The Funeral Planner (36 page)

I hope this letter finds you well and happy. Thanks for the happiness tips. I found happiness this week catching a bass in Clark Lake (which I put back in the water), taking walks with Sid and bartending at the Eagle’s Nest, where I now listen to people’s hopes, aspirations and process with grief. Without even reading a newspaper, I unhappily learned that Derek’s empire has expanded and is unfortunately taking advantage of the locals around here. I try not to let it get to me. I’m also learning to listen…to myself. It’s amazing how many epiphanies one can have when one is quiet enough to hear them. I think I know now who I’ve been seeking approval from…myself. And working in a bar turns out to be a pretty good place to practice self-acceptance. I don’t know what the results of playing bartender will be, but for now, it keeps me engaged with life—and the tips aren’t bad, either.

Yours truly,

Madison

P.S. Since I’m out of the “know” going on three months and no newspaper, how was the launch of your Designer Tank company? Sid says “Hi.”

Using a pencil, I shade an empty spot at the bottom of the letter, then call Siddhartha over and point to it. “Okay, Sid, sign here.” Sid places her paw in a dish of flour and then puts her paw on the spot, creating a defined paw mark.

“Good girl.” Sid licks my face. I neatly fold the letter inside an envelope addressed to Winston Capital.

The next night at the bar, I wait for Richard to close up while Siddhartha sleeps quietly in her corner spot. I pour two shots of whiskey. “Um, Richard. Can I talk to you?”

He eyes the shots and smiles. “I take it this is going to be a long sit-down kind of talk.”

“Um. Probably.”

He sits on a stool, leaving the shot untouched on the table. “I’m all ears.”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of the things you’ve been telling me and I think I have long-term grief that’s triggered a state of agitated depression.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, because I haven’t been able to get over the deaths of Uncle Sam or my friend Tara or my cousin Smitty. I haven’t been able to get over the loss of Lights Out, either. I’m consumed in grief…”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you some homework.” He disappears into the back room and returns with a giant piece of plain brown wrapping paper, which he lays on the bar. “I want you to make a graph of all the losses in your life starting from birth until now. You can write, you can draw pictures, you can express it any way you want. Take your time and we’ll go over it tomorrow night, same time, same place. And let’s save the drinks until we’re done.”

The next night after closing, I sit with Richard and unravel my Loss Graph across the top of the bar. I’ve created an elaborate diagram complete with drawings, sketches, clipped-out portraits and cut-out landscapes from magazines. An idea starts in one location with arrows sprouting from it, branching to more connected losses.

Richard studies the graph carefully. “I want you to explain for me what the loss was and your feelings around it, then and now.”

“Okay, well, um, when I was born I had my first sense of loss—I lost the private womb I grew up in.” I point to the next illustration. “Over here, two years later, I lost being an only child when my brother was born…. At six, we moved and I lost the street Stansbury that I grew up on, which had a real sense of community to it…. I lost my first serious boyfriend in junior high to a best friend who decided she wanted him at whatever cost, so I also lost my best friend…. And then I lost my first really successful business in college, which I lost to Derek Rogers who sabotaged me and to this day continues to do so.”

“The same Derek Rogers who owns Tribute in a Box?” asks Richard.

I nod. “I keep losing my businesses. White Mondays became Black Tuesdays, Artists International was stolen by Palette Enterprises, Lights Out got snuffed out….” I feel tears clot in my throat. “Then my cousin Smitty died, and a year later a close friend from college, Tara Pintock, died…and then…Uncle Sam. He was my best friend throughout my whole life. He was always there for me. I miss him.” I start to weep. “And, um, recently I feel like I’ve lost my college girlfriend Sierra to her new boyfriend, Milton…and, um, I think my grief is turning people like Victor Winston away from me. I feel like all I do is play the results and the only results I end up with are filled with loss.”

