Hollywood
The first thing my grandmother, Mom, read in the newspaper every day was the obituaries. Probably twice a month, she’d find someone she knew. I thought she suspected she might see herself there. She was in her 70s at this point and knew that death was as close to her as it had ever been. Most of the time, she’d make note of the details, what funeral home, cemetery and so on that was associated with the deceased. More times than not, she’d take me to the store to get a flower, usually a potted Chrysanthemum, from the Studewood Food Market, because they almost always had them. I thought I might work there one day, and I did.
She had stashes of many items that she would get on sales or otherwise so she’d have them handy when she needed them. Stationary was one of those items so she had sympathy cards. She put them on the flower to identify herself as the donor and take it to the funeral home to leave for the family and to sign the book—the visitation book.
Signing the book was the thing to do when making the visitation. That the deceased was visited and that there was a record of this visit, that was most important to her, critical in fact. Someone would read the book, she knew. She might further label herself as a cousin, neighbor or friend of the deceased so they’d know why she had been there.
Rarely however did she attend the funeral service unless it was a relative. Then it was very important to be there, to view the body one more time, just to be sure, I think, and to go to the graveside. She told me many times that when her time came she wanted me to stay at her graveside, after everyone else had gone, to be sure that the attendants did indeed bury her in the right space.
We spent a lot of time, Mom and I, in cemeteries, flower shops, and funeral homes. From an early age, the dead were quite familiar to me. I think I was ten when one of our neighbors died, a man that had always been quite kind to me. Mom figured this was the time for me to learn what this dying thing was all about. She taught me that it was okay to respectfully touch them. They were hard and cold and their lips were sealed. Their skin looked thin and their eyes were closed. I was never afraid of them, unreal and completely removed from where they were. The coffin fascinated me.
She never cried. She always touched their hand and stayed for a long while at the casket.
Sometimes, we just went to the funeral home to sort of window shop the caskets. Some were made of metal and some of wood. I liked the wooden ones, especially those of rosewood. Duraseal was my favorite brand.
They came with a 100 year warranty. I never could figure out exactly how that worked. All quite expensive, they were also quite beautiful, lined with cool white satin. There was one exception, a coffin made of pine and looked just like the vampire coffins in the monster movies that were popular when I was ten or twelve. It was sanded very smoothly and lined with cotton cloth. A simple cross was carved into the lid. It cost much less than the others.
The cemetery was less than a mile from our house and trips there were frequent, visiting and caring for the graves of my grandfather's parents. It was called Hollywood Cemetery, right at the corner of North Main street and the North freeway. Even deep into the cemetery, the sounds of the cars and trucks on the freeway hung heavy in the humid air.
My grandfather bought the six space plot in the 1920s and paid for the Perpetual Care plan, which means that grass was cut regularly. The groundskeepers however were not always so careful trimming the grass around the headstones. Mom pulled the encroaching grass and weeds from the grave markers and neatened things up in general whenever we were there. If things were not as she expected, we went to the office to make a report.
There was a huge oak tree about fifty feet from the family plot that had a significant scar where my grandfather’s car had hit it. Somehow, the story goes, he lost control of the car and drove across many graves and into the tree. I was told this happened long before I was born.
Mom always told me that she thought the remaining four spaces were for my grandfather, herself, my mother and my half-sister. It turns out, she was right.
The older she got, the more dead people appeared, and the more books she signed. However, one time she was quite ill and was not reading the paper when I found out that one of her sisters-in-law, Uncle Frank’s wife, had died. I didn’t tell her and she was very angry with me when she found out. I thought she was too sick to go to the funeral as it was a long drive out of town. I was wrong.