I hold my ground in one of the four chairs in the room. Aunt Millie is about to go to work. Time for me to learn how to navigate a wake.
She quickly ditches Uncle Roy, knowing he’ll only slow her down. She begins working the room, heading toward my chair, which gives me a prime vantage point to observe the master. She approaches someone I think is from Aunt Rose’s gardening club.
1. The Entrance
Scan the room, chin up. Look through the crowd, without looking at anyone directly. Pause for a moment (maybe to see if anyone approaches you first). Don’t appear too eager to talk to people: because it’s a wake, after all.
2. The Smile
This is the tricky one. You’re trained to smile when you greet people, but what about at a wake, where it’s a room with a dead body in it? At the same time, you don’t want to make people sadder or cry even harder. No smile at all means you’re a jerk, which you just can’t be at a wake. Aunt Millie has it down — smile with your mouth, frown with your eyes. An absolute pro.
3. The Approach
Choose your target, make direct eye contact, and step toward the person you’re going to pull from the herd. Make them feel that you are here for them and them alone. Make that person feel special.
4. The Contact
Apparently, as a woman, you hug everyone. Hold it for three seconds and say something mid-hug. I watch her hug three different people and whisper what seems to be “Taken too soon” to each of them. Must be her call sign. For guys it’s different. I still don’t know which guys I’m supposed to shake hands with or which guys to hug.
5. The Banter
Conversations are each less than a minute, and she says almost the exact same thing each time:
— What a tragedy.
— You look great.
— How is __________? (spouse/child/parent)
— We need to meet again soon under better circumstances.
Each of these phrases is said with soulful eyes and constant nodding.
6. The Release
Hug. Again. But this time find a hand. Hold it with both of yours (one over, one under), making a sandwich of theirs, for about ten seconds. Tell them again how good it is to see them and how much their support means to the family.
This last part is by far the toughest part to maneuver. But Aunt Millie sees this challenge as an opportunity. While most people simply say good-bye, Aunt Millie lets you know that she sees you and that your time here didn’t go unnoticed. She makes people feel at ease in a stormy sea of chaos. She enters a wake subtly yet takes over the room within minutes.
She’s the Trojan horse of mourning.
Here she comes. Time to show her what I’ve learned.
“Hi, Aunt Millie.” As I speak, I’m thinking about my lower face smiling while my upper face is frowning. I probably look like a Picasso.
“Oh, Jimmy.” Her hug is tight, like it would support me if I fell but not hurt me. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi . . . “Been thinking about you, my dear. Your poor cousin was taken too soon. How’re you holding up?”
“I’m OK. Been a tough few days.” She now has my hand, sandwich-style.
“Look at this.” Her left hand sweeps the room as if she held a wand, her right hand still holding mine. “If only your cousin could see this. Such a tragedy. So much life ahead of him.”
Everyone’s been saying things like this — “What could have been,” “What promise in your cousin’s life . . .” Either they didn’t know Patrick or they’re flat-out liars.
Aunt Millie goes through steps five and six with me before eyeing her next contact. But then comes the seventh step, which I didn’t see coming. She places her hands on my shoulders and calmly asks me a question.
“Are you ready for your speech tomorrow?”
How does she know?
Nothing gets past her at a wake.
She’s looking into my eyes, seeing right through me. She’s not asking if I’m ready; she wants to know if I’m scared. My eyes apparently don’t lie as her grip tightens and moves down my arms.
“No.”
That’s all I get out. One word. My speech is tomorrow, and I can’t even manage a complete sentence.
“You’ll do great,” she assures me while rubbing my arms. “Just speak from the heart, dear.” Her words are reassuring, but her eyes scream, “Better you than me.”
She gives me one last pat on the shoulder before walking away and reaching out to the next guest in her path. This isn’t a wake to Aunt Millie. It’s a buffet. She picks up her plate at the door and goes down the line sampling something from each person in front of her.
Speak from the heart. Great advice from someone not giving a speech tomorrow.
I need space.
