As they lower the coffin into the ground, my aunty winces at the dusty yellow truck and the grating sound of chains doing the work. “This is how it’s done now?” She asks, appalled. “A machine instead of human beings?”
When death arrives, the questions inevitably come. Who will remember my aunt, my mother, my grandmother? Who will lower me into the ground? By then, would I care?
These are questions no one really wants to ask. It’s a heavy burden for anyone to carry but occasionally and especially during funerals, I wonder – what will I do with their photo albums, their boxes of memories, their history, their clothes? Where will they go?
Another truck rolls in, startling the crowd and dumps a pile of dirt over the casket. Once that’s done it begins pounding and packing it in. Just then, a family friend approaches me and says, “I hear you’re going to climb a volcano.”
“Yes, I think so. Why not?”
“Indonesia? That sounds awesome.”
His face is round. He has a business, a wife, two children, and is also a traveler. He says, “It’s easier without children right? When you’re traveling?”
“Is it?” I ask.
What a terrible thing to say, but really, is it? Is it easier? Would I rather climb a volcano than have children?
The rest of this is no longer a conversation. I resolve to listen. How traveling with two children and a wife is double the cost. How you have to work with their schedules. His complaining is self-congratulatory and smug. To be able to have children and travel is a rare kind of privilege. He is bragging. He is either trying to make himself feel better or to make me feel smaller. I can’t decide which one it is. It’s probably just the truck pounding the dirt in, that’s getting the better of me.
Why am I looking for a summit to reach in Indonesia? What could be found there that I couldn’t find here?
When the work is finished, the men in faded neon vests stop the truck’s engine, jump off, and crouch low to the ground. Now, with their hands, they take sheets of grass and place them over the grave. They hastily throw the flower arrangements on top – a sullen heap of white roses, red carnations, orange marigolds and fragrant lilies to hide the mismatched pieces of grass below.
By then, my aunt and mom are already in the car, waiting for me.
becoming tabitha 