At the funeral, I watched.
I’m not proud of it. I’d just buried my husband of fifty years. But I stood at the back of the church basement at St. Rose with a paper cup of coffee going cold in my hands, and I did what Walt would have done.
I observed.
Michael is my oldest. He was forty-eight then. A partner at a big law firm in Chicago, with a corner office and a wife named Jenna and a house in Winnetka.
He’d flown in that morning. He was flying out that night.
He stood by the basement door for most of the luncheon with his phone pressed to his ear, one finger plugged in his other ear against the noise. Every few minutes he’d look up, catch my eye, and hold up one finger. One minute, Mom.
He held up that finger for two hours.
Stephanie is my middle child. Forty-five. She lives in Upper Arlington, outside Columbus, with her husband Ron and two kids who play competitive tennis. She wore a black dress to the funeral that cost more than my first car.
She cornered me twice by the coffee urn.
The first time, she hugged me and said, “Oh, Mom. How are you holding up?” And before I could answer, she said, “Did Dad leave any paperwork? A will? Anything like that?”
“Hollis has everything,” I said.
The second time, an hour later, she lowered her voice and touched my elbow.
“I’m only asking so we’re prepared, Mom. That’s all. Just so we’re prepared.”
Prepared for what, I wanted to ask. But I didn’t.
And then there was Danny.
Danny is my youngest. He’s forty-one. He barely finished high school. School was hard for him. The words on the page wouldn’t sit still. But give that boy an engine, and he can hear what’s wrong with it from across a parking lot.
He fixes transmissions at a shop on Kibby Street. Sixty hours a week, most weeks.
At the funeral luncheon, nobody asked Danny to do anything. He just went into the church kitchen, found an apron on a hook, tied it on over his only suit, and started washing dishes.
He washed every plate. Every coffee cup. Every serving spoon.
When the dishes were done, he stacked every folding chair against the wall. All sixty of them.
When the last guest finally left, I went looking for him. I found him outside, in the church parking lot, in the cold rain. He was picking up paper plates that had blown out of the trash can.
“Danny,” I said. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
He looked up at me. Water dripping off his nose.
“Somebody’s got to, Mom,” he said.
And he went back to picking up plates.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
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