The Funeral Planner

by Lynn Isenberg

  Sierra signals that she’s finished by placing the closed pamphlet on her stomach. She whispers, “This is really great, Maddy. I’m amazed at how much you’ve learned.”

  Uncomfortable with compliments, I skip her acknowledgment. “But how’s the quality of the writing?”

  “It’s great. Will you try to get a publisher or self-publish it?”

  I shake my head. “Publishing is too expensive, and I don’t want to spend the time looking.”

  “Then how are you going to distribute it?”

  “I made an e-version and put it online with PPV.”

  Sierra nods, impressed. “Clever. How much are you charging for the pay-per-view?”

  “Two dollars and ninety-nine cents.”

  “That’s smart. You’re making it affordable for everyone. What’s your protection strategy?”

  “I sent a copy to the Library of Congress to copyright it, and I hired a DRM company.”

  “Digital rights management is safe now?”

  “If it’s safe enough for the government, it’s safe enough for me. But just to make sure, I used my code based on Roman ciphers.”

  We watch the stars twinkle. A shooting star goes by. “Quick, Maddy, make a wish.”

  We both shut our eyes and then pop them open again and smile at each other.

  “Still no word from Victor?” asks Sierra.

  “Not since I last saw him…six weeks and two days ago.”

  “Okay, so you’ve got three to six weeks to go.”

  “For what?” I ask, looking directly at her.

  She stares at me. “They always call in threes, Maddy, and always within twelve weeks. It has to do with oxytocin, the hormone that gets released when you’re intimate with someone. You’ll be hearing from him in three to six weeks. I promise.”

  “Where did you come up with this theory?”

  “I didn’t. It’s factual, and as reliable as the setting sun. The question is, what are you going to do when he contacts you?”

  “First of all, he can’t contact me because…because he died…in my mind, a pseudo-death.”

  Sierra raises a brow. “That deserves an explanation.”

  “Nothing to explain. My brain conveniently reported that he lost it in a bowling alley, an attack of the giant bowling pins. Victor no longer exists.”

  “Oh, boy, sweetie. You must have really fallen for him.”

  “I let the fire shine and…and now it’s out, Sierra. That’s all there is to it. I’ve finally gotten my risk management down to a science. Come on, let’s go inside and watch this movie I rented. Hey, Sid, wake up.”

  The three of us head inside the cottage and cozy up on the couch. I turn the television on and pop the VHS tape into the machine. The film score begins and I join Sid and Sierra on the couch.

  “We’re watching Remains of the Day?” asks Sierra. “This is one of the saddest movies ever made, about a love that never gets consummated. It’s heart-wrenching.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been watching it because it makes me realize how important it is not to allow the past or the future to hijack the present. It’s my risk-management reinforcement program.”

  “Sounds like emotional torture. Are you sure it helps when you see the characters say goodbye without ever telling one another how they really feel?”

  I start to get weepy. “Please don’t say that G-word. And I think they handle their loss quite well. They’re very dignified about it.” Siddhartha licks my tears.

  “That’s because their characters are trained not to express their feelings.”

  “It’s not their fault. It’s because of the era they live in.”

  “But, Maddy, sweetie, we don’t live in that era. So, tell me, what are you going to do when he calls…or e-mails you?”

  “I trust my delete button will be working just fine.”

  A few nights later, Richard and I are working in the bar, listening to everyone’s feedback about the blog and how helpful it’s been. Rocky walks in and waves.

  I nod at him. “The usual?”

  “You got it. Oh, here’s some mail for you, Maddy.” He hands me a few envelopes from his mail sack.

  I quickly leaf through it. One letter is from Norm Pearl.

  I open it. There’s the check for five thousand dollars. I shout, “Look, Richard! Our first advertising revenue!”

  “I’ll be damned,” says Richard, staring at the check. “What do we do with it?”

  “We cash it. And then I reimburse you and Sally and me for Guy’s funeral costs. Pay for the Web site’s operational costs. The rest goes into a funeral fund for the town of Jackson.”

  “You would really do that? Start a funeral fund here?”

  “Why not? Corporate philanthropy and stakeholder interests are just as important as profit and loss statements.”

  Suddenly everyone sitting at the bar listening—Carl, Rocky, Wally, Donny and Mrs. Jones—lift a glass and they shout in unison, “To Madison Banks and the Funeral Fund of Jackson!”

  I look at Richard. “Jeez, is that all you have to do to get a toast around here?”

  I open another envelope from my digital rights management company. My eyes pop open to discover another check. This one is for twelve grand. I do a major double take. “Whoa! Is this right? We just got another check for twelve thousand dollars for the pamphlet!”

  “That means four thousand people bought the pamphlet online in one week,” Richard says, thinking out loud.

  “That is so friggin’ awesome! You guys should write that thing in different languages,” hollers Rocky.

  “Can you translate it into Russian? I know my grandma would appreciate that,” yells Carl.

  “My relatives in Mykonos would like to see it in Greek,” chimes in Mrs. Jones.

  “Maybe you should check the blog,” says Richard.

