LEFT

       The church was filled to capacity, standing room only. Two hundred people at least, in attendance, all strangers to me. A priest droned monotonously from his perch up front, looking up from his written speech from time to time, pausing at key moments for effect. As far as I was concerned, I wished he would just shut up. He didn’t know my mother and his familiarity rubbed me wrong. I could feel myself growing angry.
        I was the one who had the right to know her. Not those strangers who sat behind me. I was the one who had waited eight years for her to return, never having forgotten her promise the day she first left, “I’ll always be coming back”. But as I looked at the casket resting up front on a raised platform, what gripped my attention was the open lid. No one had prepared me for that. Suddenly I realized the choreography of the event included the expectation of last looks. You couldn’t see her from the lower angle, but she was in there. My mom was in that silver box.
       That’s when it hit me like a kick in the stomach. If I looked inside that box her promise would be over, it would end unfulfilled. And then I heard a faint whisper, “Just don’t look. Don’t look inside the box and maybe it will still come true”. Then, as if on cue, the priest finished his monologue and signaled to us that it was time.
       Marnie, my maternal grandmother, was the first to step out into the center aisle. Wiping her eyes free of tears, she began a slow walk to the casket. The rest of us lined up behind her, with me, the youngest, picking up the rear. Looking over my brother’s shoulder, I could see that our dad fixed his eyes straight ahead, his sorrow impossible to hide. A heavy silence filled the air, except for the sound of occasional weeping coming from behind us. With each step forward I felt increasing anxiety. I didn’t want to see her lifeless face. I didn’t want to walk up there, peer over the edge of the coffin, and see her dead.
         I watched Marnie arrive at the casket and pay private tribute to her daughter. When she finished, she turned away and an attendant escorted her back to her seat. One family member after another followed her example until there was only my brother ahead of me. By then, my insides were tied in knots. My hands were shaking, even as I tried to hide them deep inside the pockets of my slacks. When Bill moved forward, leaving me standing by myself, I looked to the left and saw a door. I had no idea where it led, but I turned and strode to it quickly, praying it would open and allow me to get out.
       Once at the door, I turned the handle and the door swung open. Stepping outside I realized I was in some sort of alleyway. Looking in both directions I saw that I was alone. There was no one else in sight. It was very quiet. Walking away from the door, images of my mother’s face appeared, alive and exuberant. I remembered the times it would light up with joy when she saw me, more than matching my own scream of delight at seeing her. Especially at her surprise visits, when she’d pull into the driveway unannounced and leap from her car with a peel of laughter, opening her arms to me as I ran into her tight embrace.
     Those memories kept her alive, and with them, she kept her promise to me. I didn’t share much of her life, and God knows I wanted more. But what I had was precious.