Interment

A freezing day for a graveside service. Mom asked the pastors to be brief. We gathered at the funeral home for a last goodbye, waiting for everyone to arrive for the procession to Albany Rural Cemetery, a historic and beautiful place where my own final resting plot is located. Kiel and Drew had detoured to Mark's place to pick him up and they had still not arrived when we began the departure process.

Each group of people was called to stand by the casket and say their final goodbyes before proceeding to their car. When it came turn for the last group of which I was part, I found my legs uncooperative, my heart in my throat, tears stinging my eyes. The word "final" stabbed through the fog of sadness, driving home the message loud and clear.

There will be no more theological discussions, no hearing Dad mutter while he works on some obstinate mechanical gear, no more home reconstruction projects, no more adventures into unknown territory, no more forays into money saving scavenging schemes, no more phone conversations that begin with "What's up?" and end with "So, you want to talk to your Mother?"

I stood there numb, unsure, not wanting to leave, not wanting to stay. I refused to let the tears come until I was safely in the car. Mom did not wish to cry in public, and I was not about to be the catalyst to break that desire. Tears poured harder as we watched the pall bearers load the flag draped coffin into the hearse. My sons are still not here. I call them. I will have to dictate directions over the phone so they can catch up at the cemetery. Bother.

Flashers and high beams on, flags flying, we follow the hearse along back roads through Menands and other little historic burgs. The boys are closing the gap slowly. I shout into my Blackberry the names of the roads and exits, hoping they manage to keep on track. If they don't catch up by the time we reach the cemetery, they will be hard pressed to find the plot. It is a huge and confusing place. My irritation with them has cured my tears.

We huddle in a small open sided green tent around the casket suspended above the vault buried in the ground below. Vaults are required in New York state, and this one has Dad's name and dates on it. The cold takes our breath away. We are all shivering while the pastors speak briefly of our hope in Christ, of the promise of resurrection, of seeing our loved one again on heaven's shores.

Mom is presented with the flag, a symbol of Dad's service in the army so long ago, the very activity that brought him to a saving knowledge of Christ. He was in a hotel room, waiting to be shipped out to battle in WWII. He picked up a Bible left there by the Gideons and began reading. So young, so scared, facing such terrible prospects, he promised God that if God kept him safe during the war, he would enter into service as a preacher.

Before he shipped out, victory was declared. Dad's army career was mostly cleanup duty. True to his promise, he returned home and entered college in preparation for the ministry. Imagine! Of course, he believed (and taught his children) in keeping all options open, and that one should be able to work a manual labor job in case things dried up in one's chosen field. Accordingly he worked as an electrician, and eventually ended up teaching electrical engineering at RIT and after retirement at Adirondack Community College.

It is too cold to stand about chatting. We briefly look over the other graves, reading the names of long departed family, the main headstone proclaiming Appleby as the link tying all together. Only two empty spaces remain in the family plot. One for Mom and one for her brother. My plot is nearby, but not within the family area.

Quickly we find our vehicles after short conversations deciding where to gather next. No hearse to lead us out, we hope to find our way on our own. We feel at a loss as to how to proceed, how to return to our places. It will be the same with learning how to pick up with our lives minus our anchor. Somehow, we will find our way, just as we did today, following signs and instinct, sticking together until we are surrounded by the familiar and known, the comfortable and understandable.

Tomorrow we will gather for the memorial service, or, as Mom says, "two down and one to go."