FAIRYLAND

My parents took my sister and me to funerals a lot. More often than they took us to Fairyland. Fairyland was this magical, ten-acre children’s park in Oakland. It had lots of trees and a lake, picnic areas, children’s rides, animals and storybook people who wandered around and shook your hand. But my parents’ friends, the Fouche's, owned a funeral home, so that’s where we went the most. My father said he wanted us to learn about death. I earned my PhD in death by the time I was eight.

Whenever someone died, an acquaintance, a co-worker, a relative, whoever; mommy and daddy would dress us up and cart us off to Fouche’s Funeral Home, which was sadly, only a few blocks away from Fairyland. Sometimes, I could hear the calliope music from the merry-go-round as we walked to the funeral home door. It put me in a bad mood, which I guess was appropriate for going to a funeral.

My parents liked to follow the deceased through the entire mourning process, starting with the wake, or rosary. Then we’d attend the funeral the next day, go to the cemetery for the interment, and end the day with a visit to the family’s home for food. My father was especially delighted when they’d serve smoked ham. That was his favorite and really topped off the day nicely for him.

I was six years old and the idea of looking at dead bodies was horrifying. But I was also daddy’s little girl and I was brave. In the chapel, we’d kneel in a pew while the priest would give the eulogy, then we’d pray. I’d finger my rosary beads and mechanically recite ‘Hail Mary’s’ while my eyes remained fixed on the dead body lying in the half open coffin. When you stare at a dead body for the length of time it takes to say a rosary, the body can start to look like it’s breathing. I swear I could see the corpse’s chest rise and fall. At any moment I expected him to sit up, climb out of the coffin and chase us with his hands outstretched, just like in every zombie movie I had ever seen. Whenever my parents took us to the funeral home to view the body of some “poor soul” who had just died “bless his heart,” my father was never content to just look at the body of the person we came to see. He thought it was fun to explore the place and see who else was lying around dead. We were used to this and it was easier to just go along with it rather than risk displeasing him.

But one time was different. It was a gray and rainy day when my father led our morbid little tour group down the halls of the Porter’s funeral home. I followed my father, my mother came next, and then my sister, who lagged behind with her arms folded close to her body and taking cautious steps. Daddy led us into a viewing room, urging us to come get a look. It was filled with white roses and a small metallic blue coffin was against the wall at the far end of the room.

I walked over to it with the same solemnity we were taught to march to the altar for our first Holy Communion. It scared me to think who might be inside. The coffin was too small for a regular adult so I figured there must be a dwarf in there, a small person, like Mr. Collins who lived down the street with his four wiener dogs. I peeked inside. It wasn’t a dwarf. Inside the pretty blue metal box was a little boy, holding a rattle. He must’ve been about five. He had on a ruffled white shirt and a blue suit that matched the color of the coffin. His skin was smooth and soft looking, as if he had just taken a bath and his mother had rubbed oil on his face to keep his skin moist, the way my mother did with us. He looked like he was sleeping, not dead. And I had seen enough dead people to know what they looked like, all dried, pasty looking and scary. But he was dead.

My sister burst into tears and my mother rushed her out of the room. My father stood staring at the boy, so I stayed too. But my world was shaken. Up until this day, I didn’t know that children could die. In the perfect world of my mind, where I had figured out all of life’s mysteries, I believed that children were too innocent to die. They hadn’t committed any real sins. I thought you could only die when you were a grown up and responsible for your actions. I realized the grim error of my thinking. My foundation of belief started to crumble. Now, before my eyes was proof I had been wrong, that children could die, that my sister could die, that my cousins could die and that I could die.

I stared at the little boy. What bothered me the most was the rattle in his hand. It made me angry. He was too old to be playing with a rattle. After all, I was six and I wouldn’t be playing with a rattle. It was an indignity that I felt for him because he certainly couldn’t feel anymore. I wanted to take the rattle out of his hand, but I didn’t want to touch it. I was afraid to touch anything in the room. It was as if death was something that could jump from dead person, to object, to living person. Now that I knew I could die, I didn’t want death sticking to me.

I wondered what my father was thinking about. Probably his son, the one that my mother had miscarried before me. I didn’t know about my dead brother then, but maybe that’s why he stared for so long. Maybe that’s why I didn’t bother him.

After a few minutes, I said something funny and he laughed. It was these death house visits that gave birth to my dark sense of humor. I couldn’t stand the tension, so I'd make jokes and act silly so everyone would laugh. I'd joke around at the funeral home, at the funeral, in the funeral procession, at the cemetery. Maybe that's why they brought me along all the time.They figured I didn't mind and I made everyone laugh.

As we got into the car, my humor survival mode went into high gear. I made more jokes and acted sillier trying desperately to distract everyone from all the death we had just seen. My mother and father laughed while my sister chewed her fingernails and stared out the window the entire drive home.

When we got home my father sensed my sister’s moodiness and tried to lighten things up. He pretended he was dead and chased us around the house like a zombie. He was scary and persistent and wasn’t going to stop till he got us. My sister ran through the hallway screaming, tripped and fell on the floor heater and burned a grid-like mark into her lower leg. That was the last time my father played the dead man zombie game. I was sorry for my sister’s pain, but I was glad that this particular game of “fun” was finally laid to rest.

It took years for me to wipe the memory of death out of my mind. I never kept flowers in my apartment because they always reminded me of the funeral homes. I had to force myself to buy flowers every day until the smell took on new meaning.

Sometimes I think about my father dying. I used to not care. I used to be angry for all the cruelty. I used to feel that once he was dead, I would be free. I don't feel that way anymore. My father was uneducated, macho and stupid and he loved me in his own uneducated, macho, stupid way. When he dies I won't be happy.

And I won't walk around the funeral home and look at all the other bodies.

But maybe I'll make some jokes to cheer people up, 'cause after all, that's what I do best.