21st February 2005
12:57 am

The Funeral (Story)

The stream of black coats entering the church seemed never to end. Accompanying them were an equal number of black dresses and veils, all crowding beneath the ancient stones of the church. Once the news had gone out about her death, it was difficult to keep up with the phone calls. The town was very small, and must have seemed flooded by black and mourning.The church was the same that she had been married in. It was set off from the road on a large property, quaint and simple beneath the sun. The exterior was made up of large stones and brick, patterned in a fashion very common among the older buildings.

The casket was being led through the front door when i arrived .The pall bearers were sturdy men, the same age as she would have been, all from the same fraternity of their college days. They carried both her and the weight of realization on their backs. It appeared a very heavy load.The casket was polished cherry-wood, very elegant under the cloudless sky. It disappeared into the doors of the church, swallowed up in the maw of that great building.

Others were coming, and we entered the building in slow procession. Now we too were being swallowed up, consumed by the feelings and sentiments surrounding the occasion. Anyone who enters the room of a funeral somehow loses himself, and cannot feel anything except within certain, accepted parameters: thoughtfulness, grief or despair.
Something similar happens at weddings. While rehearsing, everything seems so ridiculous and funny, and people cannot help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. But during the wedding, such emotions are impossible, because they are curtailed by the decorous expectations of the multitude.

Finally the event began, the solemn words and expressive tears. It was plain that she was dearly missed. One speaker followed another, almost every one coming from the front of the pews. Then one of them stood up whom I remember quite clearly, since his words struck me as being different in tone from the rest. Perhaps it would be best to describe it exactly.

He walked to the podium with very audible footsteps, which contrasted the almost fluid motion of his arms and legs. He seemed to float to the center of the area where all eyes were focused, accompanied by the tiny chatter of his footsteps.He stood behind the stand, which was meant more as an emotional defense than for any particular purpose. His feet were placed heavily, and it seemed that his body sank into position.I remember that the last breath he let out, before he began to speak, seemed to consider all of us, acknowledging our devotion in a way, agreeing with the tragedy of the event. Then he spoke.

"I'm not sure what I should say to all of you. It touches me that you've come. I only wish I could greet you under different circumstances.
"I expect that good form here is to say something touching. But I have nothing to say. I never really knew my mother." He took a breath, and held it long.
"None of you in the audience has ever been struck by me. I know this because since my childhood I have never struck anyone except my mother. I can't explain why, or what motivated it. "
"And so I never met the best part of her. Instead she showed it to you, her friends. But I, who should have known her best, lost my chance because i was ignorant of what was really important."
"That's why I have nothing to say to you today. But I am grateful to you for being here, since now I can meet with that part of her which touched the hearts of others; that part I always knew was there from afar, but never met. In your eyes I can see reflected the joys she shared with you, and the magnanimity of her heart.How much a loss I never knew her...
"Thank you again for coming, and acquainting me with who my mother was."
He lowered his head and only stared at his fingers. He must have felt pinned, even though none of us would have judged him badly. Who hasn't done such things?
But he raised his head again, and in his eyes there was more to be said. He fought with it.I could see his lips moving slightly , and then looked down again. But shortly afterward he began to speak.

"I guess the only thing I can say is that I've learned something from this: that the day will come when an opportunity can be lost, and when you realize that the people closest to you you never knew. What's worse is that we may never know them, as we hope foolishly for a magic day to come when everything will be forgotten. But that day never comes."

He shook his head and stopped speaking abruptly and looked down again. I think he understood the negative impression he had created, but it seemed beyond his power to transition into something more hopeful. Maybe he felt that an anecdote, or some word of optimism, would make too much light of the experience he was trying to share. In either case, he turned away from the podium and walked back to his place. And sitting down he kept his eyes to the floor, never raising them, with the same expression of thought always on his face.
Was he trying to resurrect some past memory that might exonerate his misdeeds, which he had now confessed? Yet he never moved, not through the next speaker or the one after; it was not until the final words were said that he stood and departed from the room and its oppression.

The atmosphere was one undescribable, so much so tat one's thoughts could not be translated into language. The room was dead silent as many prepared to say their final words to a lady that played a major role in their lives. As they took turns to view the open coffin and drop roses into it, a sense of guilt rided into the heart of that young man. He carried his way through and said his final words to that very someone whom he had loved so very much but never had the chance to tell.

Any time I saw him after that, I could always detect, if I looked hard enough at his movements and his eyes, the impression of that day. Perhaps it was in this way that his mother had finally become a part of him: a gift as he later told me, because his mother had indirectly taught him a very important lesson about the relationships between people. Something which the memory of that day would never let him forget.

Cast:

Son: Choy Seng Joe



I often dream about funerals and I seem to think about it so much. Perhaps writing it down will finally rid me of it, or maybe it will only infect another person, carrying the atmosphere of that small church far beyond the confines its walls. At any rate, I hope the reader will forgive me; sometimes the force of ritual events has an indelible effect on our minds, making us loquacious over things we should probably remain silent about. I tried to picture myself on that very day and coudn seem to type smoothly. I tried to imagine myself being someone who knew Choy Seng Joe and narrate what he would see and what others would think. I have longed to write about the funeral and it is today that i feel i can be rid of what of my constant thoughts of not her, but the funeral. Perhaps it was the time she left and the shock i couldn accept then. i leave it to you to decide. After all, it is putting yourself in one's shoes that allow your mind to flourish. That is reality for you.

Enjoy