“So what I hear you say is that you’ve had a lot of loss around your career, which ties into your self-esteem…and you’ve had a lot of loss from deaths in a very short time,” says Richard. I nod. “And you feel a sense of abandonment and betrayal by some of your past boyfriends and college classmates,” he adds. I nod again. “Can you tell me what results you’re playing for?”

My words gush forth between tears. “Well…that my hard work will reward me with a really successful career…and a beautiful home…and a beautiful healthy husband…or partner, and, um, beautiful healthy children, and a beautiful dog…the dog part I now have.”

“What I hear you say is that you’re playing for perfection,” states Richard. I nod again, wiping my eyes with the tissues that he hands me. “Why do you feel you have to have perfection in what you do and in your relationships?”

“So I can have a good life.”

“Perfection doesn’t exist, Maddy. It’s the imperfect that’s perfect.”

“Is that a conundrum?”

He grins and continues. “Do you think you can have a good life accepting the way things are in the moment?”

“I’m trying to accept myself right now.”

“That’s great. Can you explain to me just how you are doing that?”

“By not being so critical of myself, and repeating affirmations that I’m good enough as I am right now. Good enough for myself, at least.”

“Sounds like you don’t believe you’re good enough for anyone else.”

I nod again.

“Maddy. Love is simply about growing with another person, which just so happens to put the lights on your character defects, so if you’re stuck on perfection, you’re stuck on stagnation, and that’s not growing either alone or with someone else. When you stop growing in a relationship, you’re done and you move on so you can continue to grow, whether that’s with another person or not. But people like to get attached to people, to things, to concepts. I’ll tell you this much—the more attached someone is to those things, the more difficult their death will be.”

I nod.

“There’s really nothing for you to get, Maddy. You get it. All you have to do is be…and just let life happen.”

“But when I
be,
I get
bored.
Is that agitated depression?”

He smiles. “That’s
schpilkes,
as your uncle would say.” He sighs and gently pats my hand. “I want you to do something for me. I want you to pretend that you have three days left to live and to plan your own funeral. Write down for me every detail you can, who you want to speak, what you want said and by whom, what you want to leave, if you want to be cremated or buried in a casket and anything else you can think of. And I also want you to write a letter to your uncle with your left hand.”

“But I’m right-handed.”

“That’s why I want you to write it with your left. Some folks call it activating the inner child. I call it slowing down the
schpilkes.
”

I smile at that.

“Meet me at the corner of Jefferson and Eagle Point tomorrow, an hour before we open.”

“Okay,” I say. “What about you, Richard? What’s your love story?”

“I was married once for twenty-one years. My wife passed away and, well, I’ve grown accustomed to the role of loner and it suits me just fine.”

“What about now, are you growing?”

“When you’re helping others, you’re always growing.” And all the way home with Sid by my side, I wonder how Richard Wright got to be so wise—and would I ever be that wise? It was something I wouldn’t have to wonder about much longer.

That night, I sit in a hot bubble bath by candlelight thinking about my three remaining days on earth and writing out my own funeral plan, which I title “The Life Celebration of Madison Banks.” Siddhartha lies next to the tub keeping vigil over me.

Later, in front of a warm fireplace and with Siddhartha at my side, I hold up the Ziploc bag with Uncle Sam inside and show it to Sid.

“Sid, meet Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam, this is Sid, short for Siddhartha, and also with an
S
because she was named after you.” I place the bag on the coffee table and begin awkwardly writing a letter to Uncle Sam with my left hand. The process is tedious.

Dear Uncle Sam,

I miss you so much…I wish I could talk to you. I am filled with…sadness and regret. I regret not getting married and being able to have you see me walk down the aisle. I regret…not having children so you could be there to enjoy them with me.

Feelings rise to the surface between the words I compose.

Suddenly, I start to cry. “Oh my God,” I exclaim. “I get it. I get it.” I look at the dust of Uncle Sam in the Ziploc bag. An epiphany takes hold, Uncle Sam is all around me. I lift my fingers to gently rub the air in front of my face. “I get it,” I repeat. And this time, I weep for joy.

