Wraith

My wife drew my attention last night to the signs in front of a house near our place. The local funeral homes place these little signs, reading “Slow — Funeral” on either side of homes where someone has died, presumably to encourage an atmosphere of quiet and to discourage solicitors and other annoyances.

This morning when I drove past the house, I looked to see if there was a funeral wreath on the door, and there it was, black and somber and silent. The house usually has a rather festive air to it. The owners keep candles and lights in the windows, they decorate lavishly for Christmas, and they keep their lawn like impeccable Astroturf. We’ve never met the people there, though we did encounter their rather menacing dog one winter day when we were walking in thigh-high snow down their road. The Cujoesque beast sat in the driveway and snarled at us from the time he saw us until we trudged out of sight. The only person living in the house I’ve ever actually seen is the husband, a portly fellow with a bit of gray hair ringing his temples, his rolls bouncing as he pilots his riding mower on Friday evenings. Sometimes he returns my waves.

I don’t know if the man or his wife is the object of the black wreath’s symbolism. One of them for sure has passed from this life to the next, and one of them is left behind to sift through memories. And to wait.

Years ago, we were driving along a rural lane when we met a funeral procession coming the opposite way, a string of cars with lights on and bearing little window-mounted banners from the funeral home. As is the custom in the South, we pulled over to the side of the road to wait for the procession to pass. While we were waiting, I reflected on the inevitability of death and the fleeting nature of life. Intending to be respectful to the person in the hearse passing us by, I said to my wife, “Death comes to us all.”

A snicker made me look over at my wife. Her shoulders were shaking, and her face was red with the effort of suppressing her laughter, which quickly spilled forth. While she guffawed at her husband, I realized how pompous and faux-grave my statement must have sounded, and I joined her in laughing. Then we realized that the people in the funeral procession could see us laughing, and we pulled ourselves together. But as soon as we were driving again, we started laughing again. To this day, when one of us wants to break a nervous silence, one of us will mutter, “Well, death comes to us all.” It always works.

But the death of our not-near neighbor is not a joke. It marks the transition of a living human being to a different place, a different situation, one completely unknown to my kind, no matter how powerful nor perceptive the speculation. No one living knows where my neighbor went, nor what he/she is doing at this moment. The person who died is as silent as the spiders in the grass, and he/she will pass out of memory in time, no matter how much effort is expended to sustain that memory in the coming weeks and months, the memory rising into the sky, twisting like vapor in its effort to elude the world of men.

I will watch for the portly gent on his lawn mower this Friday when I drive past on my way home. If he is there, a question will have been answered. If he is not, I will give it another week while I watch the obituaries and work my rosary beads through my fingers.  I wonder if the man or his wife would be comforted by a stranger’s prayers.

Do you ever wonder if any stranger will notice your death? I watch people from my distance, and I am intrigued by the idea of unnoticed people watching me. Perhaps this is self-centeredness. Perhaps it is something else, a deep curiosity foundering within an intellect too shallow or undeveloped to really examine myself, but still aware of the desire to do so. I don’t know. What I do know is that what comes from my watching others is never mere curiosity — there is forever an element of concern and shared experience. The Marine Corps taught me all about how people function together in high-pressure environments, and this daily life is a high-pressure environment indeed.

I am somewhat surprised that the black funeral wreaths are still in use. Today’s fixation on prettifying everything, including death (and no one dies anymore, have you noticed that? They “pass,” or “pass on,” or “go home to be with the Lord, etc.) would seem to make the black wreath abhorrent. Ah, but the man or the woman in the house with the wreath are not/were not young. Their people still remember.

The people who live in the house with the wreath cut down the oaks lining their driveway a few years ago and planted maple saplings in their place. The trees have grown well, but one member of that household will not see them grow any larger. Will the dog still sit in the driveway and challenge the rare pedestrian? Will the lawn, soon enough to be hidden beneath winter’s white coverlet,  still be manicured with such regular and dedicated precision in the warm months?

Do the lights spilling out of our little farmhouse draw the attention of strangers passing by out on the gravel road at night, and do they speculate about my wife and me, about what sort of people we might be, about the quotidian elements that make up our daily lives?

~ S.K. Orr