top of page
Search

Dressed to Impress - Darius Snowden

Updated: May 21, 2021


The casket itself is nothing short of a regular black box, yet they took the time and energy to stuff this dead human being’s carcass into a red suit with gold cuffs. The only thing I had to wear was a hand-me-down wrinkled dress shirt that reaches to my knees when not tucked into my pants, yet they had saved up enough money to be able to wrap him in a suit that a rapper attending the VMA’s would wear.

My grandmother’s shriveled up arm reaches to my waist and guides me away from the casket and towards a corner of the lobby next to the parking lot exit door. I look back to see the line of people waiting to look at my grandfather’s cold, flashy corpse move up one spot, and it happens like it should always happen. The woman next in line looks at the suit then starts bawling her eyes out in disbelief. That’s right, I’m the anomaly. I was escorted away because it’s suspicious to not cry when you see your dead grandfather at a funeral.

She looks up at me without removing her hand from my waist and shows off just how heartbroken she is by wrinkling her face to stop herself from crying too hard. She slightly slams her head against my chest so that I can get a good glimpse at her freshly dyed blonde set of hair. No doubt so that she can shift the energy she uses worrying about her insecurities to competing with the others to see who can grieve the hardest.

She pulls back after several seconds and asks me how I’m doing, but all I do is ask her how they chose which suit to put my grandfather in.

“Hmm? Oh, you mean why choose red?” she says, chuckling and choking a bit. “Well, he always did look just so good in red, don’t ya think?” She moves her hands around my neck to open my collar and begins to wrap a tie around me.

Incredible, truly.

Behind my grandmother, the exit door swings open, and four family membersalso known as people with an equal amount of crying rightsenter and make for the suit-seeing line. Well, all except the youngest and tallest. He slowly makes his way up to my grandmother and puts both hands on her shoulders, jolting her

“Oh, Christ!” she cries out. “Brenden! You nearly scared the devil out of me! It’s been so long!”

Hilarious, truly. She asks about how life has been while I attempt to fix the half-done noose hanging around my neck; however, I just give up and force it all under the collar of the shirt.

“Have you seen your cousin, Lyle?” She attempts to make my presence even more obvious than it already is by waving her hand in front of me like she’s dispelling a curse, yet he still doesn’t look at me. After a minute of accommodating and crying with Brenden, she makes her rounds with the crowd, leaving me and Brenden uncomfortably close to each other. I haven’t seen him in a year, and last time I did see him, he was wearing a blazer at a funeral just like he is now.

I break the ice and say, “Yeah, I have no idea what to talk about,” as awkward and down to earth as possible. He looks at me like he’s doing me a favor and replies, “Yeah,” then walks towards the group of people he came in with.

The norm at these family funerals is to talk for no more or less than thirty seconds with people who don’t have the same level of grieving priority in order to keep everything decent. Whenever I walk up to a neighbor of my grandparents, they’ll hug me, mention that they cooked taquitos for the family, say they’re sorry for my loss, and walk away if I don’t walk away first, which I always do.

The next and final addition to the group of partygoers is Reverend Jakobs, a long-standing acquaintance of the family and occasional guest star at the church. He has a face sculpted by God himself to be as arrogant and stoic as possible. The tone of his voice is stuck in “Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” and the only time he shakes someone’s hand is when he wants to feel more of their body or when he’s telling them about how good it is to be Lutheran.

Without any introduction, he walks towards me, shakes my hand, and tells me “It’s so good to see you Lyle. I heard you graduated high school this year. Why, I’m so glad to hear that. I know you youngsters love music and Texas Lutheran University has the best music program in the nation!” And just like that, he walks off to go sell Jesus to another devastated family member. I can’t help but notice that he wore running shoes with treads more worn down and dark than his soul.

After a half hour of watching Jakobs touch people, we are called into the room of worship where the head pastor waits next to the podium while the rest of us get ushered into aisles. There are little compartments attached to the bleachers with tissues and Bibles.

The pastor gives the podium to the funeral director who has to get off on these types of things in order to survive the banality. He clears his throat in order to make his voice boom across the twenty filled rows of human beings and informs us of the schedule.

“Well howdy folks. Thank you all for making it out here today. I know it must be a tough time for you all.” He pauses to give anyone quick enough to give a little whooping cry a chance to make their appearance before continuing. “Since our dearly departed was first and foremost a grandfather to three lovely grandchildren, we will have them speak a quick piece, then I hope you will all join me to sing ‘Oh, but He Kept Swingin.’ Then, if anyone wishes to speak in front of us all at this occasion, they will be more than welcome to do so because, Lord knows, that what we need at this time is someone with the heart to listen.”

