“You should always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t come to yours.” ~ Yogi Berra
I’ve been exposed to dead people my whole life. As a high school and college student I worked in a cemetery. Perhaps that course was set after a run of childhood vacations spent chasing down dead people. Then again, maybe it all started when I was 4 years old and my family left me at the funeral home.
You know that feeling when you can’t find your kid but you’re pretty sure you left them somewhere in the house or the store or the water park? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about you may be a helicopter parent.) Well, my mom got to have that experience about ten minutes after driving the family away from a funeral home. With a dead person there.
Come to think of it, those old wagons kinda look like hearses.
For my part, I remember wandering around looking for the people that I had arrived with. They were the same people I had spent my entire four years with–one mom, one aunt, two sisters, one grandma and her twin sister. That was the whole list, so I didn’t need long to deduce they weren’t there. The pack had moved on in our cursed beloved station wagon and left me there.
You would be amazed at what 4 year olds are equipped to deal with (or remember for that matter). As the situation sank in, I realized how dark this particular establishment was. When you’re little, dark rooms can be intimidating. Strangers are also on the “stay away from” list. The deceased in this case wasn’t even a family member so the people there were unfamiliar to me. Losing your family can also be stressful. If you combine all that stuff and then throw a dead person into the middle of the room, you could imagine my reaction. I ended up at the other end of the building in front of a massive window with sunlight pouring in. Who knows when the sobbing had begun.
Some teenager found me and calmed me down. I’m sure he explained that my family hadn’t left me to live in the funeral home with dead people who would eat me by nightfall. By the time my family pulled up in front of the place, me and that guy were just hanging out on the front steps.
I guess it sounds pretty bad, but what’s an afternoon of tears compared to a lifetime of laughter? And therapy. I’m kidding. Writing is my therapy. One of the things I love most about my mom is that she never failed to see the humor in this situation. As I grew up and we occasionally reminisced about that day with laughter, I knew my future kids were doomed. Try getting sympathy from a dad who was left with a corpse as a toddler.
It really was an honest mistake. You’ve seen those station wagons from the 80s. We had an acre of space behind the backseat and no seatbelt laws. My older sisters apparently indicated that little brother was somewhere back there and off the family had rolled.
I kind of understood when the Griswolds put dead Aunt Edna up on the luggage rack.
We went on many trips in those family wagons. Vacations were so great as we rolled along highways day after day in search of America’s finest sites, mostly the places where dead people had lived. I’ve seen the homes of far more dead presidents than you could imagine, even the beds they died on and the chamber pots they, well, you know. My sisters and I recreated history by getting yelled at in the exact same spot where Abe Lincoln beat his kids.
A lot of people, especially my students, find these family trips a little, well, terrible. Didn’t we ever play in sand and surf? We just weren’t a beachy family although I do remember going to Virginia Beach one year. We put on sun screen and went into the wax museum on the boardwalk. The typical celebs like John Wayne and the Queen were there. We never actually touched the Atlantic Ocean.
Those wax figures in museums kind of feel the same as dead bodies. Like most kids, I feared what might happen if I reached out and touched the dead person in the casket. Maybe they would grab me or yell at me. I’m not sure what the fear really is there, but it must have something to do with getting close to death. Instinctively we just know that a gap in space and time is being bridged. Also, there’s the threat of zombie mayhem.
Maybe I became a history professor because I’m so interested and/or comfortable around dead people. As a historian, I basically study dead people for a living, but I love to go where they went and see what they saw. Then maybe I can understand what they thought or, best of all, feel what they felt. It’s as close to time travel as we can get. If I could go back in time I would swing by that funeral home and give little me a big hug. Then I would leave him there with some words from my mom. One day you’ll thank me. Thanks mom.
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I’d love to hear your stories too, even if you need to work through some issues. Follow me on Twitter @eduClaytion.
Oh my word, I just couldn’t help but snicker when I read this.
Also …
I can picture the “family wagon” and the resemblance to a hearse.
Thankfully we never had those cars over here, the closest thing was a type of VW.
Well written!
That’s the great thing about family memories. No matter where we come from they are so relatable you know?
I was just thinking the same things earlier today. My daughter is nine and has never seen a dead body. I had seen many by that age. The previous generations of my family was entirely Irish Catholic. I thought wakes were neat because it was a party with a dead relative on the table. I remember thinking as a child I had eaten on that table before. Would I ever eat my cereal there again? Of course I did. I was a fat kid and it would take more than one corpse to get between me and my cereal.
What are the odds you’d be thinking that as I was publishing this post? You’re right though. Wasn’t that long ago that funerals hit real close to home. In homes! No way a little old corpse could get in the way of breakfast.
Wow. I love this post. You’re a writer making sense of who you are today – something we all do, but you do it so well.
Perhaps you need to do a Sixth Sense flick face-off.
Thanks Ironic Mom. I really appreciate that. I like the Sixth Sense suggestion. Actually I’ve been thinking about moving the movie thing to Fridays, so maybe I’ll steal the flick face-off term too! Also, can you believe someone else suggested the same exact idea you threw out on Twitter? What are the odds!?!
I probably would’ve vomited on the floor at least 4 times.
History professor? College or the high?
Haha, no vomit although I did grow up to like horror movies. Go figure. Yup, I teach college history and political stuff.
Fun post, Clay…sounds like you grew up pretty normal, despite the trauma of being “forgotten” in the funeral home!
Wendy
Yeah, we just like to add a little personality through adventure around here. You know, adversity builds character and we are definitely characters. Thanks for reading because, I must admit, that’s one of my favorite posts.
My sister left her 6 year old son 2 hours north of here, drove to my house, 4 kids piled out and she said, Where is your brother? They thought he was sleeping in the blankets. 4.5 hours after they first left him,they find him playing video games at the gas station where they had left him. He didn’t want to go home.
Wow, that has me beat! That’s like Home Alone Canadian edition. Kids are amazing in how they can roll with some things.
I am so grateful to Repost Yourself for introducing me to your blog and your quirky musings
Living in Ireland, attending funerals is an integral part of our cultural life and the Irish wake, although dying out (no pun intended!) in urban areas, is still part of rural funerals. We still believe that attending a funeral is a statement of connection, care, compassion and support. It encircles those who grieve and enriches those who attend because it connects each person there to the profundity of living and the inevitability of death. As a child growing up in Ireland, I learned that life and death, happiness and sadness are all bound up together.
Oh how I love your description. I think that quirky musings needs to somehow become a banner headline for what my style is all about. I think you’ve nailed it. Add to the fact that I now am reading your message with an Irish accent (ah, home of me ancestors) and I am thinking I may need you to lend voice to a new promo somehow in the future. I’ve often said that we Americans are so bizarre in how we handle death. I say that historically and culturally. Who knows? Maybe I am still secretly resentful for being left at that funeral home. Nah…