Beyond Justice to Mercy

The funeral is tomorrow, and I do not know if I will be there. I might just stay home and get drunk, skip it entirely. He would have hated that, said that I was “In a far country”, but when I texted my brother, I said that’s what I would do. Just stay home and get drunk. He laughed, texted back that he would be staying home to do his girlfriend in creative, somewhat abusive ways. I’d take a good, lusty buggering over going to this funeral any day of the week.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead. The little text bytes seeped through the air, skipping several states, feathering me with fear, hope, fluttering elation, loss. All this tossed together in a confusion casserole. How should I feel? You have to respect the dead, right? Forget the evil past; let an old man die and chisel a bold RIP over a hard, seeping wound. It would make a fine headstone: a sculpted, weeping brown scab, oozing from time to time in memoriam. Fitting and dramatic.

Maybe I will go, make an appearance as will be expected of me by the ignorant throng of former sycophants. Followers? Believers? Call them what you will, but they were mostly bootlickers and toadies, false. And from my vantage, those who aren’t are simply hoodwinked and gullible. I mean, come on. This is the Oughts, and Arfod is so yesterday.

If I do go, I’ll have to be prepared for an all-day songfest. There will be lots of wobbly church opera by overrated sopranos, and there’s bound to be at least one religious power ballad sung by the Associate Stooge. The ringing words “I waaaaant tooooo knoooow…CHRIST!” aren’t so compelling when the tenor sounds like he’s trying very hard to take a grand dump by the end of the song. Lots of obligatory key changes, high notes attempted with a brand of gusto bound to leave the singer with at least one hemorrhoid. Do I really want to go there again?

People I want to see will be there. The cynics, the rebels and the free spirits who only come to these functions to see and be seen. And the gay crowd. They are the best, most irreverent troupe to sit with at a funeral. At the last one, we all sat in the back row and giggled and passed notes like teenagers the entire time. But then, the corpse was a gay friend, and would have chuckled to know we were enjoying his funeral so much. In the parking lot, afterward, one of the just-out-of-the-closet guys gave me a business card so I could stay in touch with him, and it had the name “Nancy” in bold letters across the front. Priceless.

But this funeral will be different. It’s bound to be solemn and somber, definitely longer. "There are 552 people here who would like to speak, but only 10 who should speak". Pastors will play the oratorical lottery, elbowing and shuffling to make the "in order" list. And what will be commemorated? It’s good to review, they’ll say, and parade all the good, happy memories of a life lived in constant salvation and perfect sanctification. I doubt there will be any mention of pedophilia, nepotism, greed, hypocrisy, mental instability or attempted murder. No, these are the dark secrets, and we don’t talk about them. We pretend they don’t exist. The only skeleton that will be aired will be in the fancy casket draped in syrupy roses.

When I am dead, I hope they don’t recall my missteps and failures either. I hope no one says I was a bad mother, a faithless wife, a hypocrite. I hope the people I have hurt will carve RIP onto their own wounds, and feel wistful and uncertain about my passing. I hope they will wonder if all the ugliness is worth remembering, and choose instead to let the past rest in peace.

No, I won’t go, after all. Let him be buried, let him be at peace with whatever he has found after death. I hope that it is mercy instead of justice.