Monday night

I am already exhausted and we’re not even through the memorial service. I haven’t even decided what I’m going to wear yet. David has it easy: grey suit, white shirt, dress shoes...Book of the Dead necktie...

I finally settle on what I’m wearing. It’s 8PM and I need to press my jacket. I plug in the iron and ZAP! Kitchen lights go out. David resets the switch, and we try plugging it into the surge suppressor on the other side of the ironing board. ZAP! The surge suppressor blows, and so, we soon realize, has that particular switch in the box. We examine the iron and find that the plug has scorch marks on it. David discovers that the cord is separating from the plug...this is BAD.

Duh, I hear you say.

David, my hero, goes up to the mall to procure a new iron. I iron what needed ironing. It takes five minutes.

Tuesday

It’s finally the day of Dad’s memorial service. We get up between 5:45 and 6 AM. Soon everyone is dressed and spiffy, and my good friend Hollie and her son James arrive. We pile into the van and go have breakfast, then complete the 2-hour drive to Kennett Square. It’s a beautiful day, which would be more beautiful were it not 20 degrees F outside with WIND. We remark that it’s a good thing we’re not looking at a graveside ceremony: the Kelly family plot is on a bare hill overlooking Conshohocken and the wind would be deadly.

Kennett Square is in Chester County, Pennsylvania. We drive over narrow, winding roads lined by Revolutionary War period barns and houses built of serpentinite, which is quarried nearby. There’s so much chlorite in the ground here that the dirt is vaguely greenish, just as our soil here is Triassic redbed red. Houses for a hundred miles around--including College Hall and Logan Hall at the University of Pennsylvania--have serpentinite facing or decoration that was quarried in this area. The Battle of Brandywine was fought here: George Washington really DID sleep here.

I’m driving and glancing at the clock: the Mass starts at 10 AM and it is now 9:50. I already know that this priest will start at 10 AM sharp, not at 10:01 or 10:05. Given the rules put forward that upset my stepmother so much, I would not be surprised if he starts at 9:55AM, regardless of whether or not the youngest daughter is there.

We pull into Kennet Square and find a parking space, then hot foot it to the church. We sit on the Protestant side of the church because from a feng shui standpoint there’s an awful lot of people on one side of the church and almost no one on the other.

The priest starts almost immediately. He does not have altar boys attending him; he has altar girls. They are very cute, and one of them obviously had just undergone a substantial growth spurt: her robe is too short, revealing Air Jordans that look about six sizes too big. When I start to choke up during the first hymn, Chrisso, my best friend, reminds me from the next pew back that when we attended her mother’s memorial service, in the biggest Greek Orthodox church in the area, one of the altar boys had a mohawk (it was the 80s, what can I say?)

The service continues. The priest is not what I would call charismatic. He looks like he has been forced to eat a lemon, one slice at a time. The sermon is agonizing. When they bless the wafers, the organist plays “Amazing Grace”. I start to choke up again, until suddenly I hear Tom Lehrer singing “The Vatican Rag”--”Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!” Then it’s difficult not to smile.

The Mass ends and we process out. I see people I haven’t seen in years. Everyone seems good; some of my relatives look very old. Eventually Hollie runs over and says, “Can we get out of here before someone else hugs me and calls me Soph?” (We look so much alike that my brother calls her "Planet X"--she's the extra sibling we always knew was out there somewhere.)

We drive over to the restaurant and park. I’m pleased that everyone is very jovial. Chrisso, Beth (whom I have known since high school), David, Emily, Hollie, James, David’s brother Jeffrey, and I are able to sit together. We network, exchange business cards, tell stories, etc. We order food, mingle, eat, and then I get up and give my remarks with the help of my brother, who picks up when I get choked up. I tell everyone that this is a bit like the Oscars, where they always have two actors/actresses alternately read text. My stories are very well received. My stepmother, with whom I have been at loggerheads since the mid 1980s, says that she loved it and that I looked beautiful. I am glad I have a couple of glasses of wine under my belt: otherwise I probably would have fainted.

After my brother says a few words, we head for home. We get to Reading and stop at Barnes and Noble to stretch our legs (and see if the new Rocks and Minerals is in; it isn’t) and suddenly I can’t believe how tired I am. I give David the keys and promptly fall asleep in the passenger seat. I dream I hear my Dad’s voice.

We get home and I take over the couch. David goes out to get dinner and I fall asleep on the couch with the dog cuddled up next to me. I dream I hear my Dad’s voice. A barn is falling apart and I am pushing against the foundation trying to hold it up. Dad says to let it go.

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