. I suspect once the collective “we” have raised our offspring as IM and I had, our generation keeps itself busy to forestall the inevitable day when death will stop for us. The incentive for my daily run is keeping a good distance between myself and the grim reaper. I have been managing up to now, but Death is a long-distance runner who will ultimately overtake us all.

We gather around the breakfast table: my niece CB, our youngest sister DD, EV—the older of my three younger siblings, while LC—the middle sister, and EA—the family housekeeper, serve up eggs, bacon, and hominy grits. It’s the standard fare for weekend gatherings. However, this week has become a succession of weekend days, each starting with the family assembled around the breakfast table and talking about the preparations for “this day” and the funeral tomorrow. It’s finally “this day”—the appointed time for the rosary service when Mom gets a chance to visit with all of her friends and well wishers before her funeral—the one catholic ritual that is not among the seven sacraments: baptism, confession, communion, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, and extreme unction. Of the seven Mom missed out on two: holy orders—she was never a candidate for a nunnery—and extreme unction, no priest was by her bedside to pardon any sins she might have had on her soul before death.

Catholics are particular about dying and not receiving extreme unction before your life force escaped your body. In such a state you must bear for eternity any sins you may have committed in life that a priest has not pardoned you from. The most heinous criminal repenting to a priest his evil deeds before drawing his last breath will have his sins removed from his soul, presumably free to enter the kingdom of heaven. The most sainted of beings, having committed a sin without receiving extreme unction before death could be excluded from heaven, languishing in purgatory or relegated to hell for all eternity. This bothered me a bit about the church and my mother’s passing without a priest by her bedside to provide this sacrament. I suspect my frustration has more to do with the guilt I felt not being at Mom’s bedside than the absence of a priest there in my stead.

The chatter around the breakfast table is all about logistics. Who is going in which car? What time we should leave for the funeral home? How many cars will we need? Who is picking up Mom’s friends in El Paso who do not have rides and who will be dropping them off afterwards? Who will pick up Mom’s niece AQ and her nephew FY coming in from California and in which bedrooms she and her son will have in the house. We have been waiting for a call from FY to get their arriving flight information. Unknown to us the two had already made arrangements to stay with Mom’s lone surviving sibling, her brother SQ, who has a house in Mountain View, a few miles north on Dyer and east off Diana Drive.

Unaware of this prior arrangement, my sisters had decided on Wednesday to clear out Dad’s Airstream trailer and make it ready for habitation. DD had volunteered herself and my daughter ME to take up quarters in the 1950s vintage travel trailer. “ME and I will have a swell time, just like we were camping,” DD exclaims. The three sisters then describe who will take which room in the upstairs. The four of us had spent the good part of Wednesday cleaning up in preparation for our out of town guests: SY and BB and AQ and FY. I had vacuumed every inch of exposed carpet in the upstairs and downstairs. The girls had changed all the bed clothes in the three rooms made vacant for incoming guests. We had concluded by tidying up the yard before giving up and ordering take out for dinner, something Mom would not have approved of. “Why are you buying food when we have so much here already,” I could hear her saying. I’m trying to remember how many Dominos pizzas we ordered during the week, appropriate fare for the red wine my sister DD and I had chosen Monday evening at Costco.

The other task we had completed early on Wednesday was collecting the suits Dad and I had purchased at Burlington Coat Factory earlier in the week. We each had alterations done. Both of us needed the waist let out and cuffs put on our pants. Freshly pressed, they now hung in closets waiting to be pulled on in advance of these special services held in Mom’s behalf. As the day inched forward past noon, I found the keys to Dad’s white Uplander and drove out to El Paso International Airport to greet IM and ME. After I parked I enter the main entrance to the airport terminal. The baggage claim area is down the long wide corridor to my left. Airline ticketing counters are down the long wide corridor to my right. Directly ahead is the expansive corridor leading to an up and down escalator to the arrival-departure gates on the second level. Before you arrive at the escalator there is a food court and shopping arcade on either side of the corridor. I get cash from the ATM in front the shops and restaurants on the left side. It costs me $3.50 for this convenience: $1.50 to the owner of the ATM machine, $2.00 to Wells Fargo Bank. Life in the information age of instant access is not fair. I buy myself a double latte at the coffee shop across from the ATM machine. I bide my time before Southwest 1162 touches down sipping my latte and watching the mini dramas take place at the foot of the escalators: sad tears and lingering hugs and kisses for those ascending the escalator en route to departing flights; happy tears and exuberant hugs and kisses for those descending the escalator from arriving flights. The comings and goings of life enacted before me.