He makes it sound like we’re obligated to speak like this is our first step into adulthood. Like we can finally show our true colors and talk about a dead person to a group of living people.

The first grandchild told to give a speech is Amanda, a girl half my age and size. She walks up to the podium holding a folded piece of notebook paper with the frills still attached and a box of tissues readily available. She steps on a box positioned in front of the podium and unfolds the paper in front of the microphone to hurt our ears as much as our hearts. Before she even starts, she reads the first line as if they’re stage directions and starts to cough up tears while hanging her head.

“M-my granddaddy always told me I had a beautiful smile and a beautiful soul, and I was destined for great things. Without my g-granddaddy, I don’t feel so beautiful anymore, but I know that he is watching me in h-heaven, and I will always carry on in order to take care of my fa-fa-fami...“

The rest becomes an inaudible, eardrum breaking screech of words accompanied by several breaks to cry it all out. Her mother walks up to her in order to supposedly comfort her through the eulogy, and I swear her mother was waving at the rest of us as if she had made it big.

The whining ends and every single person in the room begins to bawl their eyes out. Tissues are traded and passed around like they are limited edition signature copies. The applause can be heard the next block over. They sit Amanda in the front row and use her as a hug pillow. I guess only the big shots get front row seats.

The director waves his hand at Brenden, and he walks up holding a Bible and a folded piece of paper with a clean edge.

What do people even expect to happen at funerals anyway? We circle around a dead body and force people to make each other laugh. We pretend like we’re not bitter about having to dress up in uncomfortable clothes and talk about a religion we don’t care about and drive several hours to a place with the worst parking available. If you don’t show up, you’ll be ousted from the community as heartless, but if you do show up, you’ll be subjected to hours of social hell. Drama finds its way into the church one way or another, and we’ll go to sleep happy that it happened because it fuels our lives.

The audience erupts into applause that rivals the response Amanda got, and just like Amanda, everyone pours tears out of their eyes. Brenden sits down next to Amanda and hands wrap around him.

I stand up before the hand is even gestured at me and make my way to the podium holding nothing.

I can feel their gaze expecting the oldest grandchild to give the best speech, but they’ll be mistaken. You only have yourselves to blame for giving me the opportunity to finally tell people my mind.

You’re all closet racists, and not very covert ones at that. You all exist because your parents wanted someone to help them fit into their cliques better. None of you have any idea what life means because you’re all too vain and terrible. A red suit? Really? You put your dead loved one in a red suit? You all disgust me.

“My grandfather gave me opportunities in life that were only possible because of the heartfelt love he had for me and the rest of our family, and the sacrifices he made in order to ensure that we could live a life free from sorrow or doubt has resonated within me my entire life.”

The faces of my family begin to stiffen a bit as they regain their composure from the last eulogy. Maybe this was the right thing to do after all. All people deserve assurance and evaluation in their life just as they do in death, and my grandfather isn’t an exception.

“He was the spark in the lives of our family members just as our family was the spark in his, and I hope you all can take pride in knowing that there wasn’t a time in his life where he didn’t have a smile on his face when speaking about every single one of you. In one of our final conversations, I was given a great sense of relief when he informed me of his lack of regret and how this stemmed from the amount of pride he had in who all of us had become”.

These people had built a life with my grandfather as a pillar in it, and they had a right to allow themselves the ability to grieve and reminisce about all they’ve accomplished. I have only admiration for the act of celebrating the life of a loved one.

“It pains me to know that this world has lost a man who wasn’t simply defined as someone who lived for his family, but as a person who was on the side of all people. My grandfather loved and respected all people, and from his never ending altruism, I have learned that the sanctity of human life is to be respected. Thank you.”

They move their arms by only using their biceps and slap their hands together with moderate strength, giving the room a faint ring of applause. My seat in the third row had been taken, so I sit on the edge of the eighth row. A person I’ve never seen before pats me on the shoulder and says, “I’m sure that meant a lot to someone, Sport. Good job!”

All rise in order to start singing along with the director, but I simply turn out of the row and walk back into the lobby. On the floor in front of the exit is a memorial card with my grandfather’s face pasted in the center and the words “Blessed Always” covering his forehead.

On my way to the cars, I hear a voice in the designated smoking area and peak around the corner to see Jakobs on the phone.

“I’ve never seen such a group of bastards in my entire life, Barbara. What kind of sick, degenerate family dresses their deceased in such a flamboyant suit? And to give such a young girl such an obvious speech crafted for attention. The audacity, I tell you what.”

It’s poison to my ears.

“They all live with such blatant demons, and none of them seem to care except for their middle grandchild. To have the resolve to say all of that at a funeral, that boy deserves an award, let me tell you what.”

14 views

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page