Since the last time

I went to a funeral
And Lord, it made me happy,
Seein’ all those people
That I ain’t seen
Since the last time somebody died.

A week ago tomorrow Mother announced that we had to do something soon about JP’s memorial service/funeral/whatever we were gonna do, because it’s been almost five weeks since he died and time was getting away from us.  By Tuesday we had decided to have the service today, and everyone was subjected to a great flurry of email from Mother all week as she made the arrangements, fretting and worrying that she was going to do something wrong and offend everyone, or forget something essential.  (She didn’t forget anything and it all went fine.)  We chose to have a graveside service only, burying part of JP’s ashes at the foot of Dad’s grave (after more than fifty years, the family plot is getting crowded) and reserving the rest to scatter in the Gulf, as he’d wanted.  The ECW had lunch for the family at the parish hall, and a reception thingy after the service with coffee and sweets for anyone who wanted to come back and visit.

We left Austin for Comanche between seven and eight, and drove from Austin to Lampasas in rain that ranged from spray-and-spit to cow-on-a-flat-rock pissing down.  Fortunately, the rain let up at about Lometa and by lunchtime, the sky had cleared and a HUGE wind came up out of the west.  (More about the wind later.)  We were first to arrive, at ten; Dad’s cousin Hayne, whom no one had expected to show up, or had even heard from in forever, arrived from Fort Worth about half an hour later, and C and his partner B showed up from Hurst about eleven, followed by my aunt and her son (my youngest first cousin), who’d driven down from Dallas.  Everyone met at the library, since (1) everyone knows where it is and it’s only a couple of blocks from the church–not that you can be very far from anything in a town that’s only thirty blocks end-to-end, and (2) Mother, being library director, had gone in to work that morning.  C, under B’s influence, had bowed to custom enough to put on a white shirt and tie.  This was a MAjor concession; C worked for IBM back in the days when all their employees had to wear white shirts and ties, and in reaction he now won’t have anything to do with either.

We all stood around and visited in the lobby for a bit, while M conned first one and then another of us into reading to her out of the Easy books, until it was time to go up to the church for lunch (chicken tetrazzini, green salad, rolls and pastry).  After lunch, M and I went out and walked around and through the prayer garden that adjoins the church.  M picked up a couple of dozen pecans; the trees up there made a lot better crop than mine did.  (I’m going to try planting some of them, so see if I can get a replacement for the San Saba and the black walnut going, so it won’t hurt so bad when I finally have to cut them down.)  The garden has a low stone wall around it, and M had a fine time walking along it, several times round as I walked with her—not that I needed to very much, but it makes me feel more secure to do that.

Thirty-some people came to the cemetery.  I think T and M were the only ones there younger than forty; a couple of JP’s classmates, much gone to seed, showed up, but nearly everyone else ranged in age from late fifties to early eighties.  In the thirty years I’ve been gone from Comanche, everyone went and got old on me.  Two or three of them even talked of remembering me at the library in the days when it was in the courthouse basement (before 1970).  M’s almost old enough to begin reading; she can recognize her own name, so she and T walked around the plot until the service began, and M was delighted to find her name spelled out on my aunt’s and great-grandmother’s gravestones.  (M is named for her aunt, who was named for my great-grandmother; we recycle names like that a lot.)  T tried a bit to explain to her that the people in the graves here were all related to her, but I don’t think that registers very much when you’re not-quite-five.

The huge west wind kept blowing; fortunately the sun was out and bright by this time, so it wasn’t miserably cold, only chilly in the shade of the funeral-home tent.  The wind almost took down the tent several times; three or four people took turns holding up the poles to keep it from collapsing on everyone.  I intended to be one of them—being “on display” in the front-row chairs with the rest of the family didn’t appeal—but when the priest called for the family members to come down front, B came back, took my place, and shooed me up to a seat in front between C and L.

St. Matthew’s vicar, who did the service, should be thrown back.  He is in no way a keeper.  He’s inarticulate when it comes to extempore prayer, has no sense of rhetoric, and if he didn’t flunk homiletics in seminary, he should have.  He did no more than go through the motions, and it showed.  He never even mentioned JP’s name, save the one time required in the order of service.  It’s been a while since I was outright disgusted by a religious service or the person conducting it, but this guy managed to do it. 

Not that many people came back to the parish hall afterward, maybe fifteen, but it did give us a chance to visit with a few we’d missed, including Dad’s second wife, who showed up with her son from her first marriage, a great friend of C’s and Mother’s, and who’s done a bunch for her one time and another.  There were also one or two I could personally have done without, including one of JP’s gone-to-seed classmates who considered herself one of his great friends (JP had rather dropped her, and I know why), and one “WTF?”, a quite elderly woman whom none of us could place, and who seemed to have come to the parish hall for the nosh as much as anything else.  As far as any of us could make out, she has some sort of connection to the Cunninghams, on Mother’s side of the family.  Maybe Mother knows who she is.

One thing I got today, that I hadn’t known about, was a copy of an editorial column from the Comanche newspaper back in 1992, when Mother’s mother died.  She and the editor were dear friends, and Mary wrote an appreciation of Gramma’s influence in her life.  I may post it here in a day or so.  Or I may not; no one on here knew my grandmother, so it might not mean much to anyone but me.

C and I have agreed I’m going to go to Arlington the third weekend of February and we’ll do whatever we’re going to do about clearing out JP’s apartment and storage unit.  From what he says, I’ll have to rent a truck to bring back furniture, some of which T wants for her projected move-out to her own apartment next school year.