Celebration Of Life, Or Tearful Memorial?

There You’ll Be
by Faith Hill 

When I think back
On these times
And the dreams
We left behind
I’ll be glad ’cause
I was blessed to get
To have you in my life
When I look back
On these days
I’ll look and see your face
You were right there for me

[Chorus:]
In my dreams
I’ll always see you soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There will always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

Well you showed me
How it feels
To feel the sky
Within my reach
And I always
Will remember all
The strength you
Gave to me
Your love made me
Make it through
Oh, I owe so much to you
You were right there for me

[chorus]
In my dreams
I’ll always see you soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There will always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

‘Cause I always saw in you
My light, my strength
And I want to thank you
Now for all the ways
You were right there for me
You were right there for me
For always

[chorus]
In my dreams
I’ll always see you soar
Above the sky
In my heart
There will always be a place
For you for all my life
I’ll keep a part
Of you with me
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be
And everywhere I am
There you’ll be

There you’ll be . . .

Today was the memorial at the church for Nana.  I wish I’d written down what I wanted to say.  I forgot so much stuff.  But I guess the most important things were done.  I read Dolly’s letter, I read my own, and I sang There You’ll Be and the Wizard and I.  I have to admit, singing the Wizard and I in a church was satisfying.

Anyway.  To start the day, I’d set my alarm for nine-forty five and had taken a shower the previous night.  Didn’t getto bed until after four, but that was my own stupid fault.  I even tried listening to Ringo’s Time Takes Time CD, like I used to do in high school to fall asleep.

It didn’t work.

Long story short, I finally fell asleep and was woken with a start when my dad poked his head in and said it was after nine-thirty, so I’d better get up.  I knew my alarm hadn’t gone off yet and figured it was probably nine-thirty five or something.  So I had a bit of time.  When I finally opened my eyes and looked at the clock, it said nine-thirty.  Freakin’ A . . .

I did get up, happy that I’d set clothes aside the night before, and went about getting dressed and then pulling off the chicken with it’s head cut off practice.  Somehow, I was able to gather everything we needed to bring, get it and ourselves in the car, and get to the church by ten-thirty.

I set up the chapel, moved the tables where I wanted, put the tableclothes on, realized I had misjudged the size of the room, but oh, well.  (It was a lot bigger than I remembered it being.)  Then I raced back home to pick up Mike and other miscellaneous stuff that I knew I needed.  We were actually in the car, ready to leave, when I remembered I didn’t have my laptop.  I ran back inside to grab it, because it’s what had my entry and Dolly’s words in the Microsoft Works program so I could read them.  I’d’ve never forgiven myself if I had forgotten those.

When I got back to the church, my mom said that Shirley Henderson was waiting for me so we could practice Amazing Grace.  I guess she ducked out of the service early, thinking I’d be in the chapel.  I’d been told she was gonna be in the chapel at eleven-thirty, after the service ended.  In any case, when I went into the chapel, the first thing I noticed was the double table I’d set up had been changed.  There were more chairs around it, and the music stand that I had placed a single rose on was gone, the rose moved to the middle of the table.

I moved it back, because that table was supposed to be the ‘family table.’  I had figured me, Mike, my mom, my dad, Uncle Bill, and Tommy, (Dolly’s older brother) could sit there.  But when I found out Tommy wasn’t coming, I figured it could be Grandma instead.  There was a bit of a thing about that, because Mary was saying why was I moving the chairs, and when I was explaining about the family table thing, she asked why Grandma would sit there, she’s not a blood relation to Nana.  Ugh.  But at least it didn’t turn into anything bigger than that, and they didn’t try to move my music stand with the white rose on it again.

I practiced Amazing Grace, (for the first time, I might add!!) with Shirley Henderson minutes later.  I was pretty okay the first time through, until I got to the third verse.  Then I went to high on the second note.  It turned into a Christmas Carol tune, though which one I can’t say.  So I tried the first, second, and last verse.  That worked out all right.  I went through it about three times, still making mistakes.  But something told me I’d be okay when I actually got up there.  And I need to get the second verse lyrics.  There’s an Encore word in there I can use . . .  Lol.  Odd that that was my first thought when my eyes grazed the page.

