The Eulogy

The Eulogy

I stare down the hallway which seems to stretch into eternity. The drab walls filled with cheap canvas paintings found at any knockoff home goods store. A gallery of family photos, poor resolution and fake smiles abound. Today is the funeral, but my eyes are dry as I walk through my mother’s house. I stop at each room briefly; rooms that represent all the memories. They call out to me, beckon me with a familiar sense of impending doom. The reality of a cold childhood imprinted onto the fading wallpaper. I walk into the master bedroom and sit on a perfectly made bed, adorned with about ten too many pillows. I’m holding a crisp white envelope with my name written on it in red ink, my mother’s favorite color pen to write with. Who uses a red pen? Inside the envelope is a check for $20,000 and that is it. No letter. No parting words.

“What are you doing?” my sister says. She has peeked her head inside the door frame. I have no idea how long I’ve been up here. The last time I stepped foot in this house was over 10 years ago; not much has changed.

“Nothing, be right down.” I reply dryly as I look up from the envelope. She stares at me for a moment, the urge to say something paints her beautifully shaped face. But she turns around and I hear each thud as she goes down the stairs.

The car ride to the funeral home is quiet. The aura of it all is reminiscent of a dark,dank basement. You know, the kind where one could hear a faint drip coming from a leak somewhere in it’s abyss. Drip. Drip. Drip. The tension builds as no one knows what to say. Three siblings in a car, but we couldn't be further away from one another. So much for tragedies bringing people together. Drip. Drip. Drip. In an attempt to make myself look busy, I open my little black notebook. It’s old and tattered but it does the job. In it, I write my thoughts and ideas but also glimpses of my childhood. It’s cheaper than therapy. But it also contains two eulogies for my mom. Nobody really wanted to write one, so being the oldest it ended up in my lap. One of the eulogies is pretty typical. Your standard glorification of an ordinary person whether they were decent or not. The other one was the truth. The truth is hard. It’s complicated. Sometimes words cannot pinpoint that fine line we walk as human beings. The line between what we perceive is good and bad. The envelope with the check is nestled between the two eulogies. The money itself is a surprise…sort of. It was the currency my mother used to right her wrongs. $20,000 is just a bigger version of the material gifts given to us to keep us quiet. When I was 13, I wrote some poems for a school assignment. As part of the assignment, a parent had to review them. After finishing three poems, I left them on the kitchen counter for my mom to review in the morning. My mom flipped out after reading them. The content granted was pretty dark for a 13 year old. They were poems about depression. I wasn’t suicidal but I was very proud of the writing itself. She made me burn them. I also had to sign a “document” that she wrote up stating she was a good mom and not the reason I wrote them. Even though she was exactly the reason. I signed it with her red pen. I didn’t write for a long time after that, but I did get a brand new bike the next week.

It sounds like a rock concert inside the funeral home compared to the ride here. People shuffling around, talking to one another. It quiets as my siblings and I walk in and then the bombarding starts.

“It is so nice to see you back here,” my Aunt Del says. She is dressed to the nines as usual, a black dress with a fitted jacket. Suede boots and her hair done up as high as humanly possible.

“Yea, I’ve missed you.” I reply with a slight smile. Aunt Del was a secret savior of mine growing up. Everyone in our small town thinks she's cuckoo, but I know now that usually means quite the opposite.

“Nobody blames you for leaving,” she continues as the line forming behind her grows. She always goes out of her way, trying to reassure me. Even after all these years.

“I gotta go find my sister, I’ll find you later!” I say as I scurry off to the bathroom. Must hide. But first, I realize my bag is missing.

I frantically look for my bag that contains the black notebook and the check. After dodging a bunch of old townies, I find it with my brother, who is too busy looking through my wallet for money to notice the notebook and it’s contents.

“Give me my damn bag,” I hiss lowly to avoid being heard.

“Really? Here? Today? I continue as he looks at me dumbly.

“Listen Mo, Im…uh…” he stammers.

“Don’t fucking call me that!” I shoot back ,ending the conversation there. Where the hell is the bathroom!

As I lock myself in the tiny bathroom, I take a deep breath and inhale the overpowering smell of Pine Sol. I look in the mirror and the room starts to spin. My eyes cannot focus as my breathing becomes ragged. I grip the off-white sink with both hands and close my eyes. I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. Time passes as I repeat that to myself until my panic turns back into annoyance and the attack passes. I look in the mirror again and search my face for a sign. A signal to tell me what to do. Which eulogy do I read? Does it matter? Would anyone really care? Aunt Del’s words echo in my head, “Nobody blames you.” Nobody blames me because everyone knew.

I come out of the bathroom and am confronted with the glaring visual of my mother’s coffin. It’s so damn shiny and tacky. Typical. I make my way up and kneel in front of the coffin. She looks peaceful but yet there’s a knot in my stomach that grows with every second. Fuck it. I take out the black notebook and slide the envelope holding the check out. I tuck it way down deep inside the coffin wall closest to me. Then,I rip out both eulogies from the black notebook and place the notebook next to my mother in her coffin. You can keep your money and my memories. Taking both eulogies with me, I get up and locate the podium from which I will speak. People start to take their seats. The energy in the room transforms into that of anticipation. Everyone starts to look at me. They wait for what could possibly come out of my mouth. Some are enjoying it, practically drooling over the prospect of some gossip to share later. Internally, I gather myself, still going back and forth between which eulogy to read. I decide not to look at any one person. I don’t want to be swayed by anyone. My eyes,searching for something to focus on, stop at the big double doors behind the seating area. The sun sneaks through the glass and casts a glare so strong, it eliminates most of the faces in the seats. I steady my hands on the podium…and I begin.