Everything Is Fine: A Memoir by Vince Granata

Author:Vince Granata [Granata, Vince]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Psychology, Psychopathology, Schizophrenia, Grief & Loss
ISBN: 9781982133467
Google: EPztDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-04-27T23:19:41.799953+00:00

* * *

We buried my mother the next day, a Wednesday. Her funeral was in the same church where she’d married my father.

The casket had six sides, polished wood the same color as our dining room table. It sat on wheels, moved easily in spite of its weight, a single attendant guiding it with one hand.

This was how we referred to her body, the casket, an impersonal container for personal remains.

It. The casket. My mother’s body. Mom’s body.

Father Bob, a friend of my father’s, celebrated—celebrate, the word Catholics use—my mother’s funeral mass. Three other priests and a bishop joined Father Bob on the altar. This support meant a great deal to my father.

While my family assembled in the front foyer, the main entrance to the church, clusters of people squeezed into pews, stood along the walls next to the pictures of the Stations of the Cross. When the church reached capacity, Father Bob siphoned mourners into an adjacent hall. There, he had set up a monitor that would broadcast the service. More than six hundred people watched my mother’s casket that Wednesday morning.

While we stood around the casket, waiting for the organ, our cue, it felt almost like we were backstage, waiting for the lights to dim, waiting to meet the gazing audience.

When we started walking behind the casket, I wasn’t sure where to look. I was wary of eye contact, not certain how I would respond if I saw a congregation in tears. I kept my eyes on the crucifix on my mother’s casket, an old wooden crucifix, a gift from my godmother, one featuring small scenes of brightly painted animals, an homage to St. Francis of Assisi, the perfect crucifix for a child.

I focused on that cross while we walked the aisle, my right hand squeezing Lizzie’s shoulder, our father’s cane tapping the slate floor.

We had decided, the day after she died, that Lizzie, Chris, and I would eulogize our mother. I can’t remember any discussion. I think we just assumed that the three of us would be the ones to remember her.

We began the ceremony with our eulogies, the three of us speaking in reverse birth order. We stood together at the lectern. If Lizzie and Chris were nervous, it didn’t show in their delivery, in what they shared about our mother.

Growing up, people would always ask me who my hero was. I would always tell them a celebrity or an author. All those times, I was lying.

A few weeks ago, Mom and I were talking about my future. She asked me if I was happy. I told her that I was and asked her the same thing. She told me that as long as her children were safe, she was happy.

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