Next day, Sid and I meet Richard at the crossroads. It’s a half mile to the bar.

Richard greets me. “Do you have your funeral preparations?” I nod. “And the letter to Sam?” I nod again. “May I have them?” I hand them over. “Okay, Maddy, for the next four hours, you’re dead. You can’t say a word, you can’t make a comment, you certainly can’t tend the bar, and you can’t pay attention to Sid. Now let’s walk to your funeral.” Richard starts walking.

I feel funny. I finally take a step forward and follow him, realizing I no longer have the capacity to speak or be heard. Sid walks between the two of us.

Richard turns to the puppy, now approximately seven months old. “So, Sid, how are you doing, sweetness? You miss your mom? I know. She took good care of you, didn’t she? We’ll find out very soon who she instructed to take care of you.” I watch Sid hang by Richard as he talks to her. I feel a pang in my heart. I can’t talk or hold Sid, because I’m dead.

When we reach the bar and go inside, Richard pulls a large white sheet out of the back office. He instructs dead me to sit at the bar and then places the cloth over me. Sid can no longer see me and starts to whimper. It breaks my heart but I force myself to remain quiet. I listen as Richard sets the bar up, predicting every one of the customs in his routine. I hear him unlock the refrigerator, followed by the extra liquor bin. I hear him walk to the front door and flip the Open sign around. I hear Sid’s paw steps follow Richard around as if Sid knows I’m gone and is looking to see who she is supposed to latch on to. I hear new noises that break away from the routine: sounds of a bottle being opened followed by a quick pouring of liquid.

“I’m going to really miss your mom, Sid,” says Richard. Then I hear him swallow some liquid and place a shot glass on the bar. Just then, I hear another person’s footsteps. Sounds like Guy. Must be Guy.
But he’s early,
I think.

As Guy walks toward the bar he asks, “Where’s Maddy?”

I can practically see Richard cock his head toward me and I hear him reply, “She died.”

“Oh,” says Guy. “I’m gonna miss her.” He’s bent down to pet Sid. “Who’s gonna look after the dog?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out at the funeral. It starts in fifteen minutes,” says Richard.

“In that case you better only give me half a beer to start. I don’t want to be sloshed at her service.”

I hear the front door open and close. Feet and paws shuffle against the floor. I can tell it’s Wally. “I’m not too late, am I?” he asks.

“No,” says Richard.

The door opens and closes again followed by more pitter-patter of Sid’s paws.

“Hello, Siddhartha!” says the sweet voice of Mrs. Jones, the librarian. A bar stool scrapes against the floor as she takes a seat. “Hello, Richard, Guy, Wally.” Richard must have planned this, I think. Wally and Mrs. Jones never come in this early.

“Everybody, could you please move your bar stools so we’re all sitting around the deceased.” I listen as the stools squeak along the floor. Richard continues. “We’re here this evening to mourn the passing of Madison Banks. I have with me her instructions regarding her passing.” Papers rustle. I wonder how on earth he’s going to read my writing. Much of what I wrote came in a flush of thoughts. I could not write fast enough to keep up with the ideas that poured out. Had I known he was going to read them, I would have made my instructions legible.

“Okay,” says Richard. “It says here that Maddy would like her funeral to be held at Clark Lake at her uncle Sam’s cottage. For a two-day…I can’t tell, that might say threeday…event. First, she wants her friend Sierra to put together a life bio video, which she would like shown at night outside under the stars against a big screen, weather permitting, she writes. She wants her mother and father to speak about her, her best friend Sierra, and her nephew Andy…if he’s up for it—I think that’s what that says. She’d like her brother, a poet, to write an original poem about her and read it for everyone. She would like Maurice LeSarde to sing “Fishing Free” live and in person, and then for her mother to lead everyone in telling a story about her around…I think that says scrambled eggs and rye toast, Neshama sausage and some sort of…cookie, I think….”