"The Funeral Pyre That Never Happened"

We're standing in the room where my mother-in-law, Fernanda, sleeps. The furniture in her own room was too big, towering over her, smothering, so she slept here.  And I needed to speak now or forever wonder if I should have.  Fernanda and one of my sisters-in-law, Lena, stood opposite me across the twin bed.  Like a face-off.

“I just wanted to tell you.” I started and stopped, feeling my inferior 25 years, facing this matriarch.  Her mouth was set with hardened grief.  How can a mother prepare to bury her only son? I looked down at the yellowish comforter. 

“Uh. Rob and I just happened to talk about his wishes a couple months ago. You know, in case he died before me.”

The irony.

Fernanda clutched the lapel of her blue housecoat with her left hand. Lena looked nauseous, her face paling while I faltered with what I needed to say next.  My lips for Rob's voice.

“He said he wanted to be cremated.” Fernanda muffled a squeak at my words and swayed.

“He said he wanted to be cremated in the open air, without a box around him, because he didn’t want to be trapped inside. Smothered. He wanted to be free. In the air.” My words stumbled to a stop. Fernanda had her Catholic hand over her Catholic lips. I imagined her thoughts. Her son ... burnt to ash? I didn't understand her visible revulsion, like she was repulsed with my morals. Were Catholics not cremated? Maybe not.

“Well.” I shook my head. I certainly didn’t want to fight for a funeral pyre -- something that wasn’t allowed here anyway. And she was so clearly horrified, I wanted to protect her from anything more traumatic. Though I wished I could honor Rob’s memory, give him exactly what he had wanted. I sighed and looked at the aged comforter again. And then to Fernanda’s eyes.

“It doesn’t matter." But it did. We weren't even married three years.  Maybe I didn't have a say in this. But I should. They knew him much longer than I.  Did they suffer more grief than me?(Snort.) No. Do they have the right to decide what happens to him?  Or do I?  Me.  I was his wife.

But she was his mother.

"We’ll bury him. I’d like a gravesite to visit.” And this much was true anyway.  I felt a twinge of remorse.  Do my wishes mean more than Rob's?  Fernanda and Lena breathed collectively and one of them patted my arm. I looked through the doorway to the hall.

~

Gerry, his other sister, pulled me aside.

“Valerie, do you think Rob would’ve liked to be laid out in his army Class A’s?”

I laughed and covered my mouth at the unexpectedness.

“No. Just his black suit.”

Fernanda, Gerry and Lena packed up a change of clothes for him in an overnight bag – as if this were somehow temporary. I slipped in a photo of the three of us: Rob and me and our daughter, Aubrey. We were sitting in the green throne chair. All of us shmooshed together. Last Easter. All dressed up. I wanted the picture with him, wherever he was going. I left instructions for the restoration artist to have it placed in Rob's breast pocket after he dressed the body.

At the wake, I asked the funeral director for Rob’s ring. I wanted to take that with me. I put it on my right thumb and clenched my hands in one big sweaty fist.  I bent, sobbing over them.

When I picked out the casket, I chose one with gleaming red cherry wood and the "Pieta" at every corner.  I liked how this mother's grief wailed out mine as well.  I didn't know if I wanted to view Rob's body or not.  Did I want to see a pale, grey version of the man I loved?  Would I feel drawn to kiss his stitched-closed lips and forever feel their coldness?  Could I take that as my last memory of him?

In the end the funeral director made that decision for me.  He insisted on a closed casket and I didn't dwell too long on why. I never did see Rob again.  Instead, I had a different last memory.

“Drive careful,” I had told him at the door.

“Always.” He leaned over and kissed me good-bye.

The fire red of his wooden resting place gleamed under the funeral parlor's lights, and a long strand of yellow rosebuds -- strung together to form a rosary -- ignited the top, so much like the pyre he wanted after all.

I love you. Always.

Angels Among Us

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

--inspired by an Eskimo legend.