  “Right.” I turn to where Richard has finally made room for the computer beside the register so I don’t have to run back and forth to the office all the time. I log on to the blog. It’s clogged with messages from all over the country. But of course, my eye zeroes in on one particular message, a message from Victor Winston. Pain, fear and love all shoot through my heart together like a recipe gone south from the wrong mix of ingredients. I take a deep breath and with all my emotional might hit the delete button, banishing him. I swallow the lump in my throat and focus on the present moment at the Eagle’s Nest on Clark Lake in Jackson, Michigan, in the United States of America in the Northern Hemisphere on planet Earth.

  “Are there a lot of messages?” asks Richard.

  “There’re over a thousand,” I say, scanning them. “Wow. A lot of people want to know if there are workshops available for personalized tribute training.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” says Mrs. Jones. “Why not have them right here?”

  Richard and I turn to each other. The lights go on behind our eyes.

  One week later in the restaurant area of the bar, Richard and I face a group of ten participants sitting on bar stools in a circle. Richard sits calmly and addresses everyone. “Welcome. Welcome to the first three-day workshop here at the Eagle’s Nest on how to create nontraditional personalized tribute experiences. Experiences that can be affordable for everyone.”

  The group claps. That’s my cue.

  “We thought we’d start by asking all of you to take turns telling us your name, why you’re here and what you hope to achieve—personally that is. How about you, would you like to start?” I ask the dark-haired fortysomething woman to my right.

  The woman clears her throat. “Hi, everyone. My name is Cheryl. I’m a former mortgage broker turned housewife from Toledo, Ohio, and I’m here because Tribute in a Box feels more like funerals-in-a-box. All they’ve really managed to do is turn personalization into a mass market, which completely defeats the purpose to begin with. So I’m here to learn about preparing personalized pre-need services for my husband, my dog and myself.”

  “Hi. I’m Bob. I
’m a fireman from Grand Rapids,” says a man in his thirties. “I’d like to learn how to put together my own tribute since I’m in a risky profession, but I also want to know how to work it into my estate planning as an investment.”

  To Bob’s right is a twenty-one-year-old. “Hi. I’m Dana. I’m from Detroit and I want to learn how to deal with the loss of my parents and plan a belated tribute for them.”

  “I’m Leo Darnell. I’m a funeral director at a small funeral home outside of Chicago,” says a man in his fifties. “I want to learn how to be a better funeral director, especially because the community I serve is requesting more and more nontraditional services.”

  And so on and so forth…the workshops multiply. They grow from ten to twenty people at a time, which is the limit that Richard and I can handle. Suddenly the town of Jackson discovers tourism, where there was none before. Now all the local motels, restaurants and shops are experiencing a small boom. And new businesses sprout up, in Clark Lake style of course, like Stargazing Midnight Cruises on pontoon boats. People sign up to learn about the celestial bodies and the mythology of constellations.

  The Eagle’s Nest remains the local bar at night, but transforms into our workshop headquarters during the day. During breaks, Richard and I serve drinks and food. The workshops become a hot spot where people get to know who they are and what they want as we guide them through grief, pseudodeath and how to create participative experiences.

  I go all out in developing the workshops. I include a special speaker hour every night at the bar for both the workshop attendees and the locals. I have my mother Eleanor come to tell “Funeral Tales” and my father Charlie talk about the myths surrounding death across cultures. Sometimes Daniel appears to create and recite an on-the-spot memorial poem from audience members’ stories. And sometimes, Roy Vernon shows up and he and Daniel riff together on a customized poem, turning it into an improvised ballad.

  At one point, I even bring in a famed financial adviser to discuss pre-need investment planning and how to make those dollars pay for your time of need and still leave a small fortune in your estate, or how to get quarterly dividends and interest from it, and even how to create a “syndicated pre-need investment group,” so it’s almost like a small town’s personal mutual fund. Soon I begin hearing how all financial planners are stressing the importance of pre-need arrangements of your tribute as a fundamental part of estate planning.

  I invite Sierra to come and teach people how to make a life bio video. I follow this up with local artists, sculptors, photographers, weavers and so forth talking about what they can add to a life celebration to make it unique for each individual’s passing.

  One evening, Eleanor says,“This is kind of like the stone soup of life-celebration-making, dear. Everyone pitches in something they can offer, and suddenly you’ve fed the whole town with something truly emotionally nurturing.”

  “And it works because it’s authentic,” adds Charlie.

  Word continues to spread through the blog and through local newspapers. People come from all over the world for our workshops and guest-lecture series. I even invite my artistic cousins from around the globe, including the llamawool weaver, the violinist and the modern dancer. Richard and I use the money generated by the sale of the online pamphlets to pay for the guest speakers. As for the workshops, we ask for money only on a donation basis and add that to the Funeral Fund, which we leverage to make more money through dollar-cost-averaging investment practices.

  One night at the bar, Pete Gallagher approaches me. “My log cabin is all done and, well, I’d like to invite you over for dinner. How about it?”

  I blush. “Okay, I’d like that,” I say. Richard catches on and orders me to take the night off and leave immediately. “But I need to check the blog and e-mails,” I retort.

  “That can wait until tomorrow. Go. Have some fun.”

