Authors: Olive Ann Burns
Aunt Loma, Mary Toy, and Mama stood around the bed, crying. Miss Love stood there dry-eyed, looking down on the father of her unborn child.
I found Papa in the parlor. He had lifted Campbell Junior up to the window so he could watch a hen leading her baby chicks towards the front yard. "See the biddies?" asked Papa, and little Camp jumped with delight.
"What do we do now, sir?" I asked. "Call Mr. Birdsong?"
"Not yet, son." He sighed deep. "I have to read that letter first. I reckon we better go back in there and start."
For the reading, Miss Love sat down in the rocking chair, pulled as close to Grandpa as she could get it. Papa had handed over the baby to Aunt Loma. She stood jiggling him in her arms to keep him quiet. Mama was holding Mary Toy's hand, but my little sister begged, "Will, stay by me," and I put my arm around her, held her close. Papa walked around to Granny's side of the bed and tore open the envelope.
"Mr. Blakeslee didn't tell me what's in this," he began. "He just said if anything happened to him I was to get the letter out of the safe and read it to y'all right away." He looked over at the widow. "Are you all right, Miss Love? You rather go in the parlor?"
"No, Mr. Hoyt. Please read it." She placed her hand on Grandpa's shoulder.
The letter was in his big sprawling hand on a long ruled sheet torn out of the store's ledger book. I copied it later, word for word like Grandpa had it.
"To my dearly beloved wife Love Simpson Blakeslee, to my beloved daughters Mary Willis Blakeslee Tweedy and Loma Blakeslee Williams, to my beloved son-in-law Hoyt Tweedy, who is like a son to me"—Papa had to wait a minute before he could go on—"to my grandsons Hoyt Willis Tweedy and Campbell Williams Junior, and to my granddaughter Mary Toy Tweedy:
"This is about the disposal of my earthly remains.
"Please recollect the funeral I gave Miss Mattie Lou. I tried to make it a nice thank-you to her for living. Likewise I gave Camp a nice funeral. I believe God means us to stand up to suffering, not end it with a bullet. A man killing himself aint nothing I can understand. But I can forgive it. Anyhow, I wanted Camp's funeral to say 'Judge not that ye be not judged.'"
I could hear Aunt Loma snuffling.
"Now I want my burying to remind folks that death aint always awful. God invented death. Its in God's plan for it to happen. So when my time comes I dont want no trip to Birdsong's Emporium or any other. Dressing somebody up to look alive don't make it so."
My daddy paused. I could tell he was reading ahead to himself, because his face flushed all of a sudden and he had to take a deep breath before he could go on.
"I dont want no casket. Its a waste of money. What I would really like is to be wrapped in two or three feed sacks and laid right in the ground. But that would bother you all, so use the pine box upstairs at the store that Miss Mattie Lou's coffin come in. I been saving it. And tho I just as soon be planted in the vegetable patch as anywhere, I dont think anybody would ever eat what growed there, after. Anyhow, take me right from home to the cemetery.
"Aint no use paying Birdsong for that hearse. Get Loomis to use his wagon. Specially if it is hot weather, my advisement is dont waste no time."
Mama, scandalized, had both hands up to her mouth. Mary Toy had turned white as a sheet. I held her tight. Aunt Loma seemed excited, like when watching a spooky stage play. I felt excited myself. I wondered was this Grandpa's idea of a practical joke or was it a sermon. Maybe after he made his point, he'd put a postscript saying that when he was dead it really wouldn't matter to him what kind of funeral he had. But I doubted it.
Miss Love? She kept her eyes on Grandpa, lying there so unnatural quiet, so unnatural still.
Papa read on. "I want Loomis and them to dig my grave right next to Miss Mattie Lou. I dont want no other preacher there but him, but don't let him give a sermon. It would go on for hours. Just let him pray for God to comfort my family.