"Angels Among Us"

by Valerie Willman

3243 words

My friend's son fell from a two story window onto the gravel below in the summer of 2000. She held his screaming body down in case of spinal cord injury, until the ambulance came.  Earlier that week I received a sample copy of "Angels on Earth" in the mail.  I wondered why  - a magazine I didn't order and had never heard of - because I believed things happened for a reason.  I told Maria it was because of Justin's accident.  Angels must have been with him to slow his fall.  But it turns out the magazine was for me.

~

On Wednesday, Aubrey and I walked through the beige hall down to Stacey's apartment door.  Well, I walked and Aubrey toddled.  Do twenty-two-month-olds walk yet?

"Here we are."  I pointed to the door.  "Do you want to knock?"

She did and we heard Stacey's muffled, sing-song voice.

"Open the door, Aidan."  

Aidan grasped Aubrey's hand and dashed her off to his bedroom.  Stacey held the dining room chair for support and her other hand possessively stroked her belly.  I shooed her back to the couch.

Aidan and Aubrey were six months apart in age and made good playmates and I was here to cheer up Stacey.  She was bedridden and pregnant with her second child.  Rob and I had been trying at the same time, only I wasn't there yet.  

Candles and miniature framed photos lined the entertainment center.   I sat on the carpet below the couch and the TV was set low to one of those hideous talk shows she watched.  Aidan and Aubrey squealed from the bedroom on his PlaySkool slide.

"Maybe I'll try another pregnancy test," I said.  She knew about the last one.  "Did I tell you about my weird period?"

"No."  She shifted on the blue sectional and gestured towards the fan in the window.  I pulled the drape back to expose the open window a bit more and crawled back to my seat on the floor. Massachusetts had mean humidity in the summer and August 2000 was no exception.

"I had my period and then two weeks later I had another one."  I made a face and Stacey mirrored it.  

"So I don't know when to take the next test.  Do I count from the first period or the second weird one?  I didn't even bleed that long -- like two days.  If I count from the first one, I  could take another one now.  If I'm counting from the second one maybe I'd be ready for another one -- but probably not."

"I'd wait until Friday and take one then."

"But I want to take one now."  I smiled, not at all ashamed of my impatience.

After visiting for a few hours, Stacey asked if we'd stay to dinner.

"I can't.  Rob visited Monday night and left a note saying he might make it home tonight for dinner."  

"Monday?"

"Yeah.  He came home from The Cape to visit me."  I rolled my eyes and shook my head.  "I always have school on Monday nights. Why would he forget that? But while he was home he got a chance to give Aubrey a bath and had dinner with his mom."

"Is he enjoying himself?"

"Yeah.  He gets to play soldier, practice at the rifle range and hone his survival skills."  I struck a warrior pose.  "I talked to him on the phone yesterday and he said his squad was dropped into the swampy woods and they found their way out, thanks to a refresher course in navigation."

~

"Come on, Aubrey.  Sleepy, sleepy."  I walked her around the room, alternately swinging or bouncing her in my arms to induce sleep. Rob hadn't made it home for dinner after all. I sighed; oh well.  He didn't promise.  The note just said he'd try.  I hummed to Aubrey and walked another 1/116 of wax off the wood floors in the path in-between my and Rob's bed and the crib.  

Our bedroom, that the three of us shared, was crammed with furniture.  Our modest 10x10 room held a queen-sized bed, a crib, a vanity table with mirror, and two dressers.  Also a diaper genie and two end-tables with lamps.  The window and closet took up most of two walls and we were left with eighteen inches to walk around the bed to get from one side of the room to the next.  

"Hush little baby ..."  "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home ...."  "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ..."  "Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomorrow I'll miss you ..."  This child was never going to fall asleep.  

Singing wasn't doing it for her tonight.  Aubrey fussed and wiggled; too hot for my arms.  Fine.  I laid her in the crib and, drapes closed against the summer sun at 8pm on an August Wednesday, I laid across the foot of my own bed and cooed from a distance.

