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Tomorrow we have to go to a funeral.
I desperately dread going.
It sounds shallow, but I’ve nothing to wear. That’s a half-truth; nothing I have fits properly anymore. In the back of my closet is a timelessly simple black dress. Once, the wrap-around tie loosely cinched my waist, creating a feminine hour glass silhouette. In the fondness of the dress’s memory, today I’ll excavate it, take a deep breath, and try it on. The fabric will not drape gracefully across my curves, rather it with bunch and bulge over the expanse of my now matronly hips. My reflection will more closely resemble over-yeasted bread dough wrapped too tightly in black Saran Wrap than an hourglass cutout.
Today, I will have to shop.
When I get to the store, a decision will await me: new dress, or slimming shape wear. Due to the loud, 80’s inspired patterns that dominate the racks—none of which exude refined funeral-wear—I’ll be forced to shop for the latter.
A dozen torture garments shall be collected and schlepped into the dressing room, including an unflattering dress that is two sizes too small to gauge exactly how slimming the ugly, tight underwear really is. Corsets, camisoles, unitards, high-waisted-shorts, and singlets that were all created with space-age technology and copious amounts of synthetic fabric. Their labels will tout various claims: muffin-top eliminator, saddle-bag smoother. My favorite will be “easy-up”, because shimmying into those bodysuits will be anything but easy.
As I yank, jiggle, and manipulate the spandex, up, up, up over my muffin-top, saddle-bags, and belly-jelly roll, I won’t be able to stifle the grunts from my fat-strapping contortions, nor will the other women in the dressing room stifle their giggles.
After I finally find the undergarment that best smoothes and smooshes, while still allowing reasonable lung expansion and blood flow to my intestines, I’ll begrudgingly lay down a fifty to pay for it.
Once I am in my car, I’ll scribble notes into my ever-blank checkbook register so that I don’t forget a single hilarious detail before I can find time to get the whole story out of my head.
Because tomorrow we have to go to a funeral.
I desperately dread going.
It’s not that I was especially close to the deceased, or even to those that survive him; he was an in-law to my in-laws. I met him once at a wedding. I will only recognize him because his name will be printed on the little cards with the twenty third psalm on the back. His face, caked with makeup and wax, will not conjure up fond memories or make me shudder at the profound sense of loss. I will hug the family, whisper the expected platitudes, and pat the bereaved hands with trained empathy. But I will not cry.
Not yet. Not with them. Not for them.
But tomorrow night, long after the kids are put to bed, when my husband settles into his rhythmic cadence of gentle snores, only then will the hot tears ruin the coolness of my pillow. I will smell the funeral lilies in my hair, think of the rows and rows of folding chairs, hear the clichéd Scripture verses in my mind...and I will allow myself to revisit my grief. Even after twenty years, the loss of her is not a scar, but a scab; a cycle of forgetting, healing, remembering, and infinite mourning.
When my tears morph into the inevitable sobs that I always fear will wake my beloved, I’ll rise from the warmth and familiarity of my bed and seek out the blue and white glow of my computer. With my pendulum plummeting through its descending arc, I will concentrate on the pain—the eternal, dull ache in my chest—and then carefully twist the source of my grief into something else. I almost never tell my exact story. No, the details must be fabricated to distance myself; without that arm’s length the words are usually stilted. The scenes, the ages and genders of the characters will be generated from thin air, but at its core, the unbridled emotion that will chase me from my bed tomorrow night will be intertwined in every syllable.
And by the time the final word is discovered, and the last period is set in its place, my tears will be dry. I will return to my beloved’s murmured snore—nuzzle against his slumbering warmth—and God willing…sleep.
Tomorrow we have to go to a funeral.
I desperately dread going.
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