When Lana walked out her front door, she realized what a sunny day it was for the funeral.
The temperature in Chattanooga hovered around eighty-degrees. It was much warmer than normal, with only a slight breeze. The trees still held on to their fall leaves, and they had already turned to the bright colors: orange, red, purple, and every other color imaginable. Even with all this beauty surrounding her, all she could think about was her own sorrow. How could today be sunny when she felt the deepest and darkest hurt she had ever experienced in her life? The sun shouldn't be shining today, and she wished it would hide behind the clouds—she wished she could hide behind the clouds.
Once she arrived at the cemetery she sat in the truck a few minutes, contemplating leaving.
But she couldn't leave, so she trudged on, unwillingly. She looked over at all the other graves and wondered how their families managed to get through their own tragedy. Then she saw an infant's tombstone and thought, if this tiny baby's parents can get through this, I can too. That one tiny tombstone gave her courage.
As she got closer to the grave, she fixated on James' casket, saddened to know his body lay in it and soon would be put in the ground. He was too young for this fate of eternity. Fifty-years-old was too young. All graves should be like New Orleans, above the ground. Hell fell below the ground, and Heaven rose above the ground. Families so freely send everyone to hell.
Thank the Lord for the chairs to sit on, or she might have collapsed. She noticed everyone around her solemnly looking like zombies. The oddest thing, what she remembered most was everyone wearing black clothing. She wondered how that tradition started. Her grandmother, a devout Pentecostal Christian, told her years ago, "Death is a celebration. Our loved ones have moved on to a better place, and that's a time to celebrate." Today of all days she thought of that and wondered. If death is such a celebration then why don't we wear party hats and party clothes to funerals instead of black?
Sharon interrupted her thoughts by putting her hand on Lana's and leaned in to whisper,
"Look at the view James will have forever." In the distance, the beauty of Lookout Mountain was breathtaking, and James would have loved the view. The sun smiled on the sheets of multi-colored leaves made more vibrant by the wet summer.
Lana knew any other day she might have been totally contented looking at the mountain, but not today. She nodded, knowing how much he loved the mountains. "He would love this place,"
Lana whispered.
The deep gray casket sparkled with the sun shining on it. She thought he would have
preferred a red casket that sparkled. The red one looked more like a sports car, and he loved sports cars, especially Corvettes.
She glanced at the mountain one more time. My precious cousin, this will be your beautiful view for eternity. She lowered her head, and quietly wept.
*****
After the funeral everyone gathered at James and Sharon's house. People Lana knew were boisterous with their opinions on death. Their opinions got on her last nerve. She didn't want to deal with their epiphany of wisdom on how she should handle her grieving. Instead of dealing with them, she decided to adhere to a more surreal surrounding, the front porch. An old wooden swing sat at the far end of the porch. No one sat out there, not even the children. She would have complete solitude. The swing creaked when she sat down, and it made a struggled squeak when she went back and forth in a slow rhythm. She smiled when she thought about what James might say at a time like this. "The swing is saying you need to lose weight."
She didn't know many of the guests who were coming and going. They nodded an
acknowledgment as they saw her. That suited her just fine because she was content sitting alone.
Swinging and listening to all the sounds outside eased the ache in her heart. In the distance, she could hear kids playing kickball in the street; they were taking advantage of the last few days of the warm weather. Three houses down an older man mowed his yard for the last time this year.
Inside dishes were clanking as people made their plates of food. Lana kept swinging in a slow steady rhythm.
After an hour, Sharon walked outside to say goodbye to friends and saw Lana swinging.
When she glanced up, the sun shining on Sharon's hair showed the gray in her shoulder length hair. Through the years, she had gained a little weight, but she did have three kids and gravity had taken its toll on her midsection. Some of the chubbiness was from being so short; she couldn't be over five feet tall and didn't have a long torso to help hide her weight. Even with all that had happened she walked with some perkiness during her mourning. And thank God she had changed out of her black dress.
When the guests left, she walked over and sat with Lana on the old wood swing. Lana
slowed down a bit as Sharon sat next to her. "How are you?" Sharon asked while crossing her legs. The squeaking swing struggled a little bit, and even though it whined, Lana had no intentions of stopping.
"I've seen better days. I'm a strong person, and I will get through this. I just have to figure out how."
Sharon put her arm around Lana and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "Of all the people who love him, I think you'll miss James the most. I think sometimes you were closer to him than me."
"Well, I did have many more years with him than you did. If you remember I was the first person you were introduced to," she said as she noticed Sharon's swollen eyes and the puffy bags under them. It was sad to see her so heartbroken.
Sharon reminisced, "I remember the first time James introduced us. You were getting ready for a date and had messed up your eye makeup, so James offered to help. You let him put on your eye shadow, but he made it worse. He put blue eye shadow on one eye and brown on the other. The whole time he was messing up your make-up, he was winking at me. I tried hard not to laugh. When you looked in the mirror and saw what he did you tried to kill him."
Lana grinned when she thought about James being a toot. "Yeah, if I could have caught him—he would have died that night. And if you remember right, because of his shenanigans I needed to redo all my makeup which made me late. He met my date at the door and acted as though he had a facial twitch."
Sharon rolled her head back with laughter and said, "He told Carl the twitch ran in the family."
"No, he didn't? He never told me about that. I could tell Carl wanted the date to end, and now I know why."
"Believe it or not, James felt guilty about telling him a lie, and that could be the reason he never told you. James also said Carl was not the right one for you, especially if he could be driven off so easily."
"He should have felt guilty."
With a little twinkle in her eyes, Sharon added, "You know every time James ran into Carl, he all of a sudden developed another twitch."
"Now I know why every time I saw Carl he asked me about my health. I'm surprised I could catch a husband at all the way James acted."
Some guests were leaving so Sharon excused herself to talk with them. James made the right choice by choosing her. She could take a joke better than most, and he constantly pulled something on her. No matter how many pranks he pulled, he never showed any maliciousness.
She would laugh and go about her business, and sometimes she would get even. With all sincerity, she felt sorry for Sharon. While she got to go home to her routine, Sharon had to go to bed alone.