I set things up on the ‘stage’ in the church.  The karaoke machine, the TV, my painting on the easel with the blanket over it, and I had my laptop with me.  When Rev. K began talking, he spoke of how God is with us when we’re born, as we’re growing up, and He’s with us when he decides to call us back to Him.  I could barely contain myself.&n

bsp; I just kept chanting inside my head, "Not now, not now, not now, you can cry later, just not now . . . "  Pretty quickly, I’d asked Mike if he could get me something reminiscent to a tissue.

Lol.  Something funny before the service began.  Bob Pineha, (I can’t guarantee that’s how’s it’s spelled, but it’s pronounced Pin-E-ha,) walked in with his wife, Agnes, and I recognized Agnes, but not Bob.  I had to take a second, closer look at him, and when I realized it was him, said, "Wow.  I did not even recognize you!"  He’s aged so much, even since I last saw him.  Not wrinkle-aged, but especially in the Christmas party tape when I was five, he had so much more hair, and it was black.  Now, there’s barely anything on top of his head, and it’s all gray-white.

Rev. K. forgot to announce that I was singing Amazing Grace before the family got up to talk, but we reminded him.  Thank God I insisted on that, too.  Cuz if I hadn’t said I wanted to sing before people started talking, I don’t think I could have done it.  But I got up there and made it through.  I wanted to give a little intro, but I think Rev. K. may have said something to Shirley about not giving me a chance to do so, because almost before I was in front of the microphone, she’d begun playing. 

I did the three verses we’d practiced, maybe not perfectly, but enough to satisfy me.  I didn’t screw up, so that was good.  I sat back down and my dad was called up to speak.  I’ve never, in all my twenty three years, seen my father cry.  But today he did.  His voice would break at times, and he’d take a moment to compose himself.  I had no such luck as he was recalling times with his dad and Nana.  One of the first things he told about was that in the past month, memories of Nana had been coming back to him, mixed inevitably with memories of his dad.  His dad died of cancer when he was seventeen, or there abouts.  In any case, it was about fourteen years before I was born.  He told the story of his dad’s last moments.  That his dad knew he was dying, and that before he passed on to a world beyond our reach, he had to tell Nana something.  He called her to his bedside and she approached, saying, "Yes, Johnny?"  It was a name she hadn’t called him in years, or so I believe.  Johnny was a name he’d given up when my dad was born.  After that, he’d taken another step toward that unreachable state of "adulthood" and simply went by "John."  She went to his side and he took her hands and said, "I love you."

Of all that he could have said, nothing was more important to him right then than to make sure that she knew she was loved.  And, to quote my dad, "those three little words sustained her for the next thirty-seven years."

He also said that he got his love of art from his father, but his love of stories came from Nana.  He told of this one story that Nana liked recalling.  There was a possum caught underneath a laundry basket, and I’m not sure whether Nana just saw this happen or if she was one of the two girls, but there were two girls there who didn;t know what to do.  Well, they saw a young minister pass by, (there was a glance at Rev. K. at this point,) and they beckoned him over to assist them.  Instead of performing some kind of miracle by faith, or whatever the girls were expecting, the young minister, or the fool, as Nana would call him at this point in the story, decided the best courseof action was to lift the basket with one hand and reach under, feeling for the possum with his other.

He found said possum, and with a cry, wrenched his arm out and "flung the possum, the tip of his middle finger, and a bout a pint of blood over the fence."  Then he looked back at the two ladies and grunted angrily, "God . . . bless it."  My dad continued, saying that anyone who heard that knew that the young minister didn’t want God to bless that possum, but he was too nice to say what he really wanted God to do.

