Is He Dead?

THE FUNERAL…

“Is he gone?” Elizabeth asks with hope and anger.

“Well, he looks dead, he is in a casket and his hair looks terrible!” Becca replies, knowing Elizabeth knows too.

“His hair, dear God, remember…the perm.” They both say, quietly laughing a little too long. A mix of relief from the past and sadness for what never will be. Becca looks at the casket one more time.

“Where is he?” Elizabeth asks.

ABOVE…

“Where is he, purgatory?”

“Yep, you want him?”

“Uh, no, God.” He responds, “I mean, he is not bad enough for me and not quite good enough for you. He could have done way better by those girls, you know it and I know it. But he was not a terrible human, just a little too dark to be good, to light to be mine.”

“Well, I don’t know. He was terrible to his oldest, kind to the youngest and not great to his wife. Remember when he chased her around the house, yelling and carrying on? I tried to intervene then, but that pesky free will. I tell you; no one would listen. You saw it too, I suppose… Too caught up in the, dare I say, demons?” A smirk crosses his face. “And he drank, devil may care drinking, don’t you think? Drinking to get lost, stay lost, and outrun the past, present and future. I know, I watched it, reached out so many times. I wanted to intervene so badly. Then there was his mother…Well, we can all be saved.”

“Very funny, uh, no not all of us.” He says, they both know better, and agree that hope keeps them both connected to each other. “Well, God, you know, he was caught up in his head, the dreams unrealized, horrible upbringing that he just could not work through, family, the whole of his life was hard, and he just could not find the way to you. That’s what I think. From a generation of suck it up, never admit to pain, and keep moving forward, be a man. Silly now, but here we are. Anyway, maybe joining the Navy, heading to the Korean Conflict to escape was not such a good plan.”

“You think? But you know, sometimes we do as we must.”

THE FUNERAL…

Looking around the room, passing the casket, Becca sees her grandmother sitting a few seats off, to the right. The anger pours out of her, Becca thinks. It always has.

“Hi, gramma, sorry about Dad.”

“Becca, is that you? What are you doing here?” Gramma practically whisper-screams, almost choking on her false teeth in the process. It is almost painful for Becca and Elizabeth to remain calm. But they do, for the moment. They both know this will be a moment they laugh about for many years, but now, stoicism controls them. She was a cruel woman, to them, their mother, and mostly to Dad. No wonder, Becca thinks, Dad could not be anything more than he was. No wonder, Uncle Robert left and never looked back. Becca sees it now, perspective and a few stories to fill in the blanks helped.

“Gramma, is this really the place? Besides, you seem to have lost your teeth. Take good care.” Becca manages a straight face, Elizabeth, turns away, calm as the scent of lavender wafting by. Maybe it did, who knows, but they are both quietly relieved.

ABOVE…

“I’ll get her, I am certain of it! God, what happened to her? She was a beauty, stunning as a young woman, kind to George when they met, but it all fell apart with kids, no.”  

“Ach, I don’t know what happened there, really. I guess she lost her way. I tried to seek her out, but she denied comfort and peace, even to this day. Can’t see past her own nose. Melvin and his siblings were a product of that mess. I could have…I wanted to, but free will, you know.”

“Back to Melvin. God, you know, I don’t think he was evil, not like my guys.” He lets a rare smile of pride cross his lips. “I mean, Hitler, Manson, Jim Jones, remember him, crazy fool. That is some real evil, born and raised that way, nothing you can do about it, evil. But I mean I can take Melvin if you want. I don’t see it, but I have space. “ He stops to reflect, a rare kindness to humans. “You know, I think he has done some good deeds. I mean, look at the girls, they turned out pretty good, all things considered. And I think he’s sorry, sad and unable to speak it.”

“I will speak with him,” God knows and wants badly to save the lost sheep. “Of course, I will take him. He believed in me once…. alcohol stopped that. But he did believe in me…once. He will again…”

THE FUNERAL…

Becca and Elizabeth are walking past the rest of the mourners. Small crowd, people from his work and his longtime friends. And then she comes prancing in like a show pony but teary-eyed, just trying to be seen. Ugh, it is Jamie.

“Dear God, please help us, “Becca prays. Really prays as she somehow feels God is there. Or maybe she just prefers to believe God will help Dad when nothing else would or could.

She knows who Jamie is but has never met her. Dad would call Becca and report on her escapades. Like Dad was being stalked, or something. He never said directly what the relationship was but would say things like; “I had to hide from her” or “I was under the bed, hiding from that woman, again.”  He’d always laugh like it was a joke, and Becca never knew if he was for real, or drinking. She did not ask.

Becca chuckles at the memory of the last call. Dad was drinking a ton, she learned later. She imagined Dad was trying to connect with her on some level. She knew he hoped Becca was a boy, always wanted a son, but fate did not allow that. And Becca knew she would try to be that. She got a degree in criminal justice, hoping to be a cop, and she was. Truly wanting to be a journalist but did not want to disappoint.  Dad never really said he was proud of her but now she thinks these calls were his way of telling her what he could never say. “Hug your gun,” he’d tell her at the end of every call. He loved guns. “Love you,” she’d say. It was their thing.

Jamie makes her way to the casket, high heels, too high for a funeral, well, for anything really, clubbing at 20 maybe. Jamie was far from twenty. And crazy.

Becca looks toward the casket and glances to the left in time to see Elizabeth take a deep breath.

A wail escapes Jamie, a moan soon follows. She practically runs to the casket. Becca’s gotta give her props for running in those heels. Jamie runs and almost trips on gramma but steadies herself and shoves her head into the casket, looks like she is going to eat dad’s face, but instead, she wails again and begins to cry out, “Oh God, why?” and it’s a mess. It’s funny too. God, help us all, Becca thinks.

ABOVE…

“Oh God,” he says laughing so hard he tears up. “Take him, this is a mess!”

“Yeah, I got him. What a mess, no wonder he could not hear me……”

In purgatory no more, Dad breathes for the first time in so many years he believes he has forgotten how….” Am I dead?” He asks.

Then, God’s beautiful, welcoming response, “Yes. You are home.”

“Thank you, God."