alia georges

Condolence

Please compose and type a 200-word essay describing why you want to be a Funeral Director and your future expectations in the funeral profession.

I want to be a funeral director because I’m a people person. I’m sorry. That sounds wrong. Let me start over.

I’m sitting in my older sister’s SAT prep class, and they’re supposed to be writing college essays. I’m only a freshman so I’m not actually in the class, but my sister drives me home, so I’m here in the back of the classroom waiting for her. This has been going on after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for about a month. It’s almost summer and it’s getting harder for everyone to focus, but the test is in June, so they’re still going. Mom said maybe I can get something out of being here, and if I can’t, I can at least be quiet and stay out of the way. I’m pretty good at that when I try.

The point is: We’re here writing these essays. The counselor lady who was just here gave us some tips. She said not to write an essay about our dead grandparents. It’s boring and overdone. “Think about it,” she said. “Everyone who has ever been alive has had their grandparents die. There’s no story to be told there. It’s just not,” and she paused for a second, “special or interesting.”

She clarified that if our mom or dad was dead, that was different, and we should definitely write about that. I couldn’t help but look over at Maddy when she said that. Maddy’s in my homeroom, and her dad died in the fall. I really wish now that I hadn’t looked over at her. When her dad died, she was out of school for a month. The day before she came back, our homeroom teacher told us not to say anything to her about it, just to say, “We’re happy you’re back.” We even made her a card and wrote that on it. So I made sure not to say anything to her about her dad dying, or about death, or about my dad either, just in case. It’s been a lot to keep track of, but I don’t want to hurt her. In fact, I don’t say much to her at all anymore in case I accidentally mention her dead dad. 

I’ve never thought about being special or interesting before, but the counselor had a point. She also told us not to write about the service trip some of us went on to Costa Rica with the Spanish teacher Señora Lopez over spring break. She said those kinds of essays are patronizing. But that was the first time I’d been on an airplane, or traveled without my family, or gone to a place where I didn’t understand what people around me were saying. It was also the first time I tried beer. And I heard two kids in our class had sex, though I wasn’t there so I can’t say for sure. And for all those reasons, I thought that trip was special and interesting, maybe the most special and interesting thing about me.

So please forgive me for going with the dead grandparent thing, even if it is cliché. My grandpa is the only person I know personally who has had a funeral. Unfortunately, I’m lucky to still have both my parents alive. I hope that being a mortuary school, you’ll understand and feel that it’s relevant.

He died six months ago. I was sad when he died. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I certainly didn’t want to go to the funeral. I just wanted to be sad on my own. I thought you’re supposed to be sad in private (when I’d cried once when I was little, Grandpa himself told me, “You only cry when you’re hurt”). But I learned that for funerals, you’re actually supposed to be sad in front of other people. My sister came to my room and told me that Mom would be upset if I didn’t go (even though Mom had told me, “Fine, do whatever you want”). She said it would mean a lot to Mom if I went and that funerals aren’t just about being sad about the dead person. They’re also about sharing your love for the people who are still alive. My sister is good at explaining things like that. She laughed when I told her that and said it’s because she’s older and wiser and a girl. She called it the trifecta.

So I went to the funeral, and I wore my orchestra concert outfit, with the black pants, shirt, shoes, and sweater. There was also the wake the night before. A bunch of people, mostly old people, came. I didn’t know them, so I sat next to Grandma in her wheelchair. Mom had dressed her up in black, too (Grandma and Grandpa moved in with us three years ago when Grandma started getting really bad, and Mom takes care of them—well, now she just takes care of Grandma). People came up to Grandma’s wheelchair all night and said: It’s good to see you. I’m sorry for your loss. He lived a good long life. And she looked at them and said: Who are you? What are you talking about? Do you live here? And then they cried, not because of Grandpa, but because they didn’t know that this is how Grandma is now, and they didn’t like seeing her like that. And when the funeral guys walked by, while this one old lady was going on about the old days, Grandma looked at one of the guys and said too loud to me, “Now there’s a man.” And everyone stopped talking and looked at her, then looked away, and I could tell they really didn’t like that. And for some reason that made me laugh. Not because Grandma didn’t know Grandpa anymore, not because she thinks she’s a young girl, not because she’s sick and can’t go to the bathroom alone and laughs too loud and cries all night. But something about their faces was funny. And Mom would usually yell at me for laughing at a sad thing, but this time she laughed, too, and she was laughing and crying at the same time.

And I was happy that Mom was laughing because she doesn’t anymore. She just worries. And she yells at me a lot. I think it’s because she doesn’t want to yell at Grandma, who bites and hits her and says horrible, horrible things and forgets she’s her mom. But she doesn’t want to yell at her because it’s not her fault, so she yells at me instead, and sometimes it doesn’t work and she yells at Grandma, too. Then she feels really bad and is nice to everyone and takes me to Burger King. This is noteworthy because we hardly ever go there anymore, even though it’s really close to our house. When Grandma started getting lost at the mall and serving us moldy lemon cake when we went over to her house (the first time this happened, no one knew what to say, so we all looked down at our plates and pushed around the crumbs while Grandma ate her whole slice), Mom stopped eating at Burger King, then she stopped eating at all. She’s gotten really skinny and doesn’t look like herself at all, but people we run into at the grocery store tell her she looks great. My sister says it’s the one thing she can control and tells me not to ask her to take me to Burger King (on the bright side, now my sister takes me there sometimes). But when Grandpa died, she ate a lot. She kept saying, “It’s okay to eat when you’re sad, right?” I wanted to point out that she’d been sad for quite a while even before he died, but she hadn’t eaten in months. But I didn’t say that because I was just glad she was eating.

I don’t always understand these things. Maybe I will when I’m older, like my sister. Maybe I’ll understand cremation, which they did to Grandpa, and the idea of it made me feel sick. Maybe I’ll understand why it cost $900 to do it (I overheard the guy talking to my mom). Maybe I’ll understand why the ashes were so heavy (why did I think they’d be lighter?).

Maybe I’ll understand why sometimes, late at night, I hope Grandma will die, too, so Mom will feel better and eat and laugh again. I’ve only confessed this to my sister because I know it’s a terrible thing to think, even in your private thoughts that you can’t help thinking. I thought she’d get mad, but she didn’t. She just said, “I understand.”

And maybe I’ll understand what happened at Grandpa’s wake, and why Mom thanked those people for coming, but when we got home said, “I’m glad she said that. Fake friends. Where have they been for the past three years? When have they once come to visit her? I’m glad it happened. Fuck them. Fuck those people.” I didn’t say anything but wondered if I should hug her. She asked me what the fuck I was looking at and told me to go to bed.