When Uncle Bill got up there, even though I knew he was about to lose the composure he’d gotten a tenuous hold on, he’d started things with a joke.  My uncle’s only five feet tall, shorter than me, even.  And he looked it, standing up there.  He started things by saying that despite what Nan may have thought if she could see him, he was standing up.  He didn’t talk that long.  Just gave a basic message of no matter what, be good to your parents.  You’re only born with two of them.  Then that tenuous hold on his tears was lost.

My mom got up there next.  She mainly gave a timeline of when she met Nana and how things went through her mariage to my dad, when I was born, and through when Nana went to the hospital for the last time.  She mentioned Sandy, a friend of hers that died several years ago, loving the yellow cake with chocolate frosting that would always be at Nana’s house.  She’d randomly say to my mom, "Hey, let’s go to Minnie’s," which was my Nana’s real name.  When my mom would ask why, she’d say, "To get some cake!"

I was crying so hard when I got up there, I’m surprised I could talk understandibly.  I may not have.  But I siad that I’d intended on singing first thing, but I’d misjuded when crying would take hold of me.  I said first and foremost, that Dolly was my childhood best friend and someone who had lived with her family next door to Nana for a long time.  That she was in Texas now and since she couldn’t be here, she’d E-mailed me something to read.  I read it, I read my entry I wrote the day she died, including my letter to her.  I read the poem I put in here and recalled different memories.  As I talked, I was getting control of myself and wasn’t crying as hard.  So I sang There You’ll Be.  I didn’t start out great, I know that.  But it got beter as I went.  I unveiled the painting at the end of the song, spoke about it a little.  Then told about how I’d been in a karaoke contest three days after she went into the hospital.  I didn’t even know if she’d known about it.  And that I wanted to sing this song to her.  As sort of a final tribute.  And I sang the Wizard and I.  But I didnt end it the same way.  It ends, "And so it will be for the rest of my life, and I’ll want nothing else till I die!  Held in such high esteem, when poeple see me they will scream, for half of Oz’s favorite team . . . The Wizard, and I!"  I ended it, " . . . for half of Oz’s favorite team . . . My Nana, and I!"

Mike also got up and spoke, because my dad had asked him to read what a woman on Staten Island had faxed over, since she couldn’t be there.  She was actually going to visit her own mother in Conneticut.

Nobody got up to speak after Mike got down, so the service ended not too long after.  Shall We Gather at the River didn’t sound as bad as I thought it would.  Was afraid it would, more accurately.

There was only one damper on the day, and I’m aware of how weird that sounds, considering the day I’m describing.&

nbsp; But my Grandma did something that was completely disrespectful and uncalled for.  First, she was saying that mine and my dad’s speeches were too long.  A) This was his mother and my Nana.  Damn straight we’re gonna have a lot to say!!  But that wasn’t what really got me.  When I was up getting food, really the only things I wanted were a square of the lasagna Mike and I made, and some Jello.  And I hate when food mixes, so I took two plates.  I got a square of lasagna and got about two and a half spoonfuls of Jello.  Well,  when my Grandma sees that, she comments on how "there are other people here, you know."  I gave sort of a shrug, cuz what am I gonna do?  Put some back?  I mean, come on.  So then she says, "Well, you don’t have to make a pig of yourself."  I just gave her a glare and said, "Real polite to say at a memorial," and walked away.

Marilyn Thorne came up to me and complimented me on my singing and whatnot.  She didn’t know I could sing that well and that surprised me.  I mean, she’s been coming to Christmas parties and BBQ’s since I was five, if not earlier.  But it was nice to be complimented and everything else with what she said.

The funny thing about all this is, I honestly don’t think Nana would want me to be crying.  She wouldn’t have wanted a big fuss like this and if she had been there, I’m quite sure she’d have been standing there, serving food and everything, even if people were telling her to sit down and eat herself.  She wanted to make sure everyone else was taken care of before her.  She wanted to know that everyone else was all right and comfortable and happy.  She wouldn’t want the rest of us to be sad.

But I can’t help it.  She was my Nana.  And I’m gonna miss her for the rest of my life.  I’ll never get over her dying, but I will go on.  I’ll live my life, I’ll be successful, and I’ll continue to make her proud of me.