I go back into the hall and find it empty, except for Sofia, whose back is to me. She’s looking over the empty tray of cookies, hoping to find one she’s missed. Her hand lifts the tray to see if there’s a secret cookie waiting underneath. In her other hand is a swinging Norman, her safety net.
I could use a safety net. And some pants that don’t cut off my circulation.
I can’t blame her one bit if that walrus doesn’t leave her grip until tomorrow is over. She’s lucky, though. Most people aren’t trying to talk to her. She also doesn’t have to give a speech tomorrow.
Am I an awful person for thinking that? What is wrong with me? Here is my nine-year-old cousin, who has probably never had any experience with death, and I’m complaining.
This is her first wake, too. She must be so overwhelmed.
While this is my first wake, at least it’s not my introduction to death.
I have Aunt Millie and Uncle Roy to thank for that.
I learned early in life that the word vacation can mean different things to different families. Some families go to Hawaii or on a ski trip. Our family vacations were always to see relatives, not destinations. As an eleven-year-old, a trip was a trip to me, and I always looked forward to them no matter where we went.
I didn’t know a lot about my aunt Millie and uncle Roy. They never had kids, for some reason, and I wasn’t allowed to ask about that. I also wasn’t allowed to ask why we hardly ever saw them. I’d overheard Mom and Dad talking about it once. Dad said something about her “hippie-dippy life” along with a few other colorful words regarding his sister. Mom told him it was time to put differences aside and that we were going to “make an effort,” whatever that meant. Easter was next Sunday, so they figured it’d be a good time to go.
Roy and Millie live on a farm three hours away in a small town called New Basel. It’s mostly farmland with a small downtown. “Downtown,” like “vacation,” is a relative term. The busiest corner of New Basel consists of a welding shop, a post office three people could fill, and the local bar, Floyd’s. Traffic has never been heavy enough to warrant even a stop sign.
Only when we were an hour away from their farm did Mom tell me that her sister was coming. Which meant Patrick was coming.
Aunt Millie apparently tells everybody she sees, “You should come to the farm — you’d love it!” I always figured she was just saying it or being polite. Turns out that when Aunt Rose found out about our visit, she called Aunt Millie’s bluff and e-mailed her, asking if they could come, too.
It’s always been tough for us to ever do anything without Aunt Rose inviting herself. She has mild panic attacks whenever we leave town, so our excursions frequently turn into joint-family events. Maybe it’s part of being a twin, but she isn’t happy when Mom isn’t reachable in person. Mom likes to play it off as a joke and say, “When you marry a twin, you marry us both!” I’ve never seen Dad laugh at this.
We pulled up to the farm just before bedtime and saw that my aunt and uncle had already arrived. I don’t think Dad was in any hurry and planned it so we would get there late and go to bed. The four adults were sitting around the table with empty plates before them and a half-eaten strawberry pie in the center. My aunts were each h
aving coffee, and my uncles beer. Uncle Mike usually didn’t go to sleep until he had a few cans of what he called his “bedtime medicine” under his belt.
“Hello! Hello! Look who’s here!” Aunt Millie said in a voice as if she were reading a book to a two-year-old. We exchanged hugs and handshakes before my parents took a seat at the table. “Pat and Sof are in the barn playing with the kittens,” Uncle Roy said while pointing to one of the structures outside. I took the hint and went to find them while thinking about how much Uncle Mike hates it when people don’t call his kids by their full names.
I’d never been to a farm before and never realized how many buildings there could be. I always thought there was a house you live in and a barn for the animals and that’s it. Their farm had these, along with several giant sheds. The barn was dark, and I could hear animal noises. I didn’t know livestock well enough to know which animals made those sounds. I stopped for a second to hear where they were coming from.
“Watch this! I’ll make it a king on a throne!”
Patrick. He’d found the kittens. His voice came from one of the smaller buildings with a light on. Sofia had to be there, too.