I woke at 10pm and felt foolish for succumbing to sleep so soon.  I remembered my disgust at my mom going to bed at 8:30pm when my sisters and I were young.  Fernanda wasn't home from her swing shift yet and Rob was, of course, still at A.T. at Cape Cod.  It was just Aubrey, blessfully now asleep, and me.

I went to pee and recalled Stacey's suggestion to take the test on Friday.  Impatient, I pulled the box out from underneath the bathroom sink.  There was one test left; I'd tried the other one last month.  I opened the new test stick and followed the instructions.

Is that a line?  The skin around my eyes crinkled and pulled. "Perhaps perhaps perhaps" as the Cake song went.

I snuggled back into bed, this time under the covers and without jeans on, and wondered how to tell Rob.

A doorbell rang through fuzzy sleep and I looked at the clock.  1:00 a.m.  Rob?  I flipped back the covers and pulled on Rob's navy robe.  It was closer than mine.  I rushed down the green shag carpeted hall to the door that led to the garage and opened it.  Fernanda beat me to the door. It was Rob.

He stepped through the white screen door that always slammed too hard and hugged his mom.

"Ay!  Why are you here?"

"To see you."  A big smile.  White teeth against his dark Portagee skin, black hair and sooty lashes. 

They embraced warmly.  I smiled at Rob over Fernanda's shoulder.  He smiled back and his eyes spoke of tenderness.  Fernanda got one more smooch and happily padded downstairs to her section of the house.  

Rob and I retired to the bathroom.  It was our favorite place to talk.  Many heartfelt confessions had been revealed at two, three or four a.m. in that blue and white tiled bathroom.  The noisy and annoying overhead fan was perfect for private conversations.  Even though we had our own living space, privacy was still an issue while we lived with Rob's mom.  So that was where we talked.  And that was where I told him we were pregnant.  After eight months of trying we finally had number two on the way.

Rob yawned.  We stood in the kitchen.  I handed him a travel mug to drink from in the Explorer.

  

"Why go now?  It's almost two in the morning.  Just stay the night and drive back to the base in a few hours.  Sleep now."  I pulled at his jacket and pleaded.  I missed him and a forty-five minute visit in the middle of the night wasn't as satisfying as you'd think.

"I can't. "  He smiled with that knowing smirk.  "I'd never wake up in time for formation."

I drooped.  He was right.  We walked to the door and I hugged him again.

"Drive safe."

"Always," he said.  He looked down at me with his additional five inches.

"You have to, because you have us to think of.  Me and Aubrey.  And another one now, too."  I added the last bit quickly, as if to convince him to stay after all.

His head cocked and joy lit up his face.  Brilliance and love.

"That's right!"  Remembering.  Though how could you forget.

"I love you, " I said.  He walked through the door and as I closed it behind him I sang the words of Alabama:

Oh I believe there are

angels among us.

Sent down to us

from somewhere up above.

They come to you and me

in our darkest hours,

to show us how to live, 

to teach us how to give,

to guide us with the light of love.

I swayed down the dark hall and climbed back in bed smiling.  Rob knew.  We were pregnant. And our beautiful baby girl was still sleeping beside me in the crib.  Life was wonderful.  

And then I woke up.

~

The five a.m. knock at the door sent fingernails of dread scratching on the blackboard of my mind.   Funny how the one a.m. doorbell didn't scare me but the five a.m. knock did.  I stumbled to the window and saw a flashlight beam shining in the dark.  Three uniforms appeared from the shadows; stiff navy blue fabric held the men rigid.  It was Thursday, August 17, 2000.

"Mrs. Gomes-Pereira?"

"Yes,"  I said.  My lips felt dry.  I clutched Rob's robe tighter around me.   

"May we come in?"

Rob's mother had followed me into the parlor.  

