Reflections - Melodies for Richard

Red-Winged Blackbird

Stuffing masks into our pockets, Spence and I walked into Brugger Funeral Home Friday, June 4. Unmasked, suited men on either side of the atrium inclined their heads and, in unison, said, “Welcome.”

Directions would have been more helpful, but I inclined my head back and walked down the marble hall until I spotted a sign above a doorway. Michael, for my second cousin Richard Douglas Michael.

 

He was eleven years older than me. We saw each other at family gatherings on Edith’s (his aunt’s, my great aunt’s) farm. I ran beside the brook with other children. He talked and laughed with the young adults on the rise by the breezeway. Over the years, he greeted me at family funerals with a broad smile that lit his rosy cheeks. I sat near him at the luncheon after Aunt Edith’s service. He related an adventure of climbing a pole for Penelec in gusting winds.

“You mean,” I asked in awe, “while we’re huddled at home waiting for the electricity to come on, you’re climbing the utility pole in the snowstorm?”

He chuckled. “That’s right.”

His wife Charlene gazed up at him with love and admiration.

I’d never top his pole climbing to help people, but I hoped by attending his funeral and saying goodbye to Richard in person, I would support his wife and sisters.

With Spence following, I stepped into the Michael room. Aisles separated the eight-chair middle section from the narrower side sections. Seventy to eighty unmasked strangers sat between me and Richard’s open casket in front. I whispered to Spence, “We don’t need our masks.” Shivering, half in thrill and half in unease of finding myself in a group so large after more than a year of pandemic isolation, I scanned the room for Richard’s sisters.

His older sister Norma, who taught both Spence and me junior high biology, sat in the last row. With backs to us, neither she nor her husband Bob saw us enter. Not wanting to shout and knowing I wouldn’t be heard over the murmur of conversations, I reached my hand toward Bob’s shoulder. A woman at the end of the row, who Norma would later introduce as their daughter Kathy, motioned for Bob to turn around before I made contact.

The three stood. When Bob and Norma last visited us at Wells Wood, conversations had flowed. But, after Norma’s alto, “I’m glad you came,” and Bob’s bass “Good to see you,” silence fell. With the pandemic more under control, I wasn’t sure how to greet someone I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. Bob stretched his hand to Spence. The rest of us nodded like bobbleheads.

From the front of the room, Charlene glided toward us. She wrapped me in a bear hug. “Thank you for coming.”

“I’m so sorry, Charlene,” I said breaking away. “At least you had a long time together.”

She glanced toward the casket. “We did. Sixty years,” and she smiled Richard’s broad smile before stepping aside to make room for Nancy, Richard’s younger sister.

More bobblehead nods. Our greetings would have amused Richard.

“How is your quilting coming?” I asked after condolences and thanks were exchanged.

“Fine. Friday is the day I’m with my quilting friends . . .” Her voice trailed off at the reminder of why she missed the gathering that day. “I make pottery now too.”

Grateful I’d had time to connect with relatives, I sat between Norma and Spence.

Is it wrong to enjoy a funeral?

Norma leaned toward me. “The people in the rows ahead of us are relatives.” Then she pointed to specific people. "There’s Little Richard, one of Richard’s four sons.” Her litany continued, names muddled in my head, and the music started. Norma pointed to the woman playing an electric keyboard. “That’s the sister of—.” She said a name, but I forgot.

Sitting on a bench, the musician stared at music resting on a wide rack, played, and sang a song I hadn’t heard before. The words flowed from her heart, but her pitch only blended with the melody half of the time.

Taking steps in time with the music, Reverend Mark O’Hern, as tall and slender as one of the utility poles Richard had climbed, entered. Reverend O’Hern prayed, praised Richard with facts that matched those in the obituary, and prayed some more. The service ended with the reverend leaving while the musician played the same song.

Screenshot of Richard's Obituary

Halfway through, the music rack popped loose. It fell backward sending a white binder up then down adding an unwritten percussive thud to the song.

Relatives in front of me straightened in their chairs.

The musician sang and played without the music.

A man near her picked up the rack and pressed it against the keyboard frame.

The rack fell back to the floor.

The woman kept playing and singing.

He pressed.

The rack fell.

After his third failed attempt, she stopped. “Hold the music for me,” she said to the man trying yet again to attach the loose rack. To the rest of us she said, “If you know the words, sing along.”

No one sang. Many laughed. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t snicker and checked if Richard wore his wide smile. He didn’t, of course.

Is it wrong to enjoy a funeral?

The music stopped. A funeral director gave announcements in a comforting voice, and we left for our cars.

Spence and I came last in the procession. That suited me fine. All the other cars were freshly-washed city clean. Our Subaru wore its perpetual outer coating of West Creek Road dirt. I concentrated on speeding up and slowing down to keep close, but not too close, to the gray car ahead.

Cottonwood seeds floated past the windshield. Tires hummed on the pavement like a muted drumroll. Flashers blinked and orange funeral flags flapped on each of the nearly thirty vehicles stretched out on the gentle rises and dips in front of me. I silently thanked the stopped drivers for their patience and reveled in the fitting tribute for Richard.

Though running red lights had bothered my elementary-school teacher ethics at first, by the time we neared the cemetery, running red lights made me giddy.

Is it wrong to enjoy a funeral?

The procession wove around curving cemetery lanes and past row after row of American flags left from Memorial Day celebrations.

A man, wearing an orange vest over his suit coat, waved for us to park at the end of the long line. By the time we’d walked to the gathering at a tent, the grandson and granddaughter pallbearers had Richard’s flag-covered casket in place. Spence and I stood outside the tent.

Reverend Mark O’Hern began the service with prayers. A red-winged blackbird sang conk-la-ree.

Two servicemen lifted the flag off the casket, folded the flag with precision, and presented it to Charlene. The red-wing whistled.

The servicemen hustled to join the waiting honor guard. One grabbed a flag. The other grabbed a rifle. The guard shot three eardrum-breaking salutes into the air. The red-winged blackbird commented, chack, chack, chack.

The serviceman at the end of the line dropped his cane and lifted a bugle to his lips. Slow, mournful notes of taps moistened my eyes, and the accompanying red-wing’s trills had me checking my pockets for a handkerchief. None. The cloth mask worked just as well.

Last, Reverend O’Hern invited people to sprinkle holy water on Richard’s casket.

Charlene sprinkled first. She handed the bottle to Nancy then walked to the edge of the tent. Tears streamed down Charlene’s face, but she stood erect and kept her eyes focused on the casket.

Nancy sprinkled water then tapped the casket as if giving her older brother pats on the back.

After Norma sprinkled, she joined us. “I didn’t come to mourn Richard. I came to celebrate him. He had a good, long life.” She turned for one last look at the casket, and the red-winged blackbird trilled.

Now, when I hear a red-wing sing, I’ll remember Richard and the melodies from his funeral.

It isn’t wrong to enjoy a funeral.

Red-winged Blackbird