Funeral, 1895: A Brookhaven Poem

She nestles there, suffering,

folded into herself,

until she is not. Helpless,

I watch her, disappearing

a little each day, and then

in the deafening silence

I can hear someone 

screaming in the light.

 

Our daughters, so much

like her, guide me through

the motions – arrangements,

the pastor, the funeral home,

the service, the burial, words

read to the sound of dirt

striking wood, the single rose

someone left soon covered.

 

The rose is white

in the afternoon light.

 

At the house, after, the smell

of coffee and iced cakes, 

church ladies hovering 

in long skirts and starched

white collared blouses, 

pouring into cups and 

cutting slices as muted sounds

of voices pass around me.

Our daughters anchor me 

in line, one on each side,

smiling to the people

in soft, nodding gratitude.

Through the windows I see

the afternoon light.

 

People leave. Our daughters

insist I rest, laying me

in our bed, the place where

she left me. The door closes; I

hear their steps on the stairs.

I don’t sleep; I turn on my side

and reach to touch what

is now emptiness suffused 

with light.

 

It is morning, early, dark still.

I make my way to the kitchen

and then the street, its houses 

posing as tombstones. 

I walk in the dark to the woods,

our woods, the place we

remembered as the afterword

of war. I walk miles perhaps, but

by time the light opens, 

I am buried deep in the green 

and the smell of dense pine,

embracing the solitude 

of separation.

 

We were bonded forever

by the road after the war,

the road we traveled

together, two children 

grown too old too soon,

traveling as one in the light.

No one knew us like

we knew each other.

No one ever could,

except the light.

 

Years later, when I was old,

I would hear that grief

is a thing with feathers. 

I knew that was wrong.

I would know grief, yes,

but only as a thing with tethers,

tethers bathed in light.

 

Photograph by Dewang Gupta via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Origin Story of Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Why Lenin Won – Gaul Saul Morson at Law & Liberty.

How to Throw the Best Party Ever

In  Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears,  Margaret Feinberg discusses one way she dealt with the awful physical pain she experienced with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

She threw herself a party.

Actually, she threw herself several parties. She celebrated, by herself, with her husband, and with others. She partied, she ate good food, she grabbed on to savor everything good thing life had to offer.

The partying had a purpose. It was an act of defiance, defying a disease and a course of treatment that is devastating physically, emotionally and spiritually. But defy she did. She fought back with celebration.

All this partying and celebration brought to mind Mickey Easterling.

From the time I was 8 or 9 to my senior year in college, I spent a lot of time at my father’s printing business in downtown New Orleans. Most of that time was spent working – especially weekends and summers – and some of that time was spent partying, like at Mardi Gras.

During the work times, I learned how to do just about everything – operate the printing machines, the paper cutter (a small guillotine), the postage metering machine, the collating machine, the addressograph, and even a machine that tied packages in string. I made deliveries all over downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter. I took checks to the bank. After I turned 15 and got my driver’s license, I drove big bags of mail to the New Orleans Post Office.

And I met a lot of unusual people.

The office was often a veritable parade of politicians, candidates, socialites, businessmen, non-profits and others seeking printing and mailing services. Once (when I wasn’t there) a young man came into the office seeking to have pro-communist propaganda printed; my father showed him the door. The young man’s name was Lee Harvey Oswald. After the assassination of President Kennedy, the FBI was crawling all over the downtown business district, tracing Oswald’s footsteps and activities, and they interviewed my father because of that one short meeting.

The parade of customers included quite a few local “characters” and celebrities, and one of them was a socialite named Mickey Easterling. She was a small woman with a large (very large) presence, given to flamboyant clothes and a distinctive, loud voice recognized anywhere. I remember seeing her many times, in my father’s office as well as her own office and home. She was a gracious and friendly as she was loud. Everyone merited a “hello how ya doin’ dawlin” from her. And she meant it.

She was a “presence” in New Orleans, and knew how to get things done. As much as she mixed with the powers that ran the city, she tended to favor the poor and disenfranchised, never forgetting her own background and upbringing. She was known to African-Americans as a tireless champion of civil rights – not the easiest of things to be in 1960s and 1970s New Orleans and in the circles she ran with.

Mrs. Easterling died last year. Instead of a wake or visitation, she threw herself a party in the lobby of the Saenger Orleans Theater. You’d have to see the lobby to appreciate it. The ticket office is on Canal Street, and you have to walk a good marbled half block through the long lobby to reach the theater itself. Entering Mrs. Easterling’s last party from Canal Street, you’d walk up that marbled hallway to the area in front of the theater doors, where guests and mourners found the guest of honor waiting.

 I am not making this up. You can read the newspaper reports.

She was a character in a city famous for its characters. And while I still can’t decide whether that either the wackiest thing I’ve ever heard of, or the one in poorest taste, or both, it was vintage Mickey Easterling.

It was also an act of defiance. She couldn’t stop death, but she didn’t have to surrender to it. And she wouldn’t.

Margaret Feinberg defied illness and pain, and fought back with joy. And a lot of parties. She wouldn’t surrender to breast cancer, no matter what happened. And what she was learning was that the outcome was less important than the fight. She didn’t know how it would end, but she was determined not to be defeated. And she wasn’t.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading Fight Back with Joy. To see more posts on this chapter, “How to Throw the Best Party Ever,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Kevin Casper via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.