"I would like Will Tweedy to read some Bible verses, and I want you all to sing 'Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.' Also I want Hoyt to read some verses I am going to copy on another sheet and put in with this letter. The title is 'Be Still, My Soul.' I want Miss Love to know that the line in the poem about 'Love's purest joys restored' means I want her to try to find a way to be happy after I am gone. I expect her to outlive me by some years, and I dont want her to live drab. I want folks to say there goes Rucker Blakeslees happy, good-looking, piana-playing widder. I dont want them to say she sure has gone downhill since he passed."
All eyes turned on Miss Love, but she sat like stone.
Papa read on. "I dont want nobody at the burial except you all and them at the store that want to come. Dont put
Not Dead But Sleeping
on my stone. Write it
Dead, Not Sleeping.
Being dead under six foot of dirt wont bother me a-tall, but I hate for it to sound like I been buried alive.
"Now then, the funeral party. In case you all aint noticed, the first three letters of the word funeral spells fun. So a week or two after I die, you all have dinner on the grounds at one of the churches, or if they aint in favor, have it at the ball park. I dont care which. I think a Wednesday at one o'clock would be fine since the stores close anyhow. I hope everybody in Cold Sassy will come, white and colored. Have a happy get-together with kinfolks and old friends. Tell funny stories about me and such.
"I would like for you all to ask the town band and the Negro band to come play parade music and also tunes like 'Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-de-Ay' and lively hymns like 'When They Ring Them Golden Bells.' Get everybody to sing out on
Don't you hear the bells now ringing, Don't you hear the angels singing? Tis the glory hallelujah Jubilee-ee-ee.
And so on.
"Let it be known ahead that we going to have favors. That will bring out the crowd. But dont buy nothing that cost much. Unless its in the cold wintertime, lets set up apple bobbing and dunking booths for the children. Maybe have a shooting gallery for the men. And lets have a hog-calling contest and a crowing contest, funny things that will make folks laugh. See can you get some little colored boys to do buck-and-wing dancing. Maybe we can have a backwards automobile race, and race bicycles backwards too. Oh, it's going to be a fine fancy day!
"Now you all can cry and wear black at my burying if you want to, but I dont want nobody at the funeral party to wear black or cry either one. Dont go if you cant be pleasant. If you do go, dress up and act happy. You can cry later.
"Anybody who dont foller my wishes as written here is out of my will. I do not wish my will to be read till after the funeral party.
"Well, thats all I can think of. I hope it will be a long time between this writing and when Hoyt has to read it. I want all of you to always remember what my family meant to me and how blessed I was to have two such fine wives. I think they was both dang marvels. Enoch Rucker Blakeslee."
The paper was signed, dated, sealed, and witnessed.
There was no choice but to hurry with the burying, despite folks were already bringing in food and sad faces. Loomis got his two oldest sons to go dig the grave. Then, while Cold Sassy gathered on the front veranda and in the parlor, we gathered in there around the deathbed with the door closed, watching as Loomis, weeping, lifted Grandpa and gently laid him in the coffin box. Miss Love had fixed a sort of padding out of clean feed sacks printed in bright red and white checks. It liked to killed Mama, those feed sacks, but Miss Love acted like they were the usual thing for a coffin liner.
After my daddy said a prayer, she draped two more of the checked feed sacks over his body and then, hesitating only a moment, covered his face. Loomis nailed the box shut, and he and Papa and I toted Grandpa out the back door to the wagon.
It sure would of tickled him to see all the neighbors on his front porch staring with their mouths open as Loomis drove the mule team towards the street.
Miss Love rode in the wagon with Grandpa. Besides lots of perfume, she had on the black dress she wore to church that time Cold Sassy criticized her for acting like she was in mourning for Granny. As expressionless as the time she was a store mannequin, she sat in the wagon on a sawed-off chair, bracing herself with one hand on the driver's plank and the other on the coffin box.
Behind the wagon came the two cars, me driving the Pierce, Papa the Cadillac, and all of us looking straight ahead. It's no credit to me or Aunt Loma that we were enjoying our roles in this melodrama. Mama and Papa sure didn't feel that way. They were ashamed. But if Miss Love was feeling anything like shame, she didn't show it.