"Who is it?  Who's here?" she demanded in Portuguese accent.

I felt dazed.  I knew there were here because of Rob.  I grappled with the screen door lock.

Nothing was said, the silence shouted at me, and I watched the somber faces file into the dining room.  The face in the back closed the door.  The one in front, a mustached man of fifty, held up a scrap of paper.

"Does Robert Gomes-Pereira live here?"

"Yes," I whispered.  My legs betrayed me and I flopped onto the computer chair, facing the trooper.

"I don't know how to tell you this, ma'am, but there's been an accident and he didn't make it."

My breath raggled to a stop.  I looked at each of the three Massachusetts uniformed state troopers one at a time.  My brain couldn't take these words and make sense of them.  They just floated and rolled in the waves like soggy driftwood.  Through blurry eyes I saw Fernanda bend over and stumble.  Grief punched her in the stomach.

"My poor boy.  My beautiful baby!"  Fernanda wailed.  She lunged at the telephone receiver and stopped.  Horror.

"The number!  What's the number?  Why can't I ...  I don't remember ..."  

I knew she meant Gerry's, of course.  I recited the phone number and looked over at the green pseudo-suede parlor sofa and the "throne" chair that Rob would never inherit from his mom.  He died first.

"Do you want us to stay until someone get here for you?"  The mustached trooper stepped forward, the forgotten scrap of paper still in his hand.

"My sister-in-law is coming." I could see the troopers getting restless, wanting to leave this suffocating haze of grief before them, but I wanted to know what happened.  The two younger men shifted their hats and cleared their throats.

The man with the mustache was talking again.  I looked into his apologetic eyes and struggled to understand.  He was saying something about the accident.  I tried to listen but a tiny green fuzz nestled between his shirt collar and neck distracted me.

"...but it appears he fell asleep driving.  He hit an exit signpost on Route 25."

A wave rose from my stomach to my throat.  I swallowed and shut my eyes.  No tears came, but I heard crying.  It wasn't me; it was Aubrey.  I hurried to lift her out of the crib, grateful to escape the nothingness in the parlor.

Aubrey's thick toddler hair was damp from the sweaty room but despite the humidity she clung to me as if scared.  Another clunk in my throat.  Can she know already?

Fernanda sobbed something in Portuguese.  She reached for Aubrey but Aubrey appeared frightened what with all the tears and sounds coming from her beloved Vavo.  She clung instead to me.  And grateful, I buried my nose deep in her hair and crooned softly in her ear until the uniformed faces left.

~

Wearing Rob's robe, I stared at nothing.  Somewhere in the back a TV sang inappropriately cheery songs to occupy the innocent Aubrey.  Fernanda shuffled back and forth moaning and praying under her breath.  I looked at the floor.  I have to call my mom.  I need to do it now before I collapse.  It was time.  I blinked at the phone.  Sandpaper eyes.  My right index finger dialed the number; I stared at its ragged cuticle.

This isn't real, I promised myself.  The answering machine picked up.  It was 2:30 a.m. in Oregon.  Should I leave a message?  What would I say?  'Hi Mom, Call me back.  Rob's dead?'

I shook my head and took a deep breath.

"Mom?  It's Valerie.  Are you awake?  Wake up.  I need to talk to you."  I waited, holding my breath, hiding in the dark of our bedroom.

"Hello?  Valerie?  I couldn't find the phone ..."

"Mom!"  I was so relieved that she was truly there, the word just gushed out.  "Mom.  Rob died this morning -- in a car accident."  My throat burned and felt like something was stuck in my windpipe.  Darkness burned the edges of my mind, curling them like charred paper.  I started to shake and finally a few tears came.  But not nearly enough to dislodge the huge boulder pressing at my lungs, invading my throat and initiating the gag reflex.

Mom worked great in a crisis.  I knew this.  All my life I always saw my mom take on a billion tasks at a time and succeed at everything she did.  It was a rather daunting example to follow actually.  But I knew that when I called my mom, she would know exactly what to do.

