June 13, 2006 – The Funeral

June 13, 2006 – The Funeral

It’s just before 7:00 AM on Friday February 3rd, 2006. I wake and get out of bed quietly so as not to disturb my wife IM sleeping peacefully still. She’s a light sleeper. I don my running suit and slip on my ASICs running shoes. As I’m about to leave the corner bedroom on the second floor of the house the board underfoot near the bedroom entrance creaks and IM asks if I’m off for a run. I say, “I’ll be back by 8:00,” and creep quietly downstairs to avoid waking any of the others still sleeping. I make my way up Harrison Street in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of El Paso, Texas as I’ve done all this week keeping my mind busy with the monotony of my rhythmic footfalls and intake and exhale of breath. As I climb Harrison’s steady incline, I’m vaguely aware of my quickened heartbeat and I strive to find the pace that synchronizes me with the pulse of El Paso. The rhythm is not as frenetic as LA nor as manic as Manhattan, more like a regular double time military march cadence.

By the time I return from my morning run into McKelligon Canyon just west and north of Harrison, Dad’s house is abuzz with activity as everyone prepares for the funeral service later this morning. I greet Dad, who is sitting at the small breakfast table in the kitchen and his housekeeper EA and my middle sister LC both preparing breakfast for the awakening guests. LC asks how far I ran; I reply; she smirks a smile, which I return; and I bound up the stairs to get a shower and clean up for breakfast. I greet my older half sister SQ and her husband BB who are coming out of their room and heading downstairs. I pass IM as she too heads for the dining room downstairs. I quickly shower and get into the suit that I purchased at Burlington Coat Factory on Tuesday this week and join the others already enjoying their breakfast. My sister EV and niece CB have arrived and, we’re soon joined by PS, EV’s Sergeant Major significant other. My daughter ME and youngest sister DD both spent the night in my father’s 1950s vintage Airstream and have also joined the breakfast gathering.

The room is filled with nervous energy as everyone senses that the day has a timetable all its own and as a group we’re responsible for keeping to the schedule. It is my mother’s last day among us, which she planned years before by purchasing a funeral package from Martin Funeral Home on Montana Avenue. It was there she spent last night in the coffin of her choice. As a child my mother chided her uncle—who raised her with his daughter in Manila—for sleeping in the coffins of the funeral home which he managed. She said it frightened her to see him there. Now, she was resting peacefully in a coffin of her own, waiting for us to arrive and take her to her final resting place. The funeral home limos arrive promptly at 9:00 AM and park in front of my father’s home. The pallbearers climb into the first of the two, minus my brother DG and uncle SQ who plan to meet us at the funeral home. The rest of the family; Dad, my wife IM, daughter ME, youngest sister DD, and Dad’s housekeeper EA; pile into the second limo and we’re off on a slow drive to the funeral home. The 3-mile drive takes more than the six minutes the Yahoo maps claims, but then again, it’s during rush hour on a Friday.

My brother Danny, his wife, daughter, and mother are already at Martin when we arrive as is my uncle SQ and his wife, Mom’s cousin and her son. My elder sister SY and her husband BB arrive just after the two limos pull into the garage occupying the center of building housing Martin Funeral Home. As we disembark, I realize that the garage, which we entered from the rear has a front door that provides access onto Montana Avenue. Our limo pulls up near the front entrance and a hearse pulls in behind us. The limo carrying the rest of the family is parked out back. The rear overhead door closes behind the hearse and we file into the chapel on the west side of the long building where last night we held the rosary. The other chapel—the funeral home has two—on the east side of the building could likewise be accessed from the garage. We each file by and pause before Mom’s casket. I touch her hands and face and despair at how cold she feels, flesh without life, a body without its spirit. Once everyone has assembled and have paid their respects, the pall bearers; my brother DG, EV significant other PS, my uncle SQ, sister LC, niece CB, and I; are pulled aside and given instructions on handling the casket. As we load the casket into the hearse, the forward pall bearer lifts the casket onto the skid of the hearse, then takes the middle handle from the bearers in the center, and the handle at the end until the entire casket is within the vehicle. The process is repeated in reverse when the casket is extracted from the vehicle at the church and at the cemetery. When carrying the casket, each bearer grasps the handle with one hand or two then walks in lockstep with the forward bearers.

As the time nears for us to leave for Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church at the intersection of Byron Street and Truman Avenue, we each say our final goodbye to Mom and the funeral home attendants close the casket. Mom and Dad’s housekeeper EA cannot contain her grief and breaks down in convulsive sobs, which unleashes torrents of tears from the rest of us, who were bearing up stoically. The pall bearers then take positions on either side of Mom’s casket. DG and PS are at the head, my sister LC and niece are in the middle and my uncle SQ and I are at the end. We lift the casket from its stand and a funeral home attendant at the rear of the casket wheels the stand from beneath and then grasps the handle at the casket’s end while an attendant at the head of the casket grasps the handle at the casket’s other end and the eight of us glide in lock step to the rear of the hearse. When the casket forms a right angle at back of the hearse, the attendant at our end, SQ, and I side step sideways in a clockwise arc until the casket is aligned to be lifted into the hearse. We execute the loading maneuver as practiced and the attendants lock the casket into place. Afterwards the rear overhead garage door is raised, the pall bearers climb into the forward limo and the family take their place in the limo behind the funeral home. When everyone seated, the front overhead garage door is raised and we see three motorcycle policemen, their lights flashing and their siren beginning to sound halting traffic on Montana.

