The Cremation in Memories

As you can infer from the title of this entry, we cremated Papa this morning. It was terrible.

Last night, Dad asked us if we wanted to go with him and Mom for the cremation. I declined thoroughly. I did not want to see strangers put a lid over a wooden box and put him in a fire. That would not be happening.

But later, Dad asked again. “Just to be sure,” he said. He told me we would not actually be in the room he was burning in. I could tell he really wanted me to go, so I told him I would. I decided I would be there for the family if I could not be there for myself. I think they appreciated it.

We woke up early, about 6:30 a.m., to get ready. This did not go so well with my insomnia never letting me sleep until about 2-3 in the morning. I was in and out of sleep the entire car ride.

I got dresses nice for the day, mostly because everybody else was and I had no idea what to do. I do not know the routine for these things. The only funeral I have ever been to was when I was really young for my Nana’s sister. I do not even remember it, and at that age, my parents did everything for me since I could not do it myself.

I put on a button down shirt and a black tie with my dark green jacket. I was ready before anybody. At first at least. I started feeling uncomfortable in the outfit. I guess my gender meter changed in that time. I went back upstairs and put on a plain black dress and some earrings and felt better. It was basic, but enough to make me feel a bit better.

After the hour drive, I woke up to the car shaking as we rounded a corner. We were circling a tall, grey building, seemingly searching for a certain numbered door. Number 304. We circled the building once before we found it.

We waited until my aunt and uncle arrived with Nana, which was well timed because that was when someone came out to get us.

The room we were going to was small and rather simple. There was nice, big couch with several comfortable pillows on it. To my right, there was a door to an office. I did not do too much looking there, but it looked pretty basic. Ahead was a small hallway with a door to the left for a restroom, to the right, where we were headed currently, and one straight ahead.

We filed into the small room, which also had a couch, though smaller. There was a desk with tissues and hand-sanitizer on it. In front of us was a large window to the other room. Pressed up on the other side of it was the cardboard box that held Papa’s body.

I never stepped close to that window. I was to scared of what I would see. Papa’s chest was not rising and falling dramatically. I could not hear him snoring monstrously loud. How would I pretend he was asleep?

Nana immediately broke into tears and sobs. It tears me apart to hear her like this. She did not even cry this hard when her other sister died last year. Nana is not someone who should be crying. She is a joyous woman with round cheeks and dimples. She has smile lines beside her eyes that crinkle. She is a happy person. Not a broken person.

Everybody walked up to the window and looked down at him. I stayed back near the couch, which was not that far considering it was a small room. I could see Papa’s nose over the window. He has a large, round nose. If you took Mr. Fredrickson from Up and made him into a real-life person, you have my Papa. I am not kidding. They are identical.

Eventually, Nana asked my dad if he thought they would let her in to touch him one last time. Of course they would. That was the purpose of out being here. Closure. Dad took her through the door at the end of that small hallway, and I watched them appear from behind the wall. Nana walked to Papa slowly, then reached out and cradled his cheek. She just held him and talked to both him and my dad for a second before my aunt and uncle followed.

Mom asked me if I wanted to go in, too, and I shook my head violently and backed away, because words were too difficult at the moment. Anything I said would have broken down the dam that was holding back my tears. Words would have cut through my tongue and lips like shattered glass.

She looked at me, told me it was okay, and walked into the room with my little brother. My aunt came back to the room where I was watching everybody look at something thankfully invisible to me. She hugged me tightly and said, “It’s okay. It isn’t really him anyways.” And she was right. It was not. Which was why I did not want to go in or even peer over the glass.

Eventually my dad looked up at me. He has what we call the Strawbridge face. He always looks intensely mad. And he was just staring at. I could tell that he was trying to understand unbiased while also wanting me to suck it up and come be with the family.

So, I told my mom, when she came back in and sat with me on the couch, that I thought I might regret it if I did not go in. It was only half-true. She stood and walked the seemingly shortening path to the door. She waited for me to grab the handle and walk in myself.

I think I regret going into that room more than I ever would have if I had done nothing.

I entered the cold, white room and looked over to where he sat. I wanted to faint, break down, throw up, anything and nothing at the same time. I wanted to run and keep running but fall asleep and never wake up.

