We were in the process of getting off our plane after a wonderful week in Paris. Richard was behind me, calling his dad who was coming to pick us up. Suddenly, I heard him either hysterically laughing or hysterically crying...I didn't know which, so I turned around to see. He staggered back into a line of empty seats, and the other passengers stared in horror. "Ma grand-mere est morte," he choked out. Grandma died.
We stopped by the apartment for a quick shower and then raced to the south for the funeral. Mémé (pronounced may-may, the nickname for Grandma,) had done a good job of preparing her family for goodbye...in February, we found out she was in the hospital because she simply refused to eat anymore. In my experience, once you're in the hospital nearing the end of your life, you don't come back out. But Mémé did. Everyone convinced her to stick around a little longer, and so she figured, why not?
Richard and I visited her just after she came back from the hospital, happy that it wasn't over yet. She was very sick, very thin, and just slept in bed all day. There were probably 20 family members there in that tiny room with her, non-stop. Everyone had tears in their eyes. Everyone was begging her to eat, but we all knew she didn't really want to be here anymore. When Richard and I walked in to kiss her, he asked if she remembered me. She didn't answer. Richard said "this is my girlfriend, you've met her before." And Mémé said, "she's so pretty!" Everyone in the room laughed, tears sticking in their eyes. It was the first thing she had said in a while.
We came back almost every weekend after that. At the beginning, I thought any day would be the last. But weeks went on. Sometimes Richard would go alone for an hour, and come back to proudly report that he got her to eat some yogurt. On Easter, Richard's aunt dressed Mémé up in a dress she made herself years ago. We brought her a little chocolate Easter egg and she ate it with us. She didn't speak...but she listened. Richard told her we were going to be married soon. She immediately looked him straight in the eyes. She spoke no words, but that look was something I will never forget. It was happiness and hope and maybe a little relief. Then she looked at me. Her face was skeletal and her lips didn't move, but somehow I knew she was smiling at me. He told her we wanted her to be there, but it was too far away for her to travel, so we would come by after to take pictures with her. She nodded. That was the last time I saw her.
Mémé passed away at night, while we were in the air. As with tradition here, the family stayed up all night with the body, in that very room of her house, praying and singing and lighting candles. We arrived the next day at 3:00. The tiny Creole house was filled with maybe 60 people, waiting to file into her tiny room to kiss her goodbye. I followed Richard and his parents to the front of the room. It was dark, lit only with candles. They had fabricated some kind of alter around where she was lying. There were burgundy velvet drapes at the front near her head, dotted with silver crosses. Hundreds and hundreds of flowers filled the room. Pépé (pay-pay, Grandpa) was seated next to her, and he was constantly stroking her hair, as if she were just dozing off to sleep. Three women stood next to Pépé, chanting Bible verses and singing hymns in French. The only thing I could make out was "N'aie pas peur de l'amour." Don't be afraid of love. They kept repeating this phase in every song. Pépé's face was dancing with the candle light and the tears in his eyes didn't fall until Richard threw himself on Mémé, sobbing. He hugged and kissed her body, and then stepped back. We stayed there for a few more minutes, listening to the hymns and chants, and then we left in order to make room for the others.
After maybe an hour more, it was time to go to the church. We all filed through the room again. This time, as everyone passed to kiss her one last time, we threw flowers into the casket. Richard and I took his two year old niece with us, who kept telling everyone that Mémé was in the sky with Jesus. She threw her flowers to Mémé and kissed her forehead. After Mémé was covered in flowers, they closed the casket, and some men carried her into the funeral car. Everyone helped load all of the flowers in with her. The smaller bouquets we carried, and everyone walked together, like in a parade, for the 15 minutes to the church, in front of the funeral car. It was cold and cloudy, and the women continued to chant and sing their Bible verses.
As we marched, people, cars, workers--everyone--would stop to watch us pass by, respectfully bowing their heads. You could see it in the eyes of these complete strangers; they felt what we felt, they have stood where we were standing, and they sent us their sympathy.
The funeral service was traditional, and I was thankful that I could stop listening any time I wanted to. I watched a little girl at the end of the pew across from me. She was maybe 9 years old, with big curly black hair and she wore a white dress with flowers. She had her head bent down and was swinging her legs back and forth gently, as they could not yet touch the ground. And she was trying desperately hard not to cry. She would close her eyes for a few seconds, and then reopen them and blink back the fresh tears. Then she would close them again, hoping that this time, she could keep the tears inside. She did a much better job than I did at nine years old.
Richard's niece and nephew were not as quiet...they were running all around the church, asking everyone where Mémé was, if they could kiss her again, and why everyone was so sad.
After church we drove up the hill to the cemetery where three men lowered the casket into the ground, and everyone threw flowers in after. Then we all watched as the men refilled the hole, and the family placed all of the remaining bouquets onto the soil.
"I really wanted her to come to the wedding," Richard said later that night.
"She'll be much more able to come now that she's free from her broken body. If she had stayed, she would have been lying miserably in bed anyway. Now she can actually be with us!" I replied, but I'm not sure he was really comforted by that thought. So I went on:
"Maybe my mom found her in heaven and now they are friends. And Mémé can tell her that we're ok here, that we're gonna be ok..."
"But maybe they won't understand each other. Mémé doesn't know how to speak English," he said with a shaky voice.
"It's ok," I answered. "Because in heaven, everyone can speak every language."
We both kind of liked that idea, so we light a candle for Mémé and went to bed.
Rest in peace, little Mémé. You were well loved and will be well missed.
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