My Father, the Father

At Dolan’s, undertakers flitted around in their black suits and grey four-in-hand ties, directing priests and other attendees to their places. The ceremony began with the drone of prayer, punctuated by moments of silence. I barely heard the voices as I stared at DD’s stoneface, fearful that I would someday forget how he appeared to me, three-dimensionally, and in real life. After the brief service in front of the casket, we all left the room and got into the undertakers’ cars. They had formed a line that would snake its way through Milton’s streets to the nearby St. Agatha’s. I sat with some of the other pallbearers, who talked about the Red Sox and other sports news. None of them seemed particularly interested in the matter at hand, to attend with the living the ancient ceremonies for honoring the dead. Just another wake, another funeral? On that chilled April morning, as our procession slowly pulled away from the funeral home, the scene appeared to me as in a black-and-white photograph, save for the early crocuses that had poked their colors through the frosted soil. After an interminable drive of less than one mile, the entourage pulled up in front of St. Agatha’s. I got out of the car, nervous about taking up my duty as a pallbearer at my father’s funeral. We all stood waiting as the back door of the hearse opened and one of the undertakers reached for the casket’s end handle. The casket easily slid out on the rollers built into the floor of the vehicle. We six pallbearers grabbed the side handles, ready to place the casket on a catafalque, upon which it would ride down the center aisle to the front of the altar. In the brief moment when the casket was suspended, we all suddenly felt its full weight. Transferring it to the catafalque, we waited while a retinue of priests and bishops met us at the door. Standing in front of the casket, one of them said prayers, and another, incense burner in hand, began to envelop us in pungent smoke intended, by its smell and sting to our eyes, to ward off any evil spirits that might be lingering in the back of the church. St. Agatha’s was packed, except for two or three rows in the front, reserved for the family and the pallbearers. I saw Ma and Karen among the mourners in the back rows, both of them looking exhausted. We glanced at each other as I helped to guide the casket down the aisle. How sad that Ma had no part in any of this. She belonged in the front row. At least I would be there, thanks to Gerald’s offer. The altar candles below, and the large stained-glass window behind, the altar lent a welcome glow to the dreary procession. In the nooks and crannies under the arches within the sanctuary, altar boys, deacons, priests, Monsignors, Bishops and, of course, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros (who replaced Cardinal Cushing) had prepared themselves for the Mass. All wore their funeral vestments: altar boys in black cassocks and white chasubles, priests and monsignors wearing their Mass attire. Some priests wore black cassocks, while monsignors and bishops wore red. On the bishops’ heads the pointy mitre hats stood above the assembled mourners, and their staffs signified their status as shepherds of the Church, charged with tending to us lambs. Cardinal Medeiros, instantly recognizable, was dressed like the bishops. They all swarmed about the altar, officious and looking bored by the whole affair. I imagined their thoughts, “This is the 10 a.m. funeral, then it’s off to lunch, and I hope the weather warms a little in time for my golf game this afternoon.” Sprinkled in amongst the Catholics, clergy men from other denominations had come to honor DD. He had been proud of the friendships he had forged with the Protestant ministers in Milton, fulfilling the Vatican II edict to be open to such outreach. They would all meet once a month and discuss items of mutual concern. DD would tell Ma and me about the meetings, and his clergy pals there, “...though they didn’t have the true faith,” he would always add. This assemblage reminded me of a chess game in progress, with real bishops on the board and the altar boys as pawns. Or maybe I could add a couple of peasants and their dogs and create one of those Renaissance paintings that depicted ecclesiastical ceremonies that looked like a free-for-all inside a church. As our funeral entourage stopped at the front of the altar, Cardinal Medeiros stepped forward to meet the casket and then returned to the altar to begin Mass. I sat in the right front row, near the casket. The incantations of the Mass droned on, interspersed occasionally with organ music and singing voices. I paid not the least bit of attention to any of it, so numbed by the waves of grief pounding at me. Well into the Mass, when the Gospel was about to be read, I felt the beginning of a paroxysm gathering inside of me. At first I thought that I could control this feeling and that it would subside, or even pass. But it continued. Uncontrollably my eyes welled with tears, and, to my embarrassment, I began crying loudly. My grief had found its escape route, and I could not stop it. Loud, involuntary, bellowing sobs poured out of my shaking body. When I looked up, I saw curious stares from Medeiros and the others on the altar. Who was this young man, sitting with the pallbearers, his youth an anomaly, in their ranks. Was he a child of the departed, or even a lover? Eventually I regained control, embarrassed and feeling as if I had given away a secret.