| Sometimes the journey and the destination | | | | funeral director once who explained that they |
| become one. Thus it was on a recent family trip | | | | don't even own the lowering equipment anymore. |
| to a family funeral for a cousin with a beautiful | | | | Perhaps it's unionized with a separation of services |
| woman with a beautiful heart and a beautiful | | | | and duties? Did this change come from a cultural |
| voice. She'd sung at my sister's memorial almost | | | | change? Is it a shift in our way of death? |
| three years ago and at my mother's graveside | | | | Beautiful floral arrangements cluster around the |
| service about a year-and-a-quarter ago. | | | | casket underneath the green tent providing shade |
| This is a big funeral inside the fully-packed country | | | | on this hot day. Family members sit in folding |
| church, plunked down in the middle of agricultural | | | | chairs covered with green plush to soften and |
| land. I recall fanning myself here as a girl with a | | | | comfort them at this moment of leave-taking. A |
| fan provided by a funeral home as we sat | | | | grandfather explains to his grand-daughter that |
| listening to a sermon and then rising to sing a | | | | the casket sits inside the gold-colored vault and |
| hymn. Today there's air-conditioning, recorded | | | | points out her grandmother's name on the end of |
| music, and barely a dry eye in the full house of | | | | the vault's top. |
| the Lord. The town drunk made something | | | | Then I witness a custom I'd never seen before: |
| beautiful for God inside this renovated Sugar | | | | family members wet their thumbs and press |
| Grove Church. | | | | them against the casket, so their beloved one can |
| Our funeral cortege is a long one and our journey | | | | take this ephemeral imprint from their bodies to |
| to the Gillette Cemetery takes us past a long | | | | the grave and the next world. I think of |
| stretch of gnarly construction. All the Illinois Valley | | | | handprints on caves and how basic an act this |
| Paving construction workers standing beside the | | | | is--to leave the swirls of our unique identity as a |
| road take their hats off as we pass. | | | | final message, a final link and connection between |
| We step over cowpies in the cemetery | | | | worlds we cannot traverse. |
| separated from a neighboring pasture by a low | | | | Back at the Sugar Grove Church loving friends, |
| wire fence and there's a cornfield next to that. I | | | | neighbors, and church members have prepared a |
| sit on a stump and watch a beetle crawl over | | | | funeral feast for the returning mourners, mostly |
| over the deadfall of twigs as the last prayers are | | | | family now, but we still fill the church basement. |
| said. | | | | Pop's legs don't hold him up as strong as they |
| The current custom of no longer lowering the | | | | used to, so we sit and listen to more stories while |
| casket into the ground at the close of the | | | | the line dwindles. |
| graveside service bothers my father. The lack of | | | | Our journey of reunion at a time of parting is |
| lowering the body to a final resting place feels | | | | complete, and we head home, gazing out towards |
| incomplete to him. Pop says he took it up with a | | | | the river and the white cranes. |