The First Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

The funeral, arranged quickly by Clarissa, Ryan and Patricia, occurred on the Saturday after his death, and it was very well attended by his former colleagues, neighbours, and friends; his entire social circle joined in on the mourning of the loss, and the parking lot of the funeral home on McLeod street was crowded that day; cars spilled onto McLeod Street on the south and Gladstone Street on the north. Clarissa, being James’s widow, delivered her eulogy. “When I met James, he was a happy man, and we quickly fell in love. He touched me in a way that no other man, save my father, did. The relationship progressed very quickly; just two months after we met, I moved in with him, and by June, we were engaged. I cannot emphasize enough the depth of the bond we shared, our love for each other, our friendship, or what James meant to me when he lived, over the past eight months. He showed me warmth, caring, and excitement during that time.” She turned and faced the casket. “James, I will always love you.” At this point, Clarissa choked up and sat down in the front pew, crying.

After her eulogy, Patricia, who sat opposite Clarissa, rose and delivered her speech. “When Jimmy was a little boy, he was curious; a bit too curious, if you ask me. I,” she Paused, stammering. “I will attempt to keep this brief. Ryan and I watched Jimmy grow, and were proud of our son’s achievements; his marks in high school, his degrees in economics, all of that; through the whole process, his inquiring mind would not be quenched. I shall always remember Jimmy as my little boy, even after his horrible, tragic and unfortunate death,” and then she sat down, and left much unsaid, as suited the occasion. After that, Ryan rose, gave a few brief remarks after his wife’s fashion, and then sat down again, after which the reverend took over.
Ryan was sitting beside Patricia, both of whom were silently weeping. We have no son, thought Ryan. He should be burying me! His thoughts turned to James’s childhood, captured in a moment but not encapsulated entirely by a framed picture on the coffin. The picture showed an eight-year old James playing in a sandbox with Katherine, who sat on Patricia’s left side. How full of meaning was his life then, thought he. He remembered James back then as a rambunctious child, always pestering their dog or Kathy, running around the house, and trying weird experiments seeing what happens to things when they were set on fire. That particular habit caused him much consternation generally, and particularly when he did it with a necktie. It had been early-onset heart disease, which came as quite a shock to him, Patricia, and Clarissa. Ryan had just gone in for his annual, and he had high blood pressure and the doctor had told him that cholesterol was a concern, as was salt. His mind was elsewhere as the reverend delivered the homily, which had now turned to best wishes from all of his friends, and had dwelt substantially on the depth of the tragedy of young death. Clarissa had told him that when she called Maurice to inform him of James’s death just an hour before, Maurice responded that James had been laid off on the same day; these events were undoubtedly connected, and Ryan could not help bearing at least some ill feeling toward Maurice, who was also at the funeral, and seated near the back of the crowded chapel. Ryan attempted to console himself by thinking of others who were in a similar situation of having to bury a child: people in war zones, military parents, but nobody came to mind who was about to bury a child who had died of a heart condition usually thought to afflict older people. He didn’t think James had any particularly unhealthy habits, either.

He was rather fond of poutine, thought Maurice. He ate that nearly every morning, and it was surprising that he had managed to keep the weight off. One the one hand, I’d ask how it’s done, not getting fat, that is, but on the other hand, he’s dead. I must make a note to avoid that in my diet, or at least avoid eating only that. I don’t think I ever saw him eat anything else, and his servings were always of a moderate size. What does his wife feed him? He wondered idly, and recalled the rich butter cream cake at the wedding. That cake might be a clue; one simply doesn’t eat that sort of rich food all the time without repercussions.

Courtney was sitting beside Maurice. She had no ill feelings from last Friday; it was the economy, after all, and nothing personal. Being at James’s funeral was sad for her, first of all, but also weird; this sort of thing should be happening when she would be an octogenarian, not now. She had noted on the numerous lunches they had together the volume of poutine he consumed; it seemed he ate nothing else. It seemed to her that he had become quite a connoisseur, which in retrospect should have been a red flag. What had triggered the heart attack, though? She knew from the timing that the layoff had something to do with it. Maybe he had received some particularly shocking news? Were they about to lose their house? Marital troubles aren’t too likely, she thought; Clarissa attended a work function just in September, they were just married for two months last Friday, and she had seen them passionately kissing when they thought they were alone.

Katherine’s thoughts were not on James as he was recently, but James as a child. As a child, he liked playing soccer and any other kind of sport that he could, and would often get her to join him with the boys. She enjoyed those carefree times of endless running in sunny field near their childhood home in Guelph. This was not to say that she had always reciprocated this playful attitude; she, being a year younger than her brother, was going through a stuck-up and bitchy phase at around the same time as his like of sports peaked, which was in grade nine; his like of sports quickly dropped off after that. Looking back on this period made her realise how much she missed James, and that particular phase in his development. His interest in sports had ended when he was bullied in gym class in grade nine, and after that, he abandoned exercise and did not look back. Hence, by the time he graduated university, he was slightly overweight, and his waistline grew incrementally each year until he died just a few days previously. She wondered how he would have turned out had he sustained his like of sports; he would have been a bit more healthy, and probably still alive; on the other hand, he wouldn’t have become as intellectual, she thought as she reflected on the athletic men she knew who somehow didn’t measure up in terms of education and brainpower.

Patricia, while she was crying, was reminiscing silently about James’s life: little James who would run around, playing tag with his sister, the gregarious, teenaged James whose favourite activities of the time consisted of eating potato chips and going to parties, who then turned bookish during his university days while having a parade of girlfriends; his whole life seemed so right, so wholesome, and it seemed unjust that he should have to die so young, at just thirty-three, without seeing any children, and without burying his parents first. I shouldn’t have to be doing this, she thought; I shouldn’t be grieving for my son; would that our places had switched, and the day postponed by twenty years or so, she thought; there I was thinking my kids would be around forever, foolishly. She then looked out the window at the bruised grey sky; it had been threatening rain for the past two days, but had not delivered, and the air was getting chilly, as all the pleasant smells of summer, of the flowers, the fruit, died and gave way to the sweet scent of decaying maple leaves.

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