Happy Accidents

Leah

*LunaWrites' Part*

As a general rule, I avoid funerals at all costs. Not only am I uncomfortable with the concept of shoving a corpse into a box and singing to it as you pile on dirt, I also can’t stand the environment of grief and uncomfortable dress wear. So it was with considerable resignation that I buttoned up my suit jacket and found my favorite black tie. I wasn’t looking forward to going today, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. Uncle Norm wasn’t technically my uncle, he was my uncle’s good friend. But just as I had always been expected to address him as “uncle”, I was expected to go to his funeral.

I loped down the stairs and situated myself against the beige countertop of our kitchen, waiting for the oncoming battle. When my mother whirled into the room, she took one look at me and rolled her eyes.

“Really Leah, a suit? Can you please wear a dress, just this once?” she said as she tried to disentangle her earring from one of her black curls.

“No, I really don’t think that’s an option,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Honey, it’s a very special occasion. Norm would’ve wanted to see you in something a little nicer.”

I opened my mouth to argue with this, but closed it promptly. I actually didn’t know very much about Norm or what he’d have wanted. Other than being my “uncle”, he was also the town milkman, and most likely the last milkman in existence. I don’t know how his business had survived when all other dairitorial experts had failed, but the fact that he’d preserved had given everyone a soft spot for Good Ol’ Norm. I wasn’t an exception to this rule (I was particularly fond of his chocolate milk and morning jokes), but I still didn’t see a reason that I should sacrifice what little comfort I retained for him.

“I’m not changing, and that’s final.” I sauntered over to the cabinet and grabbed a blueberry muffin. I turned back to my mom and raised an eyebrow at her. She sighed and threw her arms up.

“Fine! Just get your brother.” I took a victory chomp and waited until she had stumbled out of scolding distance. Without moving, I took a deep breath and bellowed,

“SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! GET DOWN HERE!!” I heard a muffled thump and then a brief moment of silence. Then he came bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen, tugging a comb through the brown mess he was trying to pass off as hair. His shirt was inside out and buttoned crookedly and his pants didn’t quite fit right. What else was new.

He nodded his head at me, “Nice suit.”

“You too. I especially like your...unique way of wearing it,” he looked down and groaned.

“Leah, can you fix it?” he begged. I chuckled and shook my head.

“Hop up,” I patted the stool and he did as I said. “You know, most people learn to dress themselves before grade school. How’ve you managed to get to high school without learning?” I teased as I righted his top.

“Ha ha, very funny. Now do I look okay?” he said, sliding off and turning for me.

“Yeah, you’re fine.” he did his awkward success clucking noise and grabbed two pieces of sandwich bread for the road. I sighed; my brother had never made much sense to me.

When my mother had successfully rounded up my dad, we all loaded into the car and took off. I took deep breaths for the full fifteen minutes we were driving, trying to prepare myself for the horror of the funeral home. The whole stuffy sadness of it made me sick. It was nothing against Uncle Norm or even the people that ran the parlor, it was just one of those things that will always hold true. Funerals will always be thoroughly unpleasant events, and no matter how much you prepare yourself for them, they will always suck.

In my sad little attempt to make this as painless as possible, I looked myself over one last time in case I had forgotten anything important, such as clothes or vital organs. I realized with a pang of depression and twisted humor that I was wearing the same pair of dress shoes that I had on during the whole potato casserole disaster a few years ago. I tried not to think about it, but the memory came bubbling to the surface anyway.

One of the repercussions of my complete and total unease with funerals is that I’m very sensitive to the kind of food served during the reception. I’ve learnt to stay away from it all together, but that lesson was not quite cemented into my head at the time. So when I was at the final fairwell party of my Uncle James (one of my real uncles), I went ahead and had a little bit of everything.

To my surprise and delight, it was all sitting very well. Then Aunt Sara brought out a photo album of various vacations throughout their marriage. Which was lovely and all, but around the time of the Grand Canyon shots, I started thinking about how Uncle James could have easily fallen in and rotted at the bottom of those cliffs. And then it occurred to me that it didn’t really matter at this point anyways, because he ended up in the same hole in the ground.

By the time the pictures of Mount Rushmore were being oohed at, I started thinking about how no matter what hole you end up in, the results are the same. The same people will cry, the same songs will be sung, and the same worms will eat at your flesh. And then, because I’m Leah, I couldn’t help but imagine worms devouring uncle’s stomach, and that if you squinted, the potato casserole looked a decent amount like vermin and SPLAT, the aforementioned casserole made a reappearance all over my aunt’s dress, her shoes, the photo album, the table, and even on Grandpa Miller.

I smiled slightly as I looked down at my dress shoes. Somehow, throughout that entire episode, I hadn’t gotten a single drop of potato puke on my black loafers,despite my feet being in the center of the splash zone. It’s funny how that sort of thing can work out. You can spread foul things to everyone around you without damaging yourself in the slightest. I took a moment to be thankful that the world didn’t work like that most of the time.

And then, because it was time to head in, I took one last deep breath and prayed silently that this would go better than last time.