Church Bells

I always love church bells, but they are particularly appropriate on this day- this day that I am going to a funeral. I’m not sure why they should be appropriate- the pealing out of the hour. Maybe because church bells remind you that time is passing… and so do funerals. You are in this moment, this moment marked by such gorgeous notes reverberating in your skull- but in the next moment all that’s left are the echoes, and then only your memories, and then… silence. The normal noises of the world slip back in, taking over, carrying you on until the next dramatic moment, when you stop and remember- oh yes, another moment. Another hour. Time is passing.

It’s an odd thing, knowing you’ll never see a friend again, never talk to them again. It’s as though I am slightly disconnected from reality, not quite in synch. A sort of… drifting-through kind of feeling, more akin to vague regret than true sadness. It’s a feeling I’m fairly familiar with, at this point in my life, and occasionally I wonder that it does not affect me more. Maybe it was my upbringing (growing up military does rather get one used to permanent partings) but maybe it’s just me, just how I’m wired. Maybe it means there’s something wrong with me-or maybe it means there’s something right. I don’t know. Chances are I’m just storing up for a truly spectacular meltdown sometime in the future.

At the funeral home, my mom and I approach the viewing room, and I find myself going into a sort of low-grade panic. I do not want to go into that room, do not want to see my friend’s empty shell. I’ve pretty much gotten to the point in my life where I am not on board with the whole corpse-viewing tradition. I understand that some people have a psychological need for the sort of closure that seeing a dead body brings, but honestly- I’ve decided I can accept that someone is dead without seeing their remains, I really can. And to tell the truth, I prefer not to add that particular shot to my catalogue of mental images. Because then it’s always there, and I can’t get rid of it, and sometimes it shoves the warm, living images out of the way. And I hate that. So maybe in the future I’ll just politely bow out.

But this time I am with someone (I later remark to my mother that funerals are strangely like prom; everyone dresses up, and while you’ll go alone if you have to no one really wants to) and so I do not bow out- we go in together and I see what is left of my friend, and then do my best to scrub it from my brain.

After the service we all make our way up to the gravesite where final words are said (although we cannot hear them because we are in the back). The clouds are gathering, but one by one people wander off until there’s nothing left but a hole in the ground waiting to be filled- and, of course, the silence.