I didn't really hear anything she said on the phone.  Only the part:  "I'll be there.  I'll figure it out and call you back in a few hours.  I love you."

~

I drifted downstairs aching for Aubrey, so beautiful, so oblivious.  I ached for Rob, too.  I missed him already.  Is he really gone?  What am I going to do now?  

I wanted to grow old with Rob.  

We just got our passports in the mail. We planned to go to France and Germany in the spring. A sour feeling rose within me.  The European family trip was only one of many unfulfilled dreams that he and I would never get to do.  Our family was broken.

Where would I go now?  Who would I belong to?  Where would I fit in?  

A door slamming and a flurry of steps interrupted my thoughts.

"Mom?!  Valerie?!"  Thud, thud, thud down the steps.  I looked around the corner to Rob's two sisters, Gerry and Lena, weeping and snuffling down the stairs.  Their extreme emotion acted as a catalyst and I burst into tears on the sight of them.

Embracing and leaning into them, I sought comfort.  We wept together and then they turned to their mother.

Slowly more family arrived to share condolences and grief.  Some brought me comfort and strength where I had none.  Some came in an outpouring of grief and I splashed into the waves and cried, too.  I felt small relief from these tears, though.  It was never enough.

Why can't I cry?  Really cry.  These little wimpy tears don't mean anything.  Why am I not thrashing around and sobbing like everyone else?  Shock?  I felt weird and unsettled by it.  It couldn't be shock though. If a person's in shock, they're not supposed to know about it, right?

Portuguese families are big.  They are full of noisy, overbearing, loving and helpful people.  I relied on this aid; I leaned into it.  Uncle Louis stepped in to handle some of the phone calls and family affairs and I was relieved.  No one had to ask him, he just did it. 

Like when I got the call from Rob's unit looking for him.  I explained that he died that morning and the caller was so incredulous she asked me to repeat myself three time.  Fed up, I shouted in the phone, "He's dead!" and Uncle Louis stepped up to finish the call. 

Other offers of help mercifully came in.  Lena asked about food, knowing of my pregnancy, and a dry bagel materialized.  Gerry offered to take Aubrey home with her to be with the cousins.

"She's so little that I'm worried all the somberness and tears might be frightening for her.  But whatever you think best.  Whatever you want, Valerie."

At first I said no.  Selfishly I wanted her warm, live body close by because Rob's was so clearly not.  But an hour or so later I changed my mind.  It would be better, healthier, for Aubrey to not be there.

That morning, after Aubrey and most of the family had left, I made my way to the shower.  I know with certainty that now, alone, I would be able to cry those real tears.  It would come, I knew.  

Rob was my soulmate.  We had both known it and felt it from the very beginning.  The day we met we shared a pizza and conversation.  The next week we started dating.  Three months later we were married and exactly one year later, on our anniversary, our daughter was born.  We were so closely linked in spirit we often thought thoughts at the same time.  Of course I would cry!  But alone in the dark, the real tears still did not come.

What am I going to do now?  How am I going to live without you? I asked the wall.  I felt no anger, only sorrow and emptiness. I felt as if I were perpetually holding my breath.  It doesn't matter how.  I just have to.  For Aubrey.  For the new baby.  

With water pounding my skin and the shower mists blanketing me, I began to pray, "Dear God, Whoever you are, please.  Please give me strength and courage to make it through this day."  I shuddered to think what would follow 'this day'.

Dripping, I stepped over the side of the porcelain tub.  Water soaked into the cotton bathmat. Reaching for a towel, I caught sight of a lone sunbeam shining through the slats of the blinds.  It was a strong beam; bright and steady in the dark room.

Awed, I whispered, "Thank you, God.  I know you are here."  I dried off in silence.  I joined the house of mourners with renewed strength.  Still with heavy heart and full of sorrow, yes, but with a quiet strength inside me.  For the moment at least.  But that was all I had asked for, strength and courage for the day.