IM and ME arrive on time and I take my place at the foot of the escalator playing the part of the happy arriving passenger greeter. I’m relieved and happy to see the two of them, more to share the burden of grief we’ve all been bearing since last weekend. “The flight was smooth and we stopped in San Diego for just under an hour,” IM says. “It’s so nice not having to change planes.” Southwest, the airline everyone loves to hate. I’m reminded of the Woody Allen joke from “Annie Hall.” One woman complains, “such lousy food.” The other chimes in. “Yeah, and such small portions, too.” We small talk while we wait for the luggage carrousel to start depositing checked bags. It finally comes to life and IM’s and ME’s bags are delivered after about half of the waiting passengers have claimed theirs. I collect their two bags and we make our way to Dad’s waiting Uplander.

Outside the airport terminal it is a pleasant winter’s day in El Paso: temperature in the low 70s, a light breeze blowing, the sun shining with not a hint of cloud in the sky. If you listen closely you can hear the sound of birds singing, calling forth the arrival of spring; this above the sounds of the airport—automobile traffic, the whine of jet engines maneuvering to and from terminal gates, the distant roar of jet engines straining to get airborne or the scream of jet engines reverse thrusting to return safely to earth. The life IM and I made for ourselves started in El Paso. For a newly married couple with little spare money after paying the bills, coming to El Paso International Airport and watching the constant coming and goings of planes and people was a wonderful pass time.

We arrive home in time for a late lunch that EA and my sisters have put together for everyone before we take off for the rosary service. Shortly after we arrive my sister SY and BB arrive and join us for lunch. Mom would have been proud of EA for the spread she prepared: a dinner salad and individual dishes of chicken, pork, beef, and vegetables. There was also a full pot of newly made rice: far too much food for even the 11 of us to finish off. The conversation is about the new comers ME and IM and SY and BB. How are the grand kids? SY and BB have two sons, one living with them and the other married with two young girls of their own. How’s GS, ME’s husband coping with being the sole parent for a couple of days? How are our youngest daughter RB and her family doing in Southern California? It’s such a shame she couldn’t be with us. It would have been nearly a full family reunion. Lunch passes quick as it gets close to 2:30 and everyone is becoming anxious about being on time for the start of the service. The dishes are whisked away and we all begin getting ourselves ready.

Just before 3:00 PM, the 11 of us are all getting ready to load into four different cars. SY and BB go on ahead, having driven by the funeral home on their way to the house from the airport. EV and her significant other sergeant major PT, just arrive on leave from his base in Tennessee while we were having lunch, are taking their new blue Corvette—he’s dressed in his uniform.. I’m following them in Dad’s Uplander. IM is riding shotgun while EA and ME are in the two middle seats and my sisters LC and DD are in the back seat. My niece CB is taking Dad in his red Pontiac. It’s less than a ten minute drive and we all arrive just a little after 3:00 PM. The six of us, Dad, my three sisters, my niece CB and me are asked to join our funeral home representative in the conference room where we’ve been assembling from the start. We have some last minute details to discuss. IM and ME, SY and BB, and EA are left alone to visit with Mom and greet any early arriving guests to the rosary service.

We’re assembled around the large conference room table we’ve occupied each time we’ve been here. RM, our pleasant Hispanic service representative at Martin Funeral home joins at the table. He is dressed in white shirt and tie, dark blue dress pants. He explains that Ft. Bliss National Cemetery has contacted the funeral home to say that the original burial plans for Mom had to be changed. She was originally to be buried atop Corrine Ann, our youngest sister who died shortly after birth in 1954. However, the cemetery could not determine the depth at which her casket lay and did not want to disturb her remains. It was determined that she would be buried in a plot adjacent to our sister, which had been set aside to hold the remains of our father. They would now bury Mom there sufficiently deep that Dad’s casket could rest atop hers once the time came. Discussing the intimate details of one’s last resting spot with the same detachment used to arrange the seating for a wedding was disconcerting. Then I realized that after death the deceased could care less about their final resting place. It only mattered to the living. There were no objections to the late change in plans and we adjourned the meeting and joined the rest of the family visiting with Mom. It was a quarter before 4:00 PM and we would have another 15 minutes with Mom to ourselves before we would have to share her with the community of friends who had called to say they would be attending the rosary.