Funeral Days

by Rhodesa Salisi

When there is a funeral, everyone knows it is supposed to be a sad and solemn day. However, looking back on the first and only time I went to one, I could now say with certainty that it was anything but. It was probably one of the most amusing days I’ve had in my life.

I was eight years old the first time I went to a funeral. My dad had brought me and my sister to our aunt’s house. We were dressed in matching black dresses, black shoes, and black stockings, all of which either pinched, itched, or scratched. Why we had to dress the way we did was a mystery to the both of us. When we walked into the living room, I hid behind my dad, his soft black jacket clutched tightly in my fist as I spotted all the unfamiliar adults in the room. Why are all these weird people here? I hope I don’t hafta talk to any of them. As a child I was incredibly shy, and I still am today. As he skirted his way around the glass coffee table to reach my aunt on the other side of the room, I noticed that all the adults were also dressed in black. This only added to the mystery. My aunt, seeing the puzzled look on our faces, took us aside to explain the situation to us.

“Deza, Evie, do you know why everyone is wearing black?”

“No Tita^[1] Elsie,” we chorused. “Why?”

“Do you remember your Kuya^[2] Rene?” she asked. We nodded. “Do you know what happened to your Kuya?” Looking at each other questioningly, we turned our heads back to my aunt and shook our heads no, emphatically. She continued, “A bad man came in your Kuya’s apartment and stabbed him for no reason. Today we’re going to your Kuya’s funeral to say goodbye to him. Understand?”

Not really comprehending the significance of her words, but intuitively picking up on their severity and the atmosphere around us as kids are wont to do, we nodded yes with serious looks on our faces. “Yes Tita”. She smiled, kissed our cheeks, and ushered us into the kitchen where her four sons were eating breakfast.

Walking to the counter, she proceeded to load up two plates with enormous portions of food, as was her normal custom when we came over for our weekly visits. Uh oh. Growing up, I was taught that you should never waste food. I eyed the plate warily because I knew I’d never be able to finish all that food. At that moment, my dad came in from the garage to get a coke from the refrigerator. He took one look at the panicked expressions on our faces, then promptly came to our rescue. “Ate^[3], you don’t need to give them food. They already had breakfast. We’ll all be eating here when we come back from the funeral anyways.”

She hesitated for a moment, looked at us critically and agreed, but not before issuing a parting comment, “You make sure that they do eat later. They’re too skinny.” She put everything away, and walked off towards the living room to check up on her guests. Phew, that was close. We waited until we could no longer hear the click of her black stilettos on the bluish-gray linoleum floor before letting out a deep breath. After giving our dad a big hug, we ran to the big, dark brown, round table and sat down to wait for our cousins to finish eating. I wiggled around to find a comfortable position on the hard chair. A million disjointed thoughts flowed through my mind. Oh, this chair is so cold! Man, my cousins eat really slow. What games are we gonna play today? I hope Andrew doesn’t bring out that dumb puppet doll. I hate it when he messes with me. Why does his middle finger stick out when he holds his cup? I wish I had a dog. Where did Tita Elsie put…

After my cousins had finished eating, we all raced to the game room and split up into our respective groups – “the big kids” which consisted of me, Andrew, and Matthew, and “the little kids” which consisted of my sister, Louie, and Bryant. My group played Spyro on the Play Station, while the younger kids sat down on the cream colored carpet, amusing themselves with Barbies and action figures. When they tried to join our group to watch the purple dragon fly up amazingly steep cliffs or breathe enormous flames at his enemies, we would push them away from the screen. “Nooooooo, you can’t watch the game!!! You aren’t big like us. Go away!”

With whining voices, the younger kids replied, “I wanna watch, let me watch it!” As the pushing fight began, the younger kids used their last resort after realizing their futile efforts. “If you don’t let me watch it, I’m gonna tell on you!”

There was a brief pause in the fight as we experienced a panic attack at the thought of getting in trouble. Hoping to avoid it, we would tell them something most children hated to hear. “If you tell on us, you’re a snitch and a big baby!” With that, the battle was concluded. The younger kids would stomp back to their side of the game room and fling themselves onto the floor.

The war between our groups raged on until my Tito^[4] Linus called my cousins upstairs to get changed.

Thirty minutes later, everyone was ready. My sister, my cousins, and I climbed into my aunt’s huge van and waited for the other passengers to get in. My uncle was driving in his own car because he still had to make preparations for the little get-together that would take place at their house after the funeral. My aunt grabbed her black cotton jacket, my dad grabbed the keys to the van, they got in, and off we went.

The thirty minute drive to the parlor was twenty-nine minutes too long. That day I learned a very important lesson: Never put more than two kids in a car without any form of entertainment for too long. In that amount of time, between the six of us, three fights broke out and four tantrums were thrown. The playful atmosphere from earlier was now thick with tension. Arriving at the funeral parlor was a breath of relief. When my dad parked the van, we all spilled out and walked to our respective parent without saying a word to one another.

