Burial of the Dead

Emma Kost-O'Neal

EMMA KOST-O’NEAL

Dear Manny,

I have much to tell you and one favor to ask, so I have chosen this means of communication, not to make this more formal than it need be – an intimate conversation between a niece and her great aunt – but because I’m now an elderly woman, who is getting older all the time, and given the current state of my memory, particularly my short term memory, I am no longer assured of my ability to tell you everything I need tell you in the detail it deserves.

You don’t know this, but I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years ago and although the diagnosis is troubling, it has also had the laudable effect of focusing my mind on certain matters at hand. The failings one can expect with old age is a given for which I thought I could prepare myself, and, until now, I have been fortunate that the progress of the disease, at least in my case, has been slow. However, during the past few months I have experienced several troubling episodes that were of a different stripe than mere forgetfulness. As the disease progresses, more rapidly now, the diagnosis is not unlike what it was for the late President Reagan when he informed the country of his illness. Perhaps, like the President, I too will live several years more. Only God knows such things and I have tried to trust Him for the better part of my life and, all things considered, have found my trust not to have been misplaced. At the very least I do believe this – that we should expect to exert no more control over the date of our departure than we did over the date of our arrival.

A few weeks ago I met with Robert Sullivan to inform him of my health. As you might already know, Tommy, my husband and love, your great uncle, hired Robert over thirty years ago. Your uncle was a man’s man and an Irishman in more ways than one and he believed in hiring Irish whenever he could. We were unable to have children of our own and one of your uncle’s weaknesses was to confer special status on certain young fellows he’d taken under his wing. Suffice it to say that your uncle would invite young Bobby Sullivan to join him and his other men friends on weekends at Punter’s Pond where they liked to hunt and fish and drink some, I suppose, telling tales (the Irish love to talk) around the fireplace. I am not saying that Mr. Sullivan was a surrogate son, at least not as far as I was concerned, however on many occasions he did receive the benefit of the doubt when things went wrong and perhaps undue praise when things went right. As you can probably tell I was never as taken with young Sullivan as my husband was, and when Tommy died I considered making some changes. And yet people who’ve been at something for a long time tend to have ways of attaching themselves to so many strands of a business that on balance it’s often easier to remain with the status quo than to upset the apple cart. Today I wonder about my choices and decisions after Tommy died. Had I had the energy grief stole from me then perhaps today things would be different and certain things would be unnecessary.

Manny, when your great uncle died of cancer I was devastated. We had our ups and downs, as will any marriage, but I loved him so, you cannot believe, and to this day I sometimes forget that he’s not off at the lodge for a long weekend, fishing on Punter’s Pond, about to come through the back door with his muddy boots and the fish he’d caught and cleaned, with his big smile, so optimistic he was, always, he told me it kept him alive during the war where he saw real action and was a hero.

I am rambling some. I admit. Memories can do that to me. Like a boat that slips away from the dock.

So now, back to business.

How can I say this other than to simply state it: Manny, sometimes I worry. I worry about you and about this mortuary and about the estate I inherited from my family, the Kosts. I worry about what will happen to all of this when I am no longer here, or before that time when I am no longer capable of managing affairs. I worry because until you arrived and made my every day more pleasurable than I can say, I was resigned to leaving the business to Mr. Sullivan and the bulk of my estate to the Kost-O’Neal Trust. But now that you’re here, I find that I not only have a grand niece but I also have an heir – and I have given much thought to what that means for me and my interests, financial and otherwise.

Truth be told, and I pray you keep this confidential until I am able to meet with Mr. Stevens, my attorney, I have never wholly trusted Mr. Sullivan. For my husband’s sake I never raised too many questions concerning his employment, however I believed then and I believe now that for whatever reason I was able to see what my husband could not see, he having been blinded by his desire for a son.

Please do not think that I have evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Sullivan’s part. I don’t. Not in the sense of hard evidence, the kind one would provide in a court of law. My objections, hesitations, are purely subjective and as such difficult to maintain in the absence of evidence. Nonetheless, I do have my reasons. A woman’s intuition can be a powerful thing and as I told Tommy - the Irish have not cornered the market on things metaphysical (we English have always had our fey brethren), and during my life I came to rely more and more on a sixth sense to help me chart my course in this world.

As I alluded to already, after a long internal debate, I have decided to meet with my attorney, Mr. Cal Stevens, to address these concerns. This afternoon I telephoned his office and spoke with his clerk, Ann Dillon, a lovely young woman, and have made an appointment for the first Monday in October.

My dear Manny, since the morning you walked up my front steps and I saw you through the lace curtains hanging in the bay windows, my life has been unduly rewarded with rich memories of my favorite sister who was your grandmother. The way you look and act and carry yourself, your manners are the manners of my sister, whom I loved more than any other. I am so grateful that you found me and felt that you could come here and perhaps find a home here. I love you Manny and feel strongly that the fruits of Tommy’s hard work and the little that remains of our family’s past should pass within the family.

Therefore I am writing to inform you that I wish to change my last will and testament so that my interest in the O’Neal Funeral Home will pass to you as well as any remaining interest I have in what was left to me by my family. The estate is a significant one, at least as regards money and material concerns. If you manage it well, you will never have to worry about such things again. I want that for you. And more than anything I do not want this gift to be a weight or hindrance to a happy life – I want you to use this inheritance as an aid in living a happy life. Over time you will find that wealth guarantees nothing – it only assists us in travelling whatever road we choose. Be a good steward of God’s many gifts. Invest wisely and do not let mistrust or suspicion rule your heart or your mind. And above all be grateful, not to me, but to Life itself for its many wonders. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been more grateful. If I knew then what I know now I would have taken more risks, would have loved more people, been kinder to more strangers. I would have smiled more, enjoyed simple pleasures, all the time realizing that true joy resides in those things that lie under the surface of glitter, tradition, pedigree, inordinate propriety, the rituals we employ to obtain identity, which, in the extreme, can smother us and keep us from knowing one another. All my life I was kind but not because my heart was warm, but because kindness was a duty to be performed. Manny, warm your heart first and then let kindness flow from there.

Finally, Manny, your great aunt cannot finish such a long letter without putting her nose where it does not belong. I am talking about Matthew Wyman. As you know Matthew came to work here on the recommendation of my driver, Billy James, who happens to be a friend of Matthew’s brother. I knew nothing about Matthew when he first arrived and yet I felt that there might be a great deal to know about this person. His books, his use of language and his manner of conversation, in short, his charm have all worked to support my first impression that Mr. Wyman is more than an educated and intelligent person – he is a serious person who’s been disappointed in life, perhaps by life, and has turned inward, I believe, to protect himself. If he is at all fragile now it is not because he is not strong; it is because he is healing from some trauma unknown to me. I suspect you have feelings for Matthew and far from dissuading you, please accept these observations as my endorsement in this.

Yes, I am meddling where I do not belong. Forgive me. And yet because I wish you happiness in your life, because I will leave you my estate and business, because you are my relative and heir, allow me to say that if you and Matthew find your way to grow closer, more intimate, even to marry, I would be in favor of it and would rest easy knowing that you had given your heart to a good man.

I will close now. This letter will be filed with my papers and after probate will further explain the reasons behind my decision to change my will. When you read it, I will be gone. Please don’t be sad about my passing. I had a wonderful life, filled with much good and just enough bad to help me appreciate the good all the more. I loved deeply and was loved in return. God is good, Manny, and everything is a gift.

Love,

Emma