I walked toward the entrance door, which looked big enough to drive a truck through. The building was one giant dirt-floor room with a path through the middle where tire treads marked the ground. An old U.S. mail jeep with four flat tires sat dormant in one corner. The jeep side also housed an assortment of metal objects, ranging from chicken wire to a small bulldozer. Standing on the front loader of the small dozer was Patrick, strategically placing kittens on top. Three were up there so far.
“This place is awesome!” Patrick exclaimed. “I checked for keys, but there’s none in it. It’s our safari truck. We’re in Africa.” Sometimes I knew Patrick’s mouth couldn’t keep up with his mind. “Look at the lions we found on safari!”
Poor kitties. I didn’t think Patrick would hurt them, but I also knew he’d see how far he could go before they did get hurt. Sofia was sitting on an overturned bucket with her feet elevated. Two orange kittens were playing with her shoelaces. She smiled and waved to me. She was a better fit for kittens than her brother.
From behind me, someone screamed like they were in severe pain. It filled the room from what I thought were speakers in every corner. I instinctively jumped back, unsure of what made the hideous noise. I’d never heard a live farm animal before. It was kind of terrifying.
“They’re back!” Patrick charged while removing the newly crowned kings off the dozer. “The rhinos are back!” He set the kittens down and marched toward the other side of the barn. I knew it wasn’t going to be a rhinoceros, but the animal yelled loud enough to intimidate me. I looked at the pen to see a sheep making its presence known.
“Where did it come from?” I would’ve noticed this animal when I walked in. It was massive. I don’t know what I expected when seeing a sheep this close for the first time, but not something I could easily ride. Then I heard the noise again, but it came from somewhere else. In the corner of the pen was an opening to the outside. Another sheep came sauntering into the building and butted up against the one close to us. It was slightly bigger than the first and strutted as though it were the boss of the two. It opened its mouth and screamed again. It wasn’t cute like in cartoons. This animal made me rethink stepping any closer. Patrick leaned over to scratch its imaginary rhino-horn while I wondered if the sheep would bite.
“This one’s Ginger,” Patrick explained while moving his hand closer to the sheep’s nose. “Aunt Millie said she’s a show lamb and is going to win big at the fair this summer.” Aunt Millie must have given a tour before we arrived. “And that’s Slipper,” he said, pointing to the smaller one. While she couldn’t hear the aggressive sounds coming from the beasts like I could, Sofia kept a safe distance from the fence. “Check out her eye! It’s so gross!”
I really didn’t want to see it but was too curious. I took two steps and saw its one eye was completely sealed shut with pink skin in place of an eyelid. This lamb was taller and the more slender of the two, better resembling the gentle creature I pictured a lamb to be. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for it.
“Aunt Millie said it got bit in the face as a baby. Said it’s fine now, just has one eye.” Patrick was now holding imaginary treats for Slipper to see if she would jump like a dog. She didn’t. Ginger continued to let out horrible, torturous sounds. I shuddered every time Ginger shrieked. Sofia moved closer to me, curiously looking at Slipper.
“So . . . Slippers had —”
“Slipper, not Slippers,” Patrick corrected me as if I’d called the sheep a horse. “And she’s a rhino on our safari.”
“So Slipper had an accident, but her eye doesn’t hurt?” I extended my hand to let her smell me the same way I did with unfamiliar dogs. Sofia followed my lead and did the same. While I’m sure my face looked sour and hesitant, Sofia stared directly at the lamb and her damaged eye. Even though the other animals were bustling around, she and Slipper were locked in a calm gaze with each other.
“Nope. Aunt Millie said she’s fine.” Patrick was now trying to mimic Ginger’s calls, and that only prompted her to scream even more.
Sofia had her hand open, completely vulnerable, in front of Slipper’s mouth. The slender lamb sniffed for a moment and licked her palm. Sofia giggled. The moment was short-lived, as Ginger jealously shoved Slipper aside. Sofia’s hand retracted just as quickly and her expression changed. Slipper turned away and lay down in the corner just as Aunt Rose’s voice carried into the shed telling us to come in. She must have heard Patrick provoking the sheep and decided to end it. Sofia waved good-bye to her woolly new friend before we went inside to get ready for bed.