The man laying in that box was not my Papa. His face was pale and sunken in, his neck skinnier than I had even seen it in young pictures. My Papa was a large man, who did not hesitate to make us laugh about his “Santa belly.” He has been loosing wait for a while with all of the cancer, but this was dramatic even from then. He was thin. My Papa is not thin. He resembled Peeta in the last few movies, where you can see all of the bones in his body, the jawline that is sharp but no longer in a good way. It terrified me.

I never stepped closer to the box than maybe two feet. When Dad got me to walk to him, I hugged him while pushing him back farther so I did not have to see. I cried. I did not cry as hard as I really want to, but I cried. A lot. We were allowed to sign the cover of the box, but with everything I wanted to say on it, I could only sign my name. My hands were shaky and I knew he could not see it anyway, so it was pointless.

I do not believe in a God. I am not exactly an atheist, but I certainly do not believer in anything. I side much stronger with the Big Bang Theory. There is no solid evidence to point to either, but God sounded much less likely. That is an explanation for another time, though.

I stood against a wall, pressing myself as tight to it as I could and stayed back while Dad played him a song out of a speaker. Everybody’s shoulders were shaking with sobs and pain. Everybody was trying, in some way, to communicate. An all I could keep thinking was, “I am in a room with a dead body. I am in the same room as a corpse. A used to be living now nonliving thing.” I waited until I could get out of that room without seeming rude. Even around my own family, anxiety acts up. If anything, it acts up worse.

When the person that had asked us if we were “ready,” Dad looked at Nana and asked her. She sighed a yes, defeated. My Dad grabbed me around the shoulders and led me first out of the room. He could see that I was losing it. The entire time we were there, I could not stop shaking. All of me was not just shaking, but rattling around like an earthquake.

We all came back to the room, except Nana and Dad, who had gone back in after getting me out. Nana gave Papa a kiss on the forehead and hugged my Dad so tight I could feel my bones popping.

When they walked out of the room, I realized that the large room we had been in with Papa’s body was the same room with the giant, metal box thing that I assumed is what was going to cremate my grandfather. I started panicking again.

Dad said I would not have to see it. He told me we would not be in the same room. He took one look at me before he looked at my mom to tell her to take us out so we did not have to see. I moved as fast as I could without running to the big couch by the main entrance. I was shaking harder.

It was happening. My Papa was going to be ash in a little while.

I looked outside and got up. I walked through the door and sat down on the little cement block in the parking spots. Mom and the little brother joined me. The brother kept pacing and I was going to snap, so I headed back into the couch.

Immediately, my hands were plugged over my ears and my eyes were squeezed tight. I could hear the machine. I knew that if I listened to it, every time the garbage truck came around, I would picture a burning body and smoke. And we cannot have that. Of course, I could still faintly hear it. It looks like trash trucks are going to be a sense of trauma now.

After a bit, I plugged my earbuds into my ears and turned my music up loud. I slumped myself over the pillows which were amazingly comfortable like the couch, and lay there. It was an awkward position, I imagine. Half sitting, half laying down. But I did not care. I just needed to block out everything and get comfy.

I fell into a numb daze somewhere between sleep and consciousness. I do not know how long I was half sleeping, but my uncle came over and tapped at my foot with his shoe until I shook myself to awareness. Everybody was in that front room, getting ready to go.

I felt heavy and sick. Warm and cold. Tired. I walked right to our car and climbed in. I left the door open. My uncle came in while I was zoned out again and gave me a hug goodbye. I got out of the car to say goodbye to everybody else.

On the way home, I kept my music plugged into my head like every car ride. I watched the hills roll by me as a started to finally drift away into sleep. I remember thinking, before I was asleep, about how big a hill has to become to be considered a mountain. I have some pretty random thoughts.

I slept the whole way to our city, only waking when the car shook around another turn to our house. I still feel heavy. Currently, I feel guilty. I did not do my workout today for coach. I managed to complete my classwork for school, but I care a lot about keeping up with coach. I do well with her. She is like a mother to me. I do not like to disappoint her. I know she understands what is going on, but I still feel bad. I will do extra tomorrow to make up for it.

Last updated June 27, 2020