Bell-O’Dea

It’s the same funeral home every time.

The same jam-packed expressway (we call it the Depressway), exit through Roxbury and beeline to Brookline. Never straightforward. The street cars compete with the trains and herds of oblivious college students. Every 200 feet, there’s a traffic light and a crosswalk. And a bike lane. I fucking hate cyclists.

In over 20 years, nothing has ever changed on Washington Street. Same mom and pop restaurants, same metered parking, same corner store and cinderblock police station.

I’m transported back in time to my grandfather’s funeral in 2002 whenever I walk into the building. We are here at least twice a year. I think my family might be keeping this place in business.

The only thing that has changed is me. 8 years old. Then 12. 16. 19. 24. 27. Married. 7 weeks pregnant. 12 weeks pregnant. Mother.

They haven’t changed the chairs or the upholstery. I remember looking at the same muted gray carpet two decades ago, squished under my shiny Payless Mary Janes, putting extra pressure on one foot to alleviate my blister. I was probably too little to be standing in the grieving line. Most visitors skipped me entirely.

The Lifesavers spearmints still sit in decorative glass bowls, a godsend for all the smokers waiting to hug us. The styrofoam poster boards from Dollar Tree are covered in Polaroids and pictures developed at BJ’s and CVS. The tape always wrinkles the photos. Ruined for remembrance.

I stopped crying at the funeral home after my uncle’s suicide. Tears are reserved for St. Mary’s of the Assumption church, where we have every funeral. We reuse the same tear-jerking songs. I even cry when I hear them during regular Sunday mass. Grief doesn’t care about placement. It dotes on memory.

The casket is usually closed. Nobody wants to see the wrinkled version of death caked in cosmetics. Or get a whiff of formaldehyde when they kneel to pray. They’ll open the top half of the casket when all the visitors leave. The end takes longer when the dead didn’t depart in peace. Fewer people come to pay their respects. We’re left standing, purposeless, taking turns to pee, and checking our phones tucked away in our purses.

The oldest family members who have outlived everyone else get my attention. I watch them when they have to sit down, rickety with old age, clutching their walkers. When will it be their turn? Is it worse to die, or to witness everyone else die, while dying slowly?

Death becomes an inevitable fact for me. Wakes, funerals, and flower arrangements. Songs that promise Heaven’s gates, but not God’s judgement. My family is a hard sell to get into heaven. Eulogies are only meant to praise. Nobody is as good as they think they are.