One Last Kiss

The day of the funeral...

To feel so numb but to have so much to do is such a contradiction in terms. All I want to do is go to bed and stay there with the blankets pulled over my head.

Let someone else do this. I can't.

Phone calls from people, food and flowers arriving at the door. God, I hate the smell of roses now. So cloyingly sweet. The smell seems to penetrate the house but mostly my brain.

A friend of mine that I had met at the Radiation clinic... (That seems like it was a 100 years ago)

Her husband had died of the same horrible cancer my husband had, told me that she had put her dog up in the bed with her husband to let him know that he was gone.

Ewwww, so morbid!

After my husband had gone, I did just that.

Both dogs were thrilled to be up on the bed I had denied them access to these last weeks. The little Chihuahua, much older and wiser, sniffed him all over. Looked up at me with such sadness in her soft brown eyes then laid her little apple head on his arm with a small sigh. She bared her teeth at anyone that tried to move her from his side.

Izzy, usually so rambunctious and out of control, sniffed his face once, jumped off the bed like she had been shot from a cannon and hid under the bed in the next room.

They both knew.

I'm glad now I did this. They are both grieving but seem to know why their beloved master is not here. He's not coming home....

Shower, makeup, hair. Like an auto-mon get ready for this day.

Meet the rest of the family, cousins, relatives, life-long friends at the funeral home.

Pall Bearers

Saying good-bye. More tears. More sorrow. More prayers. More sadness.

One last goodbye. More tears fall onto his face. "My Darling, please know that I will always love you. Forever. Unending."

I see the six best friends of my husband, the pall bearers, bring the casket and loads of flowers out to the waiting hearse. Such a sunny pretty day but a black hole in all of our hearts. I feel as if my knees will buckle and I will become one with the parking lot.

I am just led around like a four year old. Totally clueless. I have never done this before.

Not this.

Our limo follows the long black hearse. Others follows us. A long steady stream of cars

winding thru the streets to the church Henry and I attended every Sunday that we could while we were home and together. I see people and recognize their faces but my heart can't acknowledge their presence or why they are there to tell this wonderful man good-bye.

So many people crying.

So much sadness.

People speak at the podium and the priest says the Mass. My husband is lying there beside me in a white draped coffin with a cross of gold embroidered on the delicate cloth.

The priest begins The Lord's Prayer.

Every Sunday, all of our married life and before, as "The Lord's Prayer" was being said, we would recite those familiar words, my husband would reach out and grab my hand as we spoke the words....Hands locked in a grasp, all of the week's issues and problems would seem to melt away....

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be Done

No one to hold my hand now as that beautiful prayer was said, I reached out and laid my hand on the coffin. Never to hold his hand again, sobbing, as the prayer and the people prayed.

I could hear people crying behind me. He was so loved.

Back to the limo again.

Winding thru the streets. We don't go straight to the cemetery. Police escorts leading us past his business. All of his workers out lining the street in a silent salute and good-bye to this amazing man. Gone too Soon. Too Young... Too Good.

Following the hearse to the cemetery. A tent has been set up with chairs under the old oak trees in the spot we had chosen over a year before.

The sun dapples through the trees and glistens on the mirror covered casket. His name and birthdate and the date he left us engraved so beautifully on the top of the glass.

The priest ends the prayers and before they lower my beautiful husband into the ground, I bend to kiss the top. I leave an eternal lipstick print on the glass as I tell him one last good-bye...