Most people say it’s an honor, but your family isn’t most families.
Five years ago, your mother had demanded, “Why?” Behind her, your father and siblings nodded. “Why are you doing this?” She lowered her hands from your newly shorn hair, bound chest, baggy blue jeans, and hiking boots. You could tell she’d rehearsed her big speech. “You know damn well,” she continued, “your Gramps will never understand.”
Back home, alone in your apartment, you’d stripped and stared at yourself in a full-length mirror, breathing until your shoulders relaxed and your posture straightened. Then you reminded yourself that calling out your family’s trap is still falling for the trap.
There will be other snares you must sidestep at your grandfather’s funeral, so follow these tips.
1. Dress Accordingly
Plan for the weather, so you won’t have to borrow one of your grandfather’s coats. There will always be somebody who recognizes it, and there are already too many mourners who are confused by how much more you resemble your grandfather. Why give them another reason to glare at you as the casket is lowered into the earth?
While most won’t speak ill of the dead, the living are always fair game.
2. Keep A Firm Grip
Some pallbearers are surprised by the casket’s weight, whether heavier or lighter than they’d imagined, the distance from the hearse to the grave, or how sweaty, even during winter, their palms may get. Especially when the deceased isn’t the only person getting buried.
In your wool trench coat’s left pocket clink pieces of the coffee mug you’d painted for your grandfather when you were in kindergarten. The same one he always drank from, until the day you told him, “Please, call me Evan.” He’d stood abruptly from the kitchen table, accidentally knocking the mug onto the hardwood floor.
Beyond the cemetery, lightning flashes but no thunder peals. In the strike’s afterimage, you see the gold of Kintsugi, the fault lines of restoration.
3. Understand Your Role
Your inclusion is less about honoring your grandfather than what they stole from you.
Two days before he died, you’d walked into his hospital room, asking, “How are you doing, Gramps?” He tugged at his nasal cannula, mumbling a couple words beginning with “E.”
You ignored the scene your mother was causing, trying to make out what your grandfather was saying, until a nurse escorted you out.
“What did I do?” you asked as the elevator’s doors closed.
The nurse sighed, then said, “He’s been asking for you.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m not,” she said, looking you in the eye.
As you exited the elevator, knowing you’d never see your grandfather again before he shut his eyes for the final time, you prayed he knew how much it meant that he’d taught you how to shoot a bow-and-arrow, catch and clean a fish, and light a fire without a match.
4. Never Give Them a Reason
Your family’s spot-on about one thing, though. If you’re sober now, why carry a flask?
While some of the other pallbearers sneak swigs out of public view, you politely decline. Forget about relapsing, how pathetic would it be to accept a drink from a formerly handsy cousin who jokes, “Not so top-heavy these days, are you, [dead name]?”
He expects you to laugh or chuckle, but you don’t. For too long after your surgery, taking a drink of water felt like lifting a cinderblock and the mere thought of raising your arms above your head crumpled your spine.
Sometimes, though, you need to feel the heft of your flask against your flat chest, so you fill it with hot water. Today, its warmth and weight remind you that the deadliest poison isn’t the one you deny exists, but the one you’ve convinced yourself tastes sweeter than survival.
5. Don’t Let Him Down
To be clear, your family doesn’t need you right now. You’re a prop. But that doesn’t
mean you can’t prove them wrong. What better revenge is there, after all, than finally feeling at home in your body?
Because you were the first grandchild, you are one of the lead pallbearers. When your handsy cousin stumbles to a knee, it takes all of your strength to keep your grandfather’s casket from hitting the snowy ground. Your cousin stands and stares at his shoes. All eyes should be on him, but it doesn’t feel that way.
While you couldn’t say how many farmer’s walks you’ve done at the gym, then as now, you keep your grip firm, your back straight, and your pace steady.