Still grumpy from the car ride, my aunt suddenly announced that she had to take Bryant to the bathroom. Yay! I don’t hafta see them anymore cuz they’ll be in the bathroom! Whenever my aunt took one of my cousins to the bathroom, she always took the rest of them along in case anyone else had to go. This meant I didn’t have to walk into the building with them since my dad planned to go straight to the room where the funeral was being held. Smiling, I grabbed my dad’s hand and my sister grabbed his other one as we began walking towards the entrance.

We got lost in the cramped, dingy white hallways. After wandering around for a while, we found someone to ask directions from and finally reached the room. The scene before me was extremely different from the images I had come up with in my mind after the eternity we spent walking through the halls. All I saw was an average, dinky, rectangular room with red carpeting, whose walls were painted tan. There were six rows of eight chairs split down the middle by a path that led to the front of the room. There was a little wooden podium in the corner and a cheap audio system playing sad music. The room was thick with the sickeningly sweet scent of gardenias, but you could still smell a hint of musty old room.

Where was the grand room, the red velvet, the endless amount of pews, the gigantic organ in the corner, and the dramatically crying mourners with veiled faces? Where were the tons of bouquets of red roses, the enormous picture of the deceased on the main wall, and the dozens of flickering white candles people were supposed to be holding? Disappointed, I flopped into the nearest brown plastic fold-up chair, and crossed my arms, pouting. My legs, which were dangling over the edge of the chair, swung agitatedly back and forth out of habit. My dad spotted one of my uncles across the room and said, “I’m going to talk to your Tito Somming about some grown up stuff. Stay here in these chairs while I go talk to him ok? Don’t wander off because I don’t want you get lost.” My sister and I nodded our heads to show our understanding. After walking about five feet, he turned around to look back at us. With a stern face he said, “Behave you two.”

I waited for my dad for six hours, which in reality was more like ten minutes, before I got bored. My eyes constantly darted around the room, checking out my new surroundings. Unable to stand the waiting, I got up to explore the room. My sister followed me despite my warnings and lack of encouragement. “You shouldn’t come with me, you’ll get in lots of trouble.”

“But I don’t wanna be here all by myself. Ate, don’t leave me!” my sister whined. Shrugging my shoulders, I walked to the back right corner of the room, headed towards an enormous bouquet of flowers perched upon a decorated white column. Checking to see if it was real or plastic, we rubbed flower petals between our fingers. The softness of the petals combined with way they easily shredded between our fingers convinced us that the bouquet was real.

Cursed with a sensitive nose that had an allergy to dust and pollen, the smell of flowers began to overpower me. I could feel the little tickle in the back of my nose that signaled the beginning of a sneeze. Failing miserably at holding it in, I sneezed loudly while still holding a branch of the bouquet in my hand. Everyone looked over at me, just in time to see a shower of petals and leaves drifting to the floor from the now messed up bouquet. Oh no, everyone’s looking at me! What should I do?! Knowing that there was no way I could put the blame on my sister, I walked back to my seat with my cheeks burning, trying to pretend there was no mess and that nothing had happened.

I stayed still in my seat for almost fifteen minutes before I got restless again and began fidgeting like there were ants in my pants. My earlier embarrassment forgotten, the thought of exploring crossed my mind once again. My sister and I got up and started to walk around the room, but wisely avoided the flower bouquets. Wanting to see what most of the people were crowding around, we went to the front of the room to investigate. Despite our best efforts we were unable to see over the crowd, even when we went on tiptoes. No fair. I wish I was taller so I could see what they were looking at. Just wait ‘til I’m a grown-up. Defeated, I went to the podium, struggled to get on the little stool, and tapped the microphone softly to see if it was on or off. Finding that it was off, I proceeded to give a speech to my imaginary audience which included my sister. My sister and I switched places so that she could give her speech. There is no way her speech could ever be better than mine since mine was the coolest. With that thought in mind, her words went in one ear and out the other. “Blah blah blah…….”

Done with playing the “Speech game”, I stood up from my chair and walked to the left corner of the room to study the audio system. It contained many shiny buttons and fascinating knobs. My hand crept up stealthily towards the system, unable to resist the temptation of touching the buttons. Right before my hand was about to turn what I now assume was the volume knob, a loud whisper came from somewhere in the vicinity behind me. “Pssssst!”

My hand recoiled from the knob as quickly as a kid’s when they’re caught with their hand in a cookie jar. Oh no! I’m gonna be in soooo much trouble! I didn’t touch the button! It turned out to be my dad, who was signaling for me to come to him. I walked towards him like I was condemned to death. At my arrival, all he did was pat his lap. Assured that there was no punishment, I sat on his lap, leaned back against his chest, and he put his arm around me. As he talked with another uncle, my sister came. Jealous of my position, she squeezed her way onto his other leg and tugged his arm around her.

