Good Grief

I have only one clear memory of my Grandma Eleanor’s funeral, seven years ago.

The mass had just ended, and we were standing in a receiving line at the church, accepting condolences as a parade of friends and family shuffled by. I was uncontrollably crying, undone by grief. I can still conjure so clearly the look of pity on the face of one cousin as she came in for a cheek kiss, clearly heartbroken to see me like that.

I surprised myself, too, that day. I had never been much of a crier. I did not expect to let myself go like that in front of an audience. But grief took over.

This week, we said goodbye to my Grandpa Joe, Eleanor’s husband. The funeral was, of course, just as brutal. All I wanted to do was sob and wail and let myself go, much like I did for my grandmother.

But this time I felt compelled (whether by my masculine conditioning or some misplaced sense of propriety, I’m not sure) to bite down hard and keep most of it in. When we crossed the threshold of the church and our assembled loved ones came into view, I felt my bottom limp tremble; I fished a shredded tissue from my pocket, wiped my tears, and looked down at the floor as we traversed the center aisle. I made it to the front without breaking down only by avoiding all eye contact.

In my pew, I forced a few deep breaths. I had to do a reading in a few minutes, and I needed to get myself together. I did; the reading was fine. I still cried, a lot, but I endured the mass without letting any dramatic noises exit my mouth.

The day before, at my grandpa’s wake, I saw my great aunt Maria, Joe's sister, who is 96 years old. She, at least, had no hesitations about wailing in the way I wanted to. She rose out of her wheelchair and bent herself over the casket, letting an unfiltered stream of grief pour of out her. The mere sight of it was unbearable.

Later, as she sat more serenely in the front row, I sat down across from her. I asked her if she remembered me, and she was almost insulted. "Of course," she told me. "Your grandfather spoke of you all the time. He was so proud of you. Always, he always talked about you. Always, always." She said all of this to me in a rapid Sicilian that, for the first time in my life, I could understand. She repeated it over and over. “Sempre, sempre,” she implored me. My grandfather talked about me, sempre.

Everyone else around us was chatting and catching up (as often happens at these things), but I could have stayed there the whole night, just holding Maria's hand, just wallowing in the grief with her. And wasn’t that what this day was for? Not for chummy conversations, but for sitting together and being miserable? Maybe my Zia Maria was onto something.

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I struggled to find a single appropriate moment, during all of the festivities, to let the grief pour out of me in the way that I could sense it needed to.

There were plenty of opportunities that should have felt right, but none of them did, at least not for me. When we arrived at the funeral home before the wake, for example, it was our first time seeing my Grandpa Joe in the casket. It would be the perfect time to give my grief the privacy it seemed to demand.

But each time I felt myself about to slide into a deeper level of mourning, I was pulled back by this logistical thing or that. A discussion about where to put the posters. A very attentive undertaker bringing in easels. A comment about who sent a certain bouquet of flowers.

It struck me as absolutely absurd to be talking about any of this, no matter how well-intentioned. Seriously? Right now?

Eventually, I knelt down in front of my grandpa, allowing the sadness to gather for a moment. My mom came up behind me, put her hands on my shoulders, and said, “You know how proud of you he was.” It almost broke me. I swallowed a sob. Even when it was just us, just family, I felt too exposed.

There are all kinds of other moments during the wake and funeral that seem, to me, totally discordant.

There’s the sheer volume of custom printed material that the funeral home has churned out (posters, brochures, a book, a blanket) in a matter of a couple days. It is all very beautiful, and yet a little creepy in its efficiency.

There’s the funeral home staffer who tells me how good my eulogy is, how “she’s not just saying that.” As if it’s a performance to be given a five-star review.

There’s the deacon who comes to say a few words and prayer, but who spends way too much time talking about himself, who’s clearly vamping like it’s a standup act.

None of these things is actually very offensive. But each of them, in their tone or timing or timber, feel to my grief-addled mind like the strangest things in the world.

Before the funeral, we had a private moment with my Grandpa Joe for one last time.

I kneeled in front of him and, though I didn't say them out loud, sent a few words out to my grandfather.

I thanked him for so many of the things he gave me. I thanked him for the childhood memories in his garden or on his fishing trips. I thanked him for the Italian ancestry that enabled my Italian citizenship. I thanked him for accepting me as a gay man, without hesitation.

And then I told him, "You are a beautiful man."

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