Everyone should attend a funeral with Angie. For that matter, everyone should attend a funeral for a friend of Angie, with Angie.
It is difficult to describe the feeling of sitting next to Angie, in her giant, puffy red coat… her gait, volume and comment unpredictable at every moment, and all I could feel was just so tremendously, completely, overwhelmed with gratitude that she is in my life. I expected to feel sad. I expected to feel awkward and uncomfortable in the Catholic service (par for the course…). I did not expect Angie to be my guide and my strength through the entire thing. Angie pulls Catholic verse, prayers and songs out of where?? She claims it is years of attending family weddings and funerals and that she somehow absorbed the information. I was at these funerals and weddings. I did not absorb this. Angie is overwhelmed with a need to share in communion with these Catholics we do not know. I am concerned about being “turned away” at the altar for not being Catholic (a story I heard from someone recently). I gently try to suggest to Angie that I’m not sure we are allowed. She looks at me like I’m crazy and her look says she is going up there and doesn’t give a flying fuck who says she can or can’t. So my mind wanders to the potential argument/incident I may get in at Erica’s funeral. I try to mediate my sudden lioness-level protective feelings with not wanting to upset Erica’s family. Wild fantasies start to fly through my head. But then I look at Angie, with wet eyes, just needing to “be” in this service and community, and comforted so much by something that is so off-putting to me. Regroup, Gina. My mind wanders again. I remember little girl Angie, with her beautiful, thick brown hair and her adorable smile. Angie, too often struck blind by a seizure, paralyzed, predicted to possibly die or have irreversible brain damage. Angie, who ALWAYS made it back. I am, again, so incredibly thankful as she sings out, loud and proud, in her not-heading-to-Broadway-anytime-soon singing voice. Yes, I think to the man trying to look back without us knowing he is looking back at who is making that sound – yes, that is MY SISTER. How sad for you that you don’t know her! And why is she alive and continuing to remind me about everything good in life, and her friend is dead in a box at the front of this sterile church? All I could think was to thank God, Buddha, an old Indian woman or whatever the hell is propelling this whole bizarre system along. Thanks for my alive sister! I did not expect this.
Oh there were moments I could have predicted…
The *community* communion cup comes out and my chest tightens (where are the individually sterilized cups??). I quietly shame myself for thinking more about the fact that it is cold and flu season, and less about the fact that we are supposed to be there “in communion” to celebrate Erica’s life.
As we walk to the front, I am relieved in a way I can hardly describe, as I see people skipping the community communion cup (I am clearly not the only one who realizes this is a public health hazard). Then, as I wait for Angie (so she doesn’t get lost walking back to the pew), I turn to see her taking the longest, deepest pull off that communion cup and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand afterward. I didn’t check to see if they had to refill the cup after Angie, but I’m pretty sure they did.
After the service, we find Erica’s mom Linda, and Angie immediately informs her that “This is just as hard for me as it is for you, Linda.” Linda graciously smiles and hugs Angie. Can a person not be transformed by moments like these?
Erica’s siblings read letters they wrote. I saw inside their eyes and hearts and souls. They knew this might happen. They hoped this would never happen. They are forever transformed by Erica’s place in their life.
The priest spoke. I am cynical. I expect empty words from someone trying to comfort a family in mourning. But, He KNOWS Erica. He loved Erica. He is talking about appreciating the wonderful things that made her tick. He is telling us that she was willing to ask him hard questions. I know what he really means to say, I can read between these lines. Erica lacked the filter that makes us all bumble through this world, feeling inferior, trying to dress right and say the right thing, struggling with what to write on a greeting card and trying to be politically correct, all the while gulping our anti-anxiety meds and chewing our fingernails. Oh sure, she wanted a necklace to cover up her heart-surgery scar for Angie’s wedding, but she didn’t mind telling it like it is. And Angie told me on the way to the funeral that Erica was always “her rock”. When times were tough, Erica was there.
We leave. Angie doesn’t need to have cake, thank you. We’ll go home and have leftovers. We walk into the freezing night and Angie thanks me. With a big sigh, she says she really needed that and I am a great sister for being there for her. As we drive home, I babble to Angie about why I was worried about communion and marvel at her knowledge of Catholic liturgy. She calmly says she knew from talking with Erica that her church was a special place to be and that we could feel comfortable and welcome there. Thanks, Angie. I guess I should have let you start guiding me a long time ago.
Angie spends the night. She knows she wants to be around people, but doesn’t need to talk. So, she reads in the living room and then heads to bed.
In the morning, Gerd makes her breakfast and she enjoys laughing at his silly jokes (he really has her number). I need to get on with my day, yet I feel a sudden anxiety at taking her home. But, Angie has her shit together. She mourned, she lost exactly ONE night of sleep, she cried and she attended her friend’s funeral. Now, she is ready to keep moving forward. The person with the lowest IQ in my family has, hands down, the best mental health of us all.
As I drove away from Angie’s apartment building after dropping her off, I remembered what my mom always says about Angie having a guardian angel. God, I hope she’s right.
