As the veil of the pandemic appears to be lifting a little, with many people now vaccinated and cases in the United States on a downward trend, I emerge from my grief cocoon to pick up the thread I dropped back in the early days of this terrible virus. My hands had been too numb from all the loss we've endured during this time.
That was when mom was still alive and I hoped that she'd have enough in her arsenal of almost eighty-nine years to fight this invisible but deadly invader.
Instead, mom died alone at midnight on April 15, 2020 and we buried her in, what I call, a drive-by funeral. My sister and I walked into the funeral home that had done us a favor to take care of mom's remains, when no other funeral home in New York had the capacity to do that. When the cemetery in Astoria, where my dad lay in his grave, had at least twenty burials a day; when no flowers were allowed to be delivered, and when only three cars, they said, could ride with the Hearse to the burial.
I had frantically searched for a way to have flowers brought for the funeral, because mom always said that there must be flowers for a funeral. My sister was able to find a Greek Orthodox priest to do an abbreviated service at the funeral home, and there we were, just the two of us in front of her casket draped by a lone wreath of flowers, in a room full of appropriately distanced, empty chairs. My two brothers were outside in their cars, too afraid to come inside, as the funeral home attendants unloaded cardboard casket with remains after cardboard casket with remains into the funeral home.
I walked up to Mom's casket and I longed to place my hands around it and embrace my mother for the last time before she was buried under ground where I would never again be able to reach her. But the fear of contagion was so big, that I stood there, over the casket, frozen, my hands numb and unable to reach out even to touch the casket.
"Are you even in there?" I wondered aloud, after the brave priest sang the funeral hymns, which was a relief because I knew how important these rites were to mom.
The Funeral Home Director overheard my wondering and offered to show me mom's last photo, taken when they went to retrieve her remains.
"She's not going to look the same as she did when she was alive," he cautioned.
"I want to see her, " I said, my voice steady. "I want to see her."
He took out his cellphone and found mom's death photo, probably among hundreds of photos like hers taken in that terrible time of relentless death, and showed it to me.
There was mom, eyes closed, the life drained from her. But still it was mom, and I was grateful that, at least, I was able to bear witness to her death, even just by seeing this last photo of her. I wanted to reach inside the phone and stroke her face, kiss her forehead. I wanted to be able to touch her one last time.
We buried her in the grave where dad had been waiting for five years. We were not even allowed to get out of our cars. We managed to have the four cars enter, even though they'd allowed only three, as mom has four children who could not even share a car for fear of contagion.
After they lowered the coffin, they motioned us to leave. We did not get out of our cars, and we did not hug or cry together, for the woman who gave us all life and nurtured us through all those struggles of life. We texted each other and then we each drove, bereft, to our respective homes.
I write this and the tears are streaming down my face, on this Mother's Day without her. I've seen the reunion photos of people who have been able to see their elderly mother or father again, after a year of lock-downs. My heart ached because I will never be able to have that with my mom.
As I am compelled to reach out and pick up that thread of writing again, though, I feel as if I'm reaching out and taking her gnarled hand in mine.
This is my own reunion with mom.
Happy Mother's Day Mom.
Your daughter, Maria
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