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Without any notice, Aunt Ethel had called me into the kitchen, sat down at the table with me, and in a very adult and direct way explained, “David you know your mother’s been sick, and that’s why you’ve been living with us for a while. She has asked to see you. She is very ill, and I am so sorry. She wants to say goodbye to you before she goes, she wants to see you, she loves you so much David.
Scene – Trip with Ethel and Harry to see my mom in the small 1 bedroom apartment …. lots of people crammed into the small room and it was hot and humid etc. Saying goodby.
And then …
We’re here …. describe the scene …. walking in the drizzle to the storefront that was obviously a small business converted to an equally small room, with fold-out chairs set up under flickering ceiling mounted florescent lights.
(Describe the scene inside the makeshift funeral home.)
I won’t look in her casket because I knew how she looked now (EXPAND ON THIS) since I visited her less than a month ago when she was dying and we said goodbye. I’m so proud of you, take care of yourself … Be strong David. Don’t worry, I can take care of myself, get some rest Mom I love you.
Escape to Aunt Jemima
Bennet, Judith, and I stepped outside the funeral home into a fine misty drizzle. We turned right and were walking up Queens Blvd. towards the next cross street, 193rd Avenue, where Bennet’s car was parked when I looked up across the street and saw a large billboard above a chromed diner. “Aunt Jemima Pancakes,” and Raindrops flowed like tears down Aunt Jemima’s smiling face and I was jolted back to when I was five, and on a bus with a bunch of kids, on my way to my very first day at Ideal Day Camp. I remembered crying. I was going away from my mom for the first time and a sympathetic camp counselor sat down next to me.
It was raining heavily, and she pointed through the bus’s window at a billboard above the Smiling Irishman used car lot that pictured a smiling leprechaun wearing a green brass buckled hat and a green suit jacket, and rain drops streamed down his face, and she said, “Look, David, even the Smiling Irishman is crying today.” And for some reason back then, that made it all better for me.
But today, my mom had gone off to camp, and I stood on the sidewalk in front of the makeshift Funeral Home looking up across Queens Boulevard at Aunt Jemima smiling down at me from a billboard above a silver diner while tears of rain flowed down her smiling face, and I turned to Bennet and Judy and said,
“Let’s go get some pancakes.”