"Oh, I believe there are angels among us.  Sent down to us from somewhere up above.  They come to you and me in our darkest hours ..."

A journal entry dated 8-17-2001 (one year death anniversary)

Grief - Courage - Memories - Love  (8/17/2001)

It is one year today.  I just lighted four candles in a ceremony I hope to carry on for many more times.  I think Aubrey and I and Joey will appreciate it as a sacred ritual to remember you.  A special memorial, and then we can talk about special memories.  I'm going to see if I can get a video done of you with all the pictures I have of you and movie footage, too.

I need to say my thoughts out loud so I have a better chance of remembering them.

I miss you being proud of me.  I miss you holding me.  I miss you loving me.  Everyone I was around today at the rehearsal dinner was married.

Seeing the picture video of Leslie and Joey tonight made me miss you so much.  All the shots of Leslie and Joey kissing and the look of love they have for each other -- I remember that from us and I wish that it still was.

I miss you.  It will never be right again.  How can I find the gift I know is there?!  Where is the lesson?  Help me find it before I am ravaged by these strong feelings -- this emotional current that is dragging me under the sea of life, ripping my bleeding heart on the coral reef of love.

I wouldn't give up my life with you, my memories.  But this emptiness and hollow void can't be filled until I meet up with you again.  I want to make you proud.  But I feel weak at the same time.

I wanted that life that we dreamed about.  I wanted that big porch and sitting on the rocking chairs as we grow older, watching our children playing in the yard.

I'm holding my breath watching the candles flicker half-terrified, half-hopeful they will blow out.

I want to immortalize you but you are already immortal.  I want to enshrine you but how can I move on?  I don't want to move on.  It seems so final, like I can never think of you again if I date another.  How do I find a man that loves children -- that will love our children? I know you'll be proud of me if I raise our kids to be respectable adults; if I cater to their brilliance and find schools that will do the same.

I want to see the clouds rolling by because then I know the whole world hasn't stopped because I am in anguish.  I hear crickets chorusing around me and I remember that life is eternal; it does not stop.  It is ever evolving and revolving.

Randy gave me strength today.  I am reminded of those who still care and want me to continue to fight to live.

Haze -- I should listen to the lyrics again.  Everything -- friends, movies, songs, predicaments -- all have new meaning as a widow.

Three are out.  The last struggles.  

One year.

A lone plane engine rolls in the distance.  Birds sound so mean here, indignant of being roused from sleep.  Or is it bats?  

Hospitality.  Thankfulness.  Grateful.  

The orange kitten padded softly across the kitchen floor as I tried not to think of bats.  The last candle blows out.  The breeze ruffles my hair and caresses my skin.  I don't want to go in.  I want to stay outside in the dark and feel Rob's presence or hope to.  Sometimes I think he must be too busy to visit but other times I know he is here.  I don't want to face questioning glances tonight.  But I must go in to see if Joey or Aubrey need me and besides the candles are out, I can't really see the page, what if those are bats? and I don't want to push too deep tonight because of the time commitment.  

Am I still being responsible if Aubrey or Joey need me and I don't want to stop a 'therapy cleansing session in mid-epiphany'?  So I won't start.  

But one question (request actually):  Please Rob, will you stay with me tonight?  I miss you -- I miss us, that's the truth.  

The crickets sound like they are fighting.  I smell left-over BBQ exhaust fumes, grass and dirt.  I love it.  I am in Kentucky.  If my mom moved here -- I would move to Mass.  I miss Gerry and Lena and Maria and everyone else.

The sky is always changing.

Please help me, Rob, to point me in the right direction to bring me to the next highest and best part of my life.  And so it is.

When does the war end?

I love you, Rob.  I can't wish you a happy anniversary.  Not this year.  Maybe next.  I hurt.