The next morning was Easter Sunday. This Easter was especially great because we were at the farm — the farm that was three hours from our church and the incredibly long Easter Sunday mass. Not going to Easter mass was better than anything the Easter Bunny might bring. Millie and Roy aren’t religious and don’t belong to any church. I knew it bothered Uncle Mike and Aunt Rose that we skipped church, but they kept quiet about it. Patrick was thrilled and shouted, “Happy Easter! No church! Thank you, Jesus!” at breakfast.
During the egg casserole, Aunt Millie said she’d set up an Easter egg hunt for us. We weren’t allowed to look in the yard until she said so, and the one with the most eggs got a prize. I perked up at the mention of “prize.” I’d never been in a real egg hunt and couldn’t wait. I was amazing at finding Mom’s keys and I felt good about my chances. We cleaned our plates and ran to the door to wait for the hunt.
Uncle Roy took Dad and Uncle Mike to show them something in one of the buildings. Mom and my aunts stayed to watch the hunt and gave each of us a basket. We stepped onto the porch, ready to go.
Eggs peppered the yard in every direction. Not really hidden, just scattered all over the lawn. They weren’t colorful either. Aunt Millie explained that this was a farm-egg hunt, and these were real eggs so we needed to be careful with them. I knew Patrick wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me to win, so I began strategizing. Maybe start far out then work back to the house? Before I could come up with a plan, Aunt Millie shouted out, “GO!” and we were off.
I darted to the farthest egg I saw. Past the gravel driveway and to the fence. Got it. Now to work my way back. I crouched low, scouring the grass for more. On my left, I saw Patrick do exactly as I predicted and go for what was in front of him. He was shouting, “Another ostrich egg! Africa is full of ostrich eggs!” as he picked them up. Sofia was being led by Aunt Millie to some of the less obviously placed eggs. Six were in my basket now. If I moved quickly, I could double that before Patrick got the rest.
What sounded like one of Woody’s illegal fireworks abruptly sliced through the egg hunt. Not a series of pops, more of a cannon being fired, once, in the distance.
I dropped my basket and jumped up to a standing position. Patrick was to my left, also standing tall, with one hand clutching his basket
and the other stopping an imaginary punch. Sofia hadn’t broken stride and was reaching for another egg. I looked at my basket, which was now leaking yolk from the fall.
What was that? A firecracker? Mom and Aunt Rose each had their hand clutching at something — Mom grabbed the porch rail and Aunt Rose grabbed Mom’s arm. Sofia and Aunt Millie were completely unfazed.
Dad and Uncle Mike came from behind one of the sheds. No Uncle Roy.
“What was that?” Patrick yelled in excitement. He liked things that went boom.
Dad and Uncle Mike didn’t look excited. Dad looked like he did when he saw the spoiled food in the garage freezer when it shorted out. Uncle Mike looked less unnerved, but not by much.
“What was that?” Patrick asked again. Sofia and Aunt Millie continued to work toward their sure win at the egg hunt, while I stood waiting for answers.
“Nothin’. Just keep finding eggs,” Uncle Mike said gruffly while he approached our moms. “Just stay put.” Dad was staring at Mom while walking hurriedly toward her, his eyes wide enough to put me on edge.
When Dad reached the porch, he talked with his hands the way he did when he was charged up about something. Whatever he said, Mom put her hand over her heart.
Animals, prizes, and a small explosion . . . this was too much for Patrick — even I knew that.
Aunt Millie was making her way to the porch with Sofia. She still wasn’t alarmed by either the noise or that everyone else was visibly upset.
I walked my dripping basket toward them and heard Dad saying, “A little warning would have been nice,” to Aunt Millie. Her head cocked to one side the way her collie’s does when he hears the screen door open. Her eyes didn’t look curious, though, more offended, like Dad had just asked her how much she weighs.
“We thought it would be a nice treat for everyone. You can’t do something like this where you live. Just wait until you taste it. Roy can perform miracles with a smoker, and once you —”
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