What Grandpa would of really enjoyed, haw, was the sight of Mr. Birdsong reining in the black horses pulling his ambulance-hearse just as our procession turned into the street!
Cudn Hope, Uncle Lige, and Hosie were waiting for us at the cemetery gates. I could tell that Hosie had been crying.
It was awful, the burying. Such a pitiful little band of mourners, so bumbling without Mr. Birdsong or anybody else to tell us what to do.
There hadn't been time to think or feel much of anything except disbelief while we were making all the arrangements. Now that we were actually here in the cemetery, we felt shocked and helpless.
Grandpa had only considered what he wanted when he wrote all those instructions; he didn't give a thought to what it would be like for us to gather around a gaping hole before we'd hardly realized he was dead, before we'd hardly even got started on the grieving.
And what were we supposed to do? How was the service supposed to start?
I could tell the spirit was on Loomis to help us out, but he knew white folks' funerals aren't like colored funerals. He was scared we might not like him taking over.
As Papa put one arm around Mama and the other around Mary Toy, Miss Love's composure crumbled and she went to crying. I got the wagon chair for her to sit in, and stood by her while she sobbed and wailed. What to do? Black Loomis knew what to do. He lifted his face to the sky and sang, "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home...."
By time the last hum of the word
home
drifted in and out among the tombstones, all of us felt calmer, and Miss Love hushed as Loomis prayed "for Missus an' all us in de fam'ly. We asts You to hol' us in Yo Bosom, Lawd. Hol' us 'n' comfort us, till we's able to git up 'n' carry on in de lan' ob de livin', bless Jesus a-men."
Then Papa pulled the letter out of his pocket. "I will now read this poem of Mr. Blakeslee's choosing. He wrote that he found it in a old book." He cleared his throat.
"Be still my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
Thro' thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below."
Papa said, "Here Mr. Blakeslee wrote that he was tired of copying, but he thought the third verse was the best one of all for a funeral.
"Be still, my soul: the hour is hast'ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last."
I hadn't really decided which Bible verses to recite. One thing boys and girls growing up in Cold Sassy know a lot of is Bible verses. Maybe I'd do the Twenty-third Psalm. They always say that at funerals.... But then like a light turned on, it came to me what Grandpa might like.
"'Ask, and it shall be given you,'" I began. "'Seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' We have the same message in the Book of Saint John," I said, sounding for all the world like a preacher. "'If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.... Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.'"
Well, but how could I just stop there? Those words were worse than nothing if I didn't tell what they meant to Grandpa. Looking at the long rough box, I spoke timid, in a mumbled voice. Not preachified at all. "Grandpa didn't think Jesus meant, by that, that we should ast God for things, or for special favors. He said we could trust that in the nature of things, without astin', we'll get lots of blessin's and happy surprises and maybe a miracle or two. When Jesus said ast and you'll get it, He meant things of the spirit, not the flesh. Right now, for instance, I could ast, 'Lord, please raise Grandpa from the dead,' but it wouldn't happen. But I can say, 'Please, God, comfort me,' and I'll get heart's ease. Grandpa said Jesus meant us to ast for hope, forgiveness, and all like that. Ast, 'Hep us not be scared, hep us not be greedy, give us courage to try.'" I was really carried away. "Ast any such and God will give it to you. But don't ast Him not to let fire burn, or say spare me from death. At least, uh, that's what Grandpa said."
Right then it dawned on me. By some of what I was saying, I had just revealed to Miss Love that I had spied on them last Sunday. She would know I heard not only Grandpa's sermon, but probably everything else that he said and she said. I couldn't look at her.
Later, when I did, she smiled a little smile at me, like saying it didn't matter now.
I couldn't go to sleep that night for wondering would it put Mama in the bed when she heard about Miss Love's baby. I knew she'd be upset, but I doubted she would talk about it to anybody except Papa, because whereas Miss Love had just been her daddy's wife, now she would be the mother of Mama's half sister or brother. That would put her in the family. And in our family, we don't talk against each other to outsiders.