Grandma's Last Ride (Final Respects On a Beautiful Day)

Whatever I expected vanished quickly, but the funeral Grandma received fit her far better than anyone would have guessed.

Even at 5 a.m. in the Westchester County Airport last Friday, I kept hearing her voice, her quick shifts through time (holding my mother as an infant, or cooking with Uncle Frank) and her gentle admonishments.

Waiting on the wake was the hardest part. You can’t steel yourself for a wake, because once inside, emotions spread. Tears are shed in a domino effect. When we stood in the lot Wednesday and Uncle Frank, our defacto leader out of closeness to Grandma, simply said “Let’s go see Grandma,” my cast-iron stomach rusted straight away.

If we have the luxury of knowing our grandparents as adults, they begin the take on an air of immortality, especially when separated by distance. Grandma had intermittent health issues in recent years, but never did it seem like her time had arrived. That made it hard to view her nestled in coffin, little and gentle in her blue dress.

What I remember most is the photo montage my cousins assembled. It could be easy to forget Grandma’s humor and what laugher could erupt from her. Anyone glancing at the photos saw a woman who could claim a rich and fruitful 85 years. My cousins knew enough to include a shot of Grandma hosting the massive bowls of pasta she was famous for.

With the exception of the Jacksons and the Cocchias, I barely recognized some of Mom’s cousins. Since we’d last been together, they grayed and I grew (and grayed, but only a little). Last of her generation, Aunt Evelyn stood out. Soon to be 90, she amazed with her sharp mind and that she continued to drive. Visiting her today was no different than 5 or 7 years ago. The crowds of my grandfather’s funeral had dispersed to their own quiet resting places.

As the pallbearers gathered after our final good-byes, I feared I might see something I didn’t want to see – the funeral parlor staff lowering the casket lid. But they skillfully handed all of us flower arrangements and wheel the casket out before I could glimpse that action.

From the funeral parlor in Fairfield, we toured Southport and some of the oldest areas of Westport. The Cocchia brothers swapped stories about their father and “private beach,” a sliver of sand bar inaccessible legally or otherwise by hopping a fence. The coordinators could have opted for the highway, but let Grandma cruise through the least-changed part of her world.

Then the funeral train stopped at the Church of the Assumption, site of every marriage and funeral mass conducted in my mother’s extended family.

In reading Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, I had to refrain from all urges to burst out into song (Pete Seeger adapted the level-headed verse into Turn! Turn! Turn!).

As one of six pallbearers, I’m glad I got to help carry Grandma along her last voyage. No matter who they carry, caskets never grow lighter. Grandma was much diminished from age and her final health problems, but I checked my hands for moisture and stuck to the brief but important duty.

Beneath a beautiful New England afternoon, we rested her casket at the end of a row of family graves - Delallo, Izzo, Saponare and other ghosts emerged as we got closer to her plot. Twenty-three years later, she finally rejoined Grandpa, chief among the many deaths she never moved beyond.

They had not lowered her into the ground yet, but I want to come back to southwest Connecticut, to visit the little towns that nowhere Midwestern or southern can replace. Affording a place to live there is a different story, but one I won’t face until the next uprooting occurs.

When I come back or land anywhere close to Westport, her voice will remain inescapable. I can’t separate her from the geography anymore than I can peel memories of those summer visits away from my brain.