Time of Need
Friends Heed the Call
I understand there are people, mostly older women but probably some older men, older being the operative word, who for reasons that I do not understand, somehow enjoy attending funerals of people they don’t know and never met. I don’t know if it’s something about boredom or possibly it’s a macabre pre-occupation with death or maybe it’s an old, lonely person’s way of telling the survivors of a perfect stranger that they care, in hopes that someone would show that they care when someone they love passes the heavenly baton. I’d like to think it’s the later because attending anonymous funerals is not my idea of a fun and carefree way to pass the time. It also must be kind of odd for the survivors to see someone they don’t know just sitting in one of the seats, tapping her moist eyes with a handkerchief that is probably monogrammed. Those close to the deceased might see it as strange but everyone else probably thinks the old lady is a distant cousin from Chicago or a great aunt from Miami. It would definitely be discourteous to approach the anonymous mourner and ask her name and connection to the deceased. It reminds me when I was young and foolish and how friends went to weddings at big banquet halls, knowing nothing about the newly weds, and would migrate from wedding to wedding, gorging on the free food and freely imbibing alcoholic beverages and were never asked who they were or whose side of the family they came from, though I never did such a sleazy thing, well, maybe once at this wedding hall in South Orange. As far as the nameless mourners, better to just let the old ladies or old men and maybe even a younger man or woman just to sit silently as they pay their respects and fill out their day at the same time.
I was thinking about this because today I went to the viewing for the wife of a friend, who I will call Enzo though that is not his real name. I have come to know Enzo over the past few years, usually over beer. Enzo’s wife died suddenly, but isn’t that usually the way people die and apparently she went quickly without suffering, which is the best way to go if you have to go. I once blew off a funeral because it was inconvenient and I feel guilty to this day so I went today, even though I tried to weasel out of it but my wife reminded me it is the right thing to do, and so I did it and it was the right thing as I could tell the moment my friend saw me arriving at the funeral home and he told me how much he appreciated me coming, along with the other four members of our weekly beer-drinking group that we call The Stooges. I pressed Enzo’s shoulder and asked how he was doing and the look in his eyes told the story, that he was very pleased that I came, that it meant a lot to him,that it said a lot about The Stooges and my relationship with Enzo, in particular, and I could see that he was trying to keep from crying, you know, stiff upper lip, cool as a cucumber, stoical and all that. These are the ways that men are taught to react to tragedy and it doesn’t work and I know and that Enzo has deep feelings that he was trying to keep in check out of fear that he might collapse and drown in a sea of sadness, and there would be nobody to toss him a life raft, but he didn’t collapse and I’m sure he’s glad that he kept it together.
The group of us Stooges are usually pretty carefree as we get together for some camaraderie, a few laughs, maybe some serious political talk, but we usually don’t talk about very personal things, because we are men. But we Stooges sent out a very clear message when we visited with Enzo and tried to help a little in his journey from the unimaginable. We told Enzo that we care and that is the best we can do, although we did chip in for flowers which were the smallest arrangements among the donated flowers at the funeral home, which is surprising because each Stooge donated $100 toward the arrangement and it should have been much larger than it was and I suspect maybe the Stooge who collected the cash and ordered the flowers made a few bucks off of the flowers. Just kidding and I hope Enzo quickly rejoins the weekly Stooges gathering because I for one, want him to get back to the beer and get back to our weekly soirees because it’s good for him, it’s good for us and because, speaking for all of the Stooges, we miss Enzo and want him to feel better. It’s strange how sad things can bring people together and make them see how they have become part of each other’s lives. When the Stooges started meeting a few years ago, we were just a bunch of over-the-hill strangers who met while sweating on the treadmill and the other muscle building machines at the gym and realized we all had a common love of the suds and I suggested to one future Stooge that we get together and we did and the rest is history and a group of friends was made. Now we are over the hill buds.