In loving memory of Anne Carroll George

I have never seen that woman before in my life. Gracie stared into her grandmother’s casket, longing for a stiff drink and wondering if her purse contained a sedative left over from the dentist last week. The heavy odor of funeral flowers burdened the air. Gracie sucked it in, hoping it would trigger some mournful memory and a socially acceptable tear. Roses that smell like mums that smell like carnations. They’re all the same in this place – you can’t tell one from another by the time they get here.

“Doesn’t she look like herself?” One of her grandmother’s neighbor ladies posed the Inevitable Southern Funeral Question. “Yes. Oh, yes – of course she does,” Gracie lied, returning her dry-eyed gaze to the coffin and its mysterious occupant.

This simply was not her grandmother.

Not hickory limb totin’ Moleen, ready to give you a whuppin’ whether you need it or not.

Not hellfire-and-damnation Moleen, who could put a tent revival preacher off religion for good.

Not Moleen-the-thoughtful-barber. She shaved Papa’s face. Shaved his face while he lay there dying. He couldn’t move, but he could hear everything. Everything. He heard her when she said – loud, like people talk to sick folks: “I’m doin’ this now hon’ so the undertaker won’t have it to do later.” The memory of that macabre scene still made Gracie’s skin crawl. She had leapt across the bed and grabbed for the old woman’s scrawny throat, but not before Moleen could croak out “the undertakers never do it right. That’s all I meant.”

No way the woman in this coffin was Moleen.

This was a round-faced woman with cookie baking grandmother hands.

Hands with plump, soft fingers that would make steeples as she helped you say your prayers.

Hands that would tenderly brush away the tears when you fell on your bike.

Mrs. Santa Claus.

A figment.

That’s who we’re burying here.

For a moment, Gracie wondered if she should tell someone, then said a hasty prayer. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the Freewill Baptist preacher in his polyester knit suit and Real Men Love Jesus tie. Gracie wasn’t sure whether his disapproving look was due to her lack of tears or because he saw her cross herself. Moleen would say that she didn’t understand how I turned Catholic, what she did wrong raising me. Well, maybe I’ll just keep quiet. Maybe I’ll just let you stay wherever you are right now, Moleen, with strangers burying you. And us with this nice, chubby, TV grandmother-woman. Gracie took her seat in the back of the room, not ready to speak to anyone in the family just yet.

Scouting the room, she did a quick inventory of her siblings. There was Max, sitting with a whole flock of lesbians in the far corner. Moleen may have been pissed when I turned Catholic, but she went into full-fledged apoplexy when Mitzi changed her name to Max and came out right there at mother’s funeral. To her left was Brother, lounging in the doorway, wearing Armani and the languid expression of the damned and permanently stoned. And Jessie, in dire need of a cigarette, but steady as a rock inside. Wild-child Jess had been the responsible one, in full control when Moleen was dying and Gracie just couldn’t deal.

Should I say something about the stranger to Jessie? She would know what to do. Jess always knows just what to do. Gracie’s thoughts drifted to Scarlett’s funeral and how she had felt like an orphan. Silly to feel that way. I never really knew mother. But no one ever knew Scarlett. That was how she liked it. She was always flying somewhere vague and faraway – or getting married – or drunk – or therapized. Anything to avoid Moleen. And right after we buried her, Jess was going through her papers and discovered all those extra husbands we never even knew about. Come to think of it, Scarlett didn’t look exactly right in her coffin either.

And Papa.

Poor, close-shaven Papa.

He lay there looking like he might finally get some sleep.

Papa-the-whipped, doing as Moleen said.

Papa-the-beloved, adored by Gracie.

He took her fishing and baited the hook.

And when there were mice in the pantry, Papa caught them in a shoebox, took them outside and set them free because he couldn’t bear Gracie’s tears.

Who would Papa have been – what might he have done if he had never met Moleen? Did any of us ever really know him? The important part must have died a long time before he encountered the lady barber. Who did we bury in that coffin?

And now, Moleen.

A door closed and Gracie jumped. Brother was gone. Omigod – Max was gone, too. This was not good. They might kill each other. Their reunions usually resulted in a bloody Max, a fast trip to the ER, and more embarrassment.

Gracie caught Jessie’s attention: “Jessie – they’re gone – both of ‘em are gone – What’ll we do? Sweet Jesus, I hope no one has a handgun.”

Jessie sat with her legs crossed, swinging the one on top just like Scarlett used to do, her anklet catching the glint of the funeral parlour candles. She held a forbidden cigarette in a death grip. Arching her head back, she slowly exhaled a long curl of smoke, and drawled, “Well, goddam, maybe they’re out looking for grandmother, because that sure-as-hell ain’t her.”

Laughter – shameless and irresistible. I remember Moleen laughing at the knock-knock joke I told while she smocked my new school dress. She embroidered tiny bees above the red flowers because there were bees in my joke. I had just turned seven and . . .

Laughter – unstoppable, contagious – it spilled into every room of Dedman’s Funeral Parlour. I remember when I was sixteen. Billy Joe Webber stood me up and took my best friend to the Sweetheart Dance. Moleen and Aunt Ivy sneaked into the parking lot and put sugar in his gas tank. They came home doubled over with laughter, saying two old ladies still knew how to get sweet revenge. We sat up all that night, while they told funny stories and fed me hot fudge sundaes to mend my broken heart . . .

Laughter – bawdy and redemptive and braver than death – shocking the people who had come to mourn down the hall where somebody real had died. Somebody real.

Finally, here were the tears Gracie wanted, the only kind of grief she understood.

We are always burying strangers.

And someday, it will be me.

Someone will say I look like myself.

And when they do, I sure-as-hell hope somebody has the grit to call them on it, to laugh right out loud and say:

“No. We only bury strangers in this family.”