As our limo pulls into the four-lane street heading west, one of the three motorcycle patrol pulls ahead of us clearing traffic. We’re followed by the hearse and the rear limo as well as several cars carrying others in the funeral procession. As our motorcade reaches North Copia Street two blocks west of the funeral home, the lead patrolman has stopped in the middle of the intersection halting traffic in all four directions. As we reach the intersection, our driver turns right and one of the other two motorcycle patrolmen zooms past us and takes up the lead as the motorcade heads north on Copia. At each intersection with a traffic light on Copia, the patrolmen repeat the procedure of halting traffic to allow the motorcade to pass through without stopping.

We’re traveling a street I’ve walked, ran, and ridden my bicycle, Vespa motor scooter, and car over countless time growing up and as an adult passing the avenues—La Luz, Hueco, and Clifton—then crossing Pershing Drive after Copia bends northwesterly. The two avenues Douglas and Bisbee are followed by Morenci Road before we begin crossing avenues again: Aurora, Lebanon, Louisville, Richmond, Altura, Savannah, Frankfort, Memphis, and Nashville. Off to our right is Austin High School, where I spent three years of my young life. The avenues resume with Mobile, Sacramento, Hamilton, Idalia, and Porter. As a student, I crossed these avenues on foot countless times rather than ride the bus home. The avenues are interrupted as we cross Fort Boulevard next before resuming again on the other side with Morehead, Nations, and Mountain. These are followed by all the avenues named for U.S. presidents: McKinley, Jackson, Jefferson, and Monroe, which is a one-way street eastbound. The motorcade turns right off Copia onto Monroe and heads east one block to Byron Street where it turns left and resumes its northward trek past Van Buran—one way heading west—and crossing two-way president-named avenues thereafter: Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and finally Truman where the motorcade turns left into the parking lot of Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church.

Over the course of my life, this church has meant many things to me. As a young adolescent it was my introduction to Catholicism, where I received by first Holy Communion. It was also where our youngest daughter, RD, was baptized and a couple of decades later where she was first married and IM and I had our vows renewed. The renewal was important to Mom, since IM and I were married in a civil ceremony at my parents’ home in the latter half of the sixties. Now, as we pallbearers with two Martin Funeral Home attendants grasping the front and rear of Mom’s coffin glide from the side of the church, up the handful of steps to the foyer of the church where a wheeled carrier waits to take Mom from our grasps. As we rest the coffin on its carrier, Father Ben, a priest well-known to Mom and to us all is there to drape the coffin with a ceremonial white shroud. Afterwards, we pall bearers walk alongside the casket as it makes its slow procession to the foot of the alter. Once the casket had come to rest, we take our places in the front pew on the left side of the church and Father Ben began the mass.

A catholic mass is a ritual. Ours began with NT on the organ leading the congregation in a hymn that I cannot remember. Father Ben directs his congregation to open the hymn book to a page and he nods his head at NT and we begin to sing. When the hymn ends Father Ben leads in making the sign of the cross—fingertips on the right hand to the forehead, then left shoulder and right shoulder), while he says, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", to which the congregation answer: "Amen." At some point later in the mass, I recall Father Ben saying, “Hear my prayer; unto thee all flesh shall come.” The congregation, far wiser than me in the ritual—responds, “Kyrie eleison; Christe eleison; Kyrie eleison” (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy). We’re then told to open our hymnals to another page and NT—she plays piano and organ very well—leads the congregation in song.

When NT’s organ goes silent, Father Ben says, “The Lord be with you.”
The congregation replies, “And with thy spirit.” Then Father Ben resumes,
“Let us pray. O almighty and everlasting God, we humbly beseech Thy majesty; that as Thine only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in the substance of our flesh, so too Thou wouldst grant us to be presented unto Thee with purified souls. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God Forever and ever.” When the prayer concludes I see Father Ben beckoning my daughter ME, who dutifully walks to the lectern in front of our column of pews where Father Ben awaits. She has a bible in her hands and announces that she will read and identifies the scripture she will recite. Looking out over the congregation she begins her recitation. When she completes the short reading she turns the pages of the bible to another marked spot. She announces the scripture she will recite then begins her reading. When she completes her recitation, she turns and nods to Father Ben and resumes her seat in the pew across the aisle beside her very proud mother, IM.

Father Ben is a loveable priest and he often visited Mom and Dad or they would visit with him at his sister’s home on Truman Street. He was more family than a family friend. Today, standing at the lectern he wanted to let the congregation know of the bond that existed between he and my mother, whom he kept calling Manang (affectionate title which means “older sister in the Ilocano dialect of the Philippines) Neda—my mother’s pet name used by all her friends. He then announces without preamble that he wants to sing a cappella the song that reminded him most of her “Mama.”

Mama, I miss the days
when you were near to guide me,
Mama, those happy days
when you were here beside me.

Safe in the glow of your love,
Sent from the heavens above,
Nothing can ever replace
The warmth of your tender embrace.

Oh, Mama, until the day
that we're together once more,
I'll live in these memories
Until the day that we're together once more.

I loved it, watching this man that I had never seen so completely and utterly spontaneous bursting into song with no musical accompaniment, his strong voice—honed from years saying the mass—booming the heartfelt lyrics, on key, and with the happy uplifting delivery that Connie Francis would have applauded. Father Ben, it dawned on me, was celebrating Mom’s life. And for the first time all week, I realized that’s what we should all be doing. But, you could tell the song was far too upbeat for the congregation who had come prepared for an hour of somber prayer and meditation. Nevertheless, there were those among us who were enjoying Father Ben’s indulgence including my sisters LC and across the aisle my sister DD and wife IM and daughter ME, were all smiling. And I know Mom was smiling too.