Death rituals and customs in the Arkansas Delta are set in stone. When I was a child, I attended an occasional funeral, and I often accompanied my parents when they went to visitations. The visitations took place the evening before a funeral when people gathered to pay their respects and to view the body of the deceased. The event was usually held in a funeral home, but at times it took place in a private home.
When I did attend a visitation, I was amazed at the floral displays. Large metal screens and wire stands were filled with wreaths of colorful, fragrant flowers. The sticky-sweet smell was overwhelming. I would marvel at the broad satin ribbons, and I wondered how the florist had written in glitter on the ribbons. On the day following a visitation, I often overheard women talking in my mother’s beauty shop about the number of flowers that were at the deceased person’s visitation. They thought that the more flowers that surrounded the body, the more popular had been the departed. My mother’s customers would remark, “There were sure a lot of flowers there. She sure was loved.”
I had a morbid curiosity about the body laid out in the casket. Were they stiff? Although I would sometimes see a bereaved person kiss a corpse or touch the hands of the deceased, I didn’t dare touch a body to find out. Did the dead person have on socks and shoes? I thought it odd when folks would look at a dead body and say, “Don’t they look natural?” I never thought they did. They looked dead.
At the age of eleven, I developed a lump under my arm. I was certain it was a cancerous tumor. I didn’t tell anyone I was dying. I didn’t want to upset my parents. I checked the lump several times a day to see if it was getting larger. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I figured cancer had already spread and it was too late to do anything about it.
I envisioned my funeral and visitation. I mentally planned the event by taking ideas from the funerals and visitations that I had attended. I created fantasy scenes borrowed from romanticized tragic movies when the bereaved would either faint or throw themselves onto the casket of their beloved. Would anyone faint at my funeral or plop atop my coffin? Would there be wailing?
At night before falling asleep, I would create a list of folks that might attend my visitation. Would Tommy be there? Would he cry? I knew that if I did die there would be some people who felt guilty about my passing and say, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t better to Zeek.” Then I would think, It’s too late you mean ol’ idiot.
I imagined having more flowers at my funeral than would fit inside the Methodist church sanctuary where my service would be held. I spent time thinking about what I should wear while lying in the casket. I wondered whether I should pick something out or leave that decision to my mother.
The lump went away. I suspect that it was nothing more than a swollen lymph gland. Even though I had spent many hours planning my funeral and visitation, I didn’t die. While I was happy to be alive, I did think, The town sure missed a good funeral.