  “Okay, I’ll just take my cell phone in case you need me.”

  Ten miles down the road, I enter Pete’s now-completed log home on several acres of land. I am amazed at what Pete has managed to do with his own bare hands. Every log, every stone in the twenty-foot-high fireplace had been put in place by him. “This is incredible!” I announce. Siddhartha happily runs around.

  “Thanks,” he replies, pouring me a glass of wine while he stokes a meal of Tex Mex-style chicken with a scrumptious aroma. “It just needs some help on the interior decorating. That’s where I kind of fall short.”

  As I’m about to take a sip of my wine, my cell phone rings. I reach for it, only to discover the caller ID reads “Victor.” Under my breath I mutter, “Why now?”

  Pete looks at me. “It’s that guy, right? I swear it’s always like that. One of the books I read said that’s to be expected. It’s kind of like a test to see if you can move on.”

  “Well, I already did move on. And he no longer exists, therefore I can’t answer it.” I close my eyes and turn the phone off.

  “Another book I read talked about that, too,” Pete informs me. “They call it denial. The author said pretending to move on is not the same thing as really moving on.”

  “Yeah? Well, what about that phrase ‘fake it till you make it’?”

  “Doesn’t count when it comes to breakups. At least according to twelve out of forty-two authors I read.”

  “What do you think, Pete?” I ask him.

  “I’m not sure,” he says, thinking it over.

  “Well, why aren’t you in a relationship?”

  “I’m not sure. I keep trying to figure it out.”

  “Are you sure about anything?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure I want a brick-red couch for the living room…but I’m not sure.”

  I nod at him. “Well…I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got about twenty-five books on decorating to read. What do you think? Brick red, forest green…or caramel brown?”

  “Hmm. I think some sort of mushy gray might be more fitting.” I don’t know if Pete got the metaphor, but it was black-and-white to me that I no longer cared to find out.

  I prepare for a small group of seven workshoppers at the bar. I am taking roll call and waiting for Richard to show up when I realize that Grace Pintock, Arthur’s estranged wife and Tara’s mother, has joined the group. Siddhartha seems to sense some sort of connection and stays close to Grace.

  I privately approach her. “It’s so good to see you. How are you, Mrs. Pintock?”

  “I’m getting along, Madison, getting along. You know, some days are functional and some days aren’t. But…call me Grace, will you, please,” she says, offering me a warm hug, and then she sits back down.

  As I return to finishing the roll, a tall, chunky man in an oversize jacket enters the bar. He sports a thick gray beard, a low-hanging baseball hat and dark sunglasses, making it difficult to see his face.

  “Hi, there,” I say. “Are you here for the workshop?”

  The man nods. I check my paperwork and then look back at him. “You must be Alex Barber. Welcome.”

  He shuffles a note over to me. The note reads “I’m a high school baseball coach from Cleveland, and unfortunately I’ve come down with laryngitis but this is the only week I could do this.”

  “No problem, Alex,” I say. “Everybody, this is Alex. He’s got laryngitis so he won’t be able to give much feedback, at least verbal feedback. Alex, if you want to come back another time to get the full benefit out of this workshop just let me know.”

  He nods thanks and sits down. “Do I know you?” I ask.

  “You seem so familiar.” He emphatically shakes his head.

  “Okay, well, let’s get started. Please open your pamphlets to page one. We’re going to teach all of you how to confront the closet of a loved one who’s passed on, how to create a loss timeline and how to plan your own funeral, because we’ve discovered that by planning in advance for your time of need you actually re-energize your own life. We’ll also show you how to make pre-need investme
nt planning worthwhile. One of the wonderful experiences you’ll gain here is to create new ways of honoring our memories, both for others and for ourselves.”

  During the lunch break, Grace turns to Alex. “Would you like some help ordering from the menu?” Alex nods. He seems so shy and yet so familiar. Grace also brings him some napkins. And it’s the napkins that give him away. I can’t help but notice when he nervously rubs his hands together on the napkins and then on his pants. Something’s not right. I get a twitch in my belly. I check the cars in the parking lot—no Ohio plates. I see Alex do the nervous napkin thing again and my stomach turns.

  When Alex stands outside eating a burger by himself, I whisper a command to Siddhartha. Siddhartha runs over to Alex and jumps on him, and in the scuffle his baseball hat and sunglasses are knocked off, causing his beard to hang crooked. Siddhartha proudly holds the hat in her mouth. Alex attempts to regain his balance, but then his “stomach” falls from beneath his shirt, or rather, the padding does.

  I realize I’m staring at Jonny Bright. My mouth drops. “I don’t believe it. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Now listen to me, Maddy, before you jump to any far-fetched conclusions—”

  “Far-fetched conclusions? You sneak into my workshop in disguise and I’m the one who’s not supposed to jump to conclusions? Besides your quest for competitive intelligence knowing no boundaries…what is wrong with you?”

  “Hey, you can’t discriminate against me! I have a right to come to this and I knew you wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t want you to be here? Gee, I wonder why. Read the fine print, Jonny. I have the right to turn anyone away. So shoo! You are not welcome here.”