Day of the Dead

 

What better time to blog about the dead than on the eve of Halloween?

Our great-grandmother Heller, Anna Martha Mathilda Rodenz, was born in 1882. When she died in 1972 at 90 years old, I was 14 and my sister, Susan, was 8. 

Anna was our mother’s paternal grandmother. A first generation American, she was born in Wisconsin to German immigrants. Her husband, our great-grandfather, Ferdinand Frederick Heller, was born in 1875 in what was then called Prussia. But he had already been dead for over 30 years—cirrhosis of the liver—by the time this story took place.

Anna died on a Thursday. As was tradition in the Lutheran church, her body was whisked off to the funeral parlor for preparation for a Saturday burial. The visitation was scheduled for Friday evening.
It was a three-hour drive to Edgerton, Wisconsin, for us, so Dad left work early and we departed as soon as school was out. Upon arriving at my mother’s childhood home, there ensued a tense, but not heated, discussion among the grownups. Our parents were firmly advocating that we children should experience the full ritual of Great-grandma Anna’s wake, funeral, and burial. My mother’s brother and wife were firmly advocating that their children, our first cousins, should not. Our Grandma Heller—Anna’s daughter-in-law—agreed with our parents that we should be present to witness everything. And, thus, it was decided that Susan and I would attend.

The parlor of the funeral home where Anna’s body lay in her open casket was softly lit. The air was infused with the barest hint of formaldehyde mixed with the scents of carnations and roses. If one listened very carefully, organ music could be heard in the background of the murmuring condolences of the attendees: I’m so sorry for your loss; Anna was such a wonderful person; I’m sure you will miss her very much; She lived a good long life; She’s in a better place.

Along with our Grandma Heller, Susan and I sat on a sofa about six feet from the casket. We could see the dozens of mourners milling about the adjacent room. Every so often, someone would come in to view the body in the area where we were sitting. Some would take a quick glance and leave, some would linger for a moment or two, some would reach their hand into the casket and touch her, and a few people leaned in to give her a kiss. The spectacle, along with the room’s temperature, gave Susan and me the shivers.

Anna’s white hair, which hung to her waist when completely let down, was neatly braided and coiled atop her head as she had traditionally worn it. Her dress was of white polka dots on a black background. The neck was embellished with a white lace collar. Her ringed left hand had been placed over her right wrist with a folded lace handkerchief tucked beneath it. She really did look like she was sleeping. People said: Doesn’t she look good? They did an excellent job. Susan and I were perplexed by these comments. Anna, indeed, looked just as she had when we last saw her at Christmas time. We supposed this is what they meant by her looking good. She looked good for a corpse, in any case.

Susan snuggled deeply into our grandmother’s side, averting her eyes from the body. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Grandma said soothingly. She then coaxed us both to stand and approach the body. I don’t have any memory of feeling one way or the other about the body, but Susan clearly did not like being there. I thought back to the earlier discussion about whether we children should attend or not, and in that moment, while watching my sister’s discomfort, agreed with my aunt and uncle that like our cousins, who were 10 and 8, Susan was too young to be here.

Our grandmother coaxed us further as she placed her hand on Anna’s hand. “See,” she said, “you can touch her.” With our grandmother imploring us, we took turns reaching our hands into the casket to touch Anna’s cold dry skin. There was no consolation in this gesture. We knew she was dead, and what that meant.

I know our grandmother had nothing but good intentions, as did everyone who had agreed that Susan and I should be there. I think they rationalized that death is natural and should be treated as just another moment in the cycle of our being. But, for Susan, it was a trauma. The horror of it haunts her to this day. And maybe because I remember it in such vivid detail, it was a horror for me, too. 

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021