Tucking Her In

The funeral home came to remove Mom’s body a few hours after death. As they wheeled her out, maneuvering through the dining room, I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Goodbye,  Mom,” I whispered. 

I also thought, “If you sit up right now and say, ‘Just kidding!’ I will yell and say, ‘Just leave already!’” 

These days, weeks, and months of watching her decline and rally had taken a toll, leaving me exhausted and empty. At this moment, all I wanted was for everything to be over. I wanted assurance that there would be no more false alarms, false hopes, or false promises. 

I needed this to be the end of the line. Her lifeless body confirmed that it was.

Mom died on a Friday morning, leaving a full week before her funeral the following Saturday.  The space between death and that final church service and burial was surreal. It was a holding pattern. 

On Thursday I met Dad for coffee, our first Thursday morning alone. We walked down to the funeral home to see Mom. The casket was brought out and opened. We stood looking over her, our final time as a threesome. I wondered what life would be like with just two of us moving forward.  

Family arrived from out of town for visitation on Friday and the funeral on Saturday. Pandemic protocol was still strict, leaving the in-person experience to family and a few close friends, masks required. Our presence would fill the church, and we gathered as a unit to finish the job begun back in July. 

Throughout her illness and decline, there had been vague references to what Mom wanted after her death. General consensus was for a closed casket, and it was always said it would be left to “the committee” to decide, meaning, the sisters. Casket closed. It is what she would want. 

So we thought. 

On the day of visitation, I received a voicemail from Dad informing me that, actually, there would be an open casket, per his decision. I felt angry and betrayed, first by him, but ultimately by Mom who had seven months to go to the funeral home and put her desires in writing rather  than conveying them vaguely to her children. It felt unfair to be trapped between my parents, even in Mom’s death. 

This disruption and spin out affected my experience, as I now faced an open casket  unexpectedly. I have since learned that change, any change, is very difficult for me. This is surprising to find out at age 52, but I have always had to go along to get along, and this evening  was no exception. I felt walls of self-protection rise as we greeted visitors coming to offer condolences. My grief disappeared somewhere deep inside as I cared for those around me. 

An Anglican, Mom’s funeral was her final church service. It was also one of the last services held in the church building before it moved to a new location several blocks away. Mom had been involved in the process of procuring the new building as the people’s warden on parish council in the years and months before her death.

On Saturday, we gathered at the church building. The sons and sons-in-law carried Mom’s casket from the narthex into the sanctuary, their entrance signaled by the gonging of a bell. The family followed, entering together to take our seats.  

The service began. Her daughters took turns reading Scripture. My reading was the psalm of response, Psalm 116. Daughter-in-law Deanna led the prayers of the people. We sang Mom’s favorite songs a final time, ones sung often during many family gatherings. We sang and listened and took communion. 

Out-of-town family and friends watched virtually as we gathered around the casket for a final  prayer, a spray of carnations covering it, procured by the middle child, our connector. I remember standing at the foot of her casket, my hands rubbing in a circular motion and patting gently, like so many times when I rubbed and patted her for comfort. 

After the service we drove to the cemetery, located within walking distance of my home, for the third time in seven months. First Grammy, then Kris, now Mom. I can visit them any time I want. 

The graveside service was simple. Under a canopy more Scripture was read. Musicians sang  “Abide with Me” as we began tossing the carnations onto the lowered casket, now resting in the ground. Shovels of dirt followed the flowers, and that is when my heart broke open and wails erupted from somewhere deep in my soul. I couldn’t help it. The cries wouldn’t stop, and I didn’t care who saw me. 

This is what we had been working toward these past months, to get Mom home.

To end well. To put her in the ground like this and bring closure to the horror of her death from pancreatic cancer. The sound of cold winter dirt hitting the wooden casket, shovelful after shovelful, along with more singing by Lindy, Mom’s favorite worship leader, provided the backdrop for my guttural sobs.  

Shovels passed from sibling to sibling, but my brother, Nick, the oldest son, kept a firm grip on his shovel until the end. He did not pass off to anyone but methodically worked to get the job done. I remember his shoveling. Though I must have taken a turn, I don’t remember my own.

I don’t remember what I did other than wail, bending at the waist, clutching my sides, vaguely aware of looks from those standing at a distance, not caring what they thought. Something in me knew this was the last time we would all be together like this. I was crying for what was and for what would never be and for the unknown that was ahead.

The music ended. I slowed my sobs. Siblings and spouses and children gathered in close over the fresh dirt pile. My twelve-year-old nephew sidled up beside me. 

“I couldn’t cry until I saw you start crying, and then I lost it,” he said. 

We hugged. A quiet understanding passed between us, bearing unspoken witness of our time together during his visits from Ohio with his dad, punctuated by this final moment together.

Tamping down dirt, hugging one another, and wiping our remaining tears, we siblings tucked Mom into the ground. When the last scoop of dirt was shoveled and patted, I covered the mound of dirt with the few remaining carnations and ribbons from the arrangement. As the crowd dispersed to cars, I held back a moment. From “Can you come over? It’s not good” to “Abide With Me,” I stayed with her, confident that I had given my all to say we ended well. 

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Julie McClay lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with her partner of 31 years, four of their eight children, and six fur and feather babies. Two precious grandchildren bring deep joy and delight. Julie is a lover of stories and words. She serves clients, both in person and virtually, through Heart Path Story Coaching, offering a creative space of kindness, curiosity, and Story Work. Writing and Art Journaling are key elements of her process.