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"I remembered back to Leo's burial and holding your hand. I was eleven and you were six, your hand soft and small in mine. As the vicar said 'in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of eternal life' you turned to me, 'I don't want sure and certain hope I want sure and certain Bee."
- Rosamund Lupton, Sister
9
The morning of her funeral dawned with a light mist over the city. I tried not to let the new, unfamiliar part of my mind that was a sister missing her sister read too much into that. An eerie presence reminding us she's here? I was just thankful that it wasn't raining. Don't make the sky cry too, Rose.
I went through Rose's closet and picked out a beautiful black knit sweaterdress that she had loaned me once before. She had joked that her wardrobe was hopeless to her since she had been pregnant, and that I may as well claim anything I wanted and she would start afresh. It was ridiculous of course; she had been back to her enviable figure within months. Pulling the dress down over my waist that morning, I was comforted by the feeling of her enveloping me. I breathed in the fabric and was warmed by the faint hint of her familiar perfume that would be with me for the day ahead. I wished it were the real thing, standing next to me.
I had been to the funerals for all four of my grandparents. They were sad and emotionally challenging, partly because I hated watching my parent's emotion at the loss of their mother or father. My "favorite" grandfather had been last to go. Charlie's dad was the greatest man who ever graced the planet. Calm, humble, gracious, wise, and loving. They didn't make men like him anymore. When the representative for the army played The Last Post, it totally crumpled my resolve, the haunting trumpet causing tears to roll steadily down my cheeks. I could never listen to that song without my emotions taking over.
This day felt both familiar and so very different. The people who had known Rose filled the large church, with an overflow pouring into the courtyard outside. I was grateful to all those who had come to say their farewells and give support, yet I couldn't help but feel that our small group of immediate family were all that mattered as we walked down the aisle to our seats at the front. This had happened to us in a way that it hadn't happened to others. I was inside my own bubble that I had stretched out to surround and protect my family, in the hope that it would make me more resilient to get us through this. Tactics would be pointless. I was at the whim of grief, and grief was a strange, horrible, and untamable force of nature.
The reverend who conducted Ben's christening led the service and began by speaking generally of Rosalie Lillian McCarty. Our long-time family friend Billy Black spoke on behalf of my dad. He told the lovely stories of Rose that none of us could manage to share that day, adding the personal touch of someone who knew us all well. His twin daughters were in the row behind us, and his son Jacob reached forward to give my shoulder a squeeze when his dad spoke of our visits to La Push, near Forks. The reverend said something about time for reflection, and my mind checked out while listening to the soulful voice of Chrissie Hynde as she sang Hymn to Her. With my head resting on Charlie's shoulder, the resounding words were so real to us in that moment that I couldn't help but believe that what she sang was true. Rose was a true 70s baby. Alice and I didn't have a problem with filling the church with her varied and bizarre taste in music.
As the song faded out, Alice stood, held her hand down to me, and gave me a look of hesitant encouragement. I moved to face the crowd, standing next to my sister's coffin, my other sister firmly planted next to me with her hand around my waist. I saw no faces. It was just me, Rose, and Alice up there. We had decided she would speak first, as we thought my part was more likely to cause us to break down. She spoke clearly and slowly to begin with.
"The words of The Pretenders carry such truth for my family and me today. 'She will always carry on. Something is lost, but something is found. They will keep on speaking her name. Some things change, some stay the same,'" she paused, "We will keep speaking your name, Rose."
Her breath caught and she took a moment until she felt ready to continue with her reading.
"Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped into the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well."
As soon as she finished the last line, she looked to me, the ache in her eyes urging me to embrace her. We stood wrapped tight to each other, ignorant of anyone else being near. With a last squeeze, we separated, keeping our hands entwined as I looked to my paper and began to speak.
"This was one of Rose's favorite authors, and she loved this poem since she learned of it in poetry class in middle school. Rose tried to live her life by these ideals, and today I read this on behalf of her. This is for her son, Ben.
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son."
When I looked up, all I saw were glassy eyes and tissues.
As the service drew to a close I had the strange feeling of not wanting it to end. The finality was awful. I had done fairly well maintaining my composure until Lionel Richie's voice sounded through the building. I wished we'd gone with some stupid ABBA song like Charlie had said..
Thanks for the times
That you've given me
The memories are all in my mind
And now that we've come
To the end of our rainbow
There's something I must say out loud…
I knew that Three Times a Lady meant that it was time to take her out. Emmett had decided this morning that he wanted to carry his girl, so he passed little Ben to Jude, who followed behind us with Renee. Then Emmett, his father Bruce, Charlie, Jasper, Alice, and I took our places alongside our wife, daughter-in-law, daughter, and sister.
Everything was wrong about that. Everything.