Jostled by my dad’s moving arm, I was roused out of the semi-drowsy state I had fallen into. Looking around the room to regain my bearings, I noticed that most of the people from earlier were gone, and the crowd had thinned out. As my head turned back around to face my sister, it stopped when my eyes gazed at the front center of the room. The coffin. Oh. My. God. There’s no one in front of the coffin. I can see the coffin! The coast is finally clear! Now wide awake with excitement, I tugged on my dad’s arm. “Daddy, can we please go see the coffin? Please?”

My sister, now also excited, joined in. “Please Daddy, can we? I really wanna see the coffin!”

My dad, who was a big softie, had no choice but to say yes, especially when we both flashed him puppy dog eyes. “Alright, let’s go see it, but you have to be quiet ok? You’re not supposed to make noise. And wait for me, I’m going with you guys. I don’t want you two doing anything bad.”

“Yay, thank you Daddy!” We jumped off his lap, and waited for him to stretch out the kinks in his muscles from sitting too long. When he finally finished, he took our hands, and we walked together to the coffin. Nearly bursting with impatience at what I thought was too slow a pace to be walking, I tried going faster, but my dad’s firm grip on my hand restrained me. We continued at our snail’s pace, but with every step closer to the coffin, my heart pounded faster in anticipation. Come on, come on! Hurry up! HURRY! Trying to calm myself down, I observed the exterior of the coffin. It was a shiny dark reddish-brown on the outside, and you could catch a glimpse of the white interior of the coffin, made creamy and soft looking by the muted lights in the room. All in all, I thought it was very pretty.

We’re finally here! When we finally reached the coffin, I nearly yelled in excitement before I remembered that I had promised my dad to be quiet. Taking my turn first, I stepped onto the stool that had been placed in front of the coffin. The red vinyl on the top of the stool sunk beneath my feet as I peered inside. There lay my Kuya Rene. He looked peaceful. His black hair was slicked back, and he was dressed in a crisp tuxedo. His arms lay casually at his sides, and the white undershirt he wore was a stark contrast to his deeply tanned skin.

As I stepped down from the stool to allow my sister to have a turn and seeing our Kuya, I thought about what I had just seen. What’s wrong with Kuya Rene? He’s so silly, why doesn’t he just get out of the box already? We hafta go soon, and Andrew told me we were gonna have pancit^[5] and suman^[6] today. With childlike innocence, I didn’t really understand the concept of someone being dead. My idea of “dead” had been greatly influenced by movies in which people went to funerals and cried for their loss only to have the deceased return to life, get up from their coffin, and announce that they were miraculously alive. At that moment, my stomach growled loudly, and my thoughts narrowed in on one idea: food. Hungry. Food at Tita Elsie’s house. I had a one-track mind whenever I had an empty stomach.

Not wanting to ruin my Kuya’s “surprise return” for my dad, I climbed up quickly onto the stool as my dad turned around to say goodbye to some people. Poke. Poke. Wow, why is Kuya Rene so hard and cold?! Pinch. I quickly got down as my dad turned around again. He gave me a look that read, “You better not have done anything,” but my eyes reflected only a blank innocence. Inwardly, I was frowning. Why won’t Kuya wake up? It’s already time to go. Doesn’t he wanna eat too?

The thought of my Kuya not waking up yet troubled me, and continued to do so as I sat down at the long table that had been set up in my aunt’s backyard. Trying to come up with a satisfying explanation for myself, I ignored the rumblings of my stomach and the fact that every inch of the table in front of me was covered in food.

A heavy weight bore down on my shoulder, and I turned around only to see the grinning face of my Uncle Joey who had just come in from New York. “Hey, you wanna see little green men?” Awed by the prospect of seeing such a strange phenomena, I nodded eagerly. “Ok. Look in there.” He pointed to a strange-looking brown object that had been set on the table, and gestured for me to take off the lid. I did so, only to find the inside filled with white goop that had green flecks. Although I didn’t know what it was at the time, the weird object was actually a bread bowl like the ones you get clam chowder in from Pier 39. It was filled with a spinach ranch dip.

“I don’t see any green men Uncle Joey! Where are they?”

“You have to look really close,” he replied. My head descended closer and closer to the foreign object as I hopefully tried to catch a glimpse of the little green men. WHAM! Before I knew it, he had put his hand on the back of my head and nearly smashed my face into the goop. Red-faced with embarrassment, I quickly snapped my head up and glared at him. The troubling thoughts about my Kuya Rene fled my mind, replaced by thoughts of revenge. I can’t believe he did that! He’s going down!

I jumped down from my seat and began to chase him around the house, egged on by his laughter. I spent the rest of the day trying to get him back, and plotting my retaliation when my latest attempt at revenge had failed.

Words in Tagalog:

^[1]Tita – aunt

^[2]Kuya – male cousin; respectful title for most older males

^[3]Ate – older sister; respectful title for most older females

^[4]Tito – uncle

^[5]pancit – a Filipino noodle dish very similar to chow mein

^[6]suman – sweet or savory sticky rice cooked and wrapped in banana leaves