Part 1

For the past 15 months, Donna and I have been spending Saturday afternoons with Min, Donna’s 89-year-old second cousin once-removed. We run some errands, stop by Bulk ‘N Bins and pick up some sugar free bridge mix, or go by Publix for a little bunch of flowers or some root beer. Then we drive through to Century Village, are admitted through the gate, drive past the synagogue, the clubhouse, the rows and rows of pastel condos with requisite screen rooms, the tennis and shuffleboard courts, arriving eventually at Newcastle C.

From the car, Donna calls Min. Are you up for some company, she inquires? Good, because we’re in the parking lot. They both chuckle. We walk up two flights of cement stairs. At the top of the stairs we ring the bell. If Min’s aide, Janet, is there, she comes to the door. If Janet is out, the door is unlocked and we let ourselves in. We walk through the tiny living room to the bedroom at the back, where Min rests in a hospital bed.

We spend the next two or three or sometimes four hours together. We talk about the stack of audio books she is listening to (currently the 6th book in the Harry Potter series), or check her email; one afternoon we write to J.K. Rowling. She tells us stories: she and her husband in Paris, in Italy, in Greece. She tells us about the time they drove from New York all the way to Bryce Canyon, Utah. Her husband was exhausted, and lay down immediately for a nap, but she made her way to a lookout point and the view was so breathtaking that she ran all the way back to the motel and woke her husband. Will the canyon still be there tomorrow, he inquired wearily? Later she surprised him with a ride in a hot air balloon, for his 60th birthday. He was afraid of it, she marvels! He wouldn’t go!

Other visitors drop by frequently, and we get folding chairs out. Min is popular. During the week, her neighbors stop in for a Scrabble game, or to give her items for the Newcastle newsletter, or to complain about each other. Every Wednesday afternoon, a small crowd gathers for Mah Jongg.

Min is 12 months past her expiration date. When the doctors diagnosed pancreatic cancer they told her she had three months to live.

Part 2

Last Monday, Donna called me at work, asked me if I was sitting down.

Four days later, we buried Min.

Min’s daughter Laura flew in from the west coast. We went to Min’s place to pick Laura and Janet up to take them to the funeral. We collected Ruth (Donna’s mother) and Ruth’s aunt Sylvia, from Newcastle's parking lot, where they came to meet us. Miniature white-haired ladies in their late eighties, Min’s second cousins. They live at Century Village too. We were all riding together to the cemetery in the minivan.

Ruth climbed into the passenger seat at the front of the vehicle and immediately shut the car door on Sylvia’s finger. Sylvia was so surprised she couldn't speak. Ruth rummaged in her purse, oblivious. I was two rows back, on the bench seat, with Laura in front of me. After a stunned pause, everyone began shouting: open the door! Ruth was uncomprehending until Sylvia regained her powers of speech. My finger is in the door! she shouted, from outside Ruth's window. 

Ruth came to her senses. She opened the door. God that hurt, Sylvia said, and climbed into the back seat.

I peered at her finger. It was her middle finger and she could still wiggle it pretty well. It probably isn’t broken, I told her, with minimal confidence. Ruth told her she should have been paying attention instead of talking.

By the time we got to Eternal Light Cemetery twenty minutes later Sylvia’s finger had swelled considerably and was starting to turn blue between the first and second knuckles. She couldn’t bend it any more and it looked like she was giving everybody the finger. Donna stopped at the Pre-Planning office and asked for some ice and I made a miniature ice pack with a plastic zip-lock baggie that I found in my purse. Sylvia was pleased. She was so miserable about Min’s passing that she seemed to welcome the distraction.

Laura had to wait at the office for the rabbi and Donna kept her company. The rest of us slowly—ever so slowly—made our way up a little hill to where the tent was sitting over the gravesite. We carefully made our way between and sometimes over the grave stones and the lumpy grass. We managed to pass a couple of men using walkers, finally reaching the astro-turf under the tent. Janet had Sylvia by the elbow and I took charge of Ruth. As we arrived at the tent Ruth tripped and fell headfirst toward the open grave, missing it by inches.

We all settled down in the first row. There was no casket on the brass frame over the grave. Mourners steadily filled up the canvas chairs until all seats were taken. The younger people stood around the edges. A brass frame sat over the astro-turf draped grave. Where was the casket?

Min was late.

Donna came up, tripped at the same place as her mother, and sat down next to me. Sylvia was sobbing and blowing her nose as best she could. The sky darkened and it began to thunder. Lightening streaked in the distance. I looked up at the tent ceiling. Metal frames. The cemetery chairs: canvas, metal frames, all connected one to the other. Somewhere behind me a white-haired woman said she had a titanium rod in her spine, and metal hip replacements. The lightening would aim for her, she assured the group.

Further back, I heard Min’s neighbors murmuring about discontinuing the Newcastle newsletter. Someone told a joke. Sylvia had fallen asleep and was snoring. It was sweltering and I was overdressed in my jacket and dark trousers. Everyone else was wearing khaki-colored capris and pastel shirts.

After 25 minutes the hearse pulled up and four men in blue work shirts and jeans put the casket on a trolley and trundled it up the hill and heaved it onto the frame. Laura walked into the tent accompanied by the rabbi, and the crowd quieted. The funeral director handed out programs.

The rabbi recited the 23rd psalm. He made some remarks about the mystery of death. He read a letter from Laura and one from Min’s nephew. Sylvia startled awake to rise for the Kaddish. The rabbi told the six of us in the first row to hold out a hand and we did and he opened a little plastic bag and poured sand from Jerusalem into our hands. We sprinkled the sand on the casket and stepped back. Some of the sand stuck to my sweaty palm and I surreptitiously brushed grains of Jerusalem sand onto the astro-turf. Then the workmen lowered the casket, hand cranking all the way to the bottom. A pile of dirt waited behind the grave. Anyone who wished was invited to throw a shovelful into the grave.

And that was it. Within 15 minutes we were all picking our way through the graves again, back down the hill. The sun came out, the sky was bright, the heavens cleared. Min had arrived.