Becoming Old

Of all the people my age, she was the last one I thought was going to die. I had seen her just the other day at the store, buying groceries she would never eat: a loaf of bread, a head of lettuce, a box or two of cake mix. We chatted amiably for half an hour then went our separate ways and then she was dead.
Not instantly, of course, but just days later. Natural causes.
What natural causes? She was at least as healthy as I was 2 days ago. Jean-Marie...
I'm old, old enough that people my age are typically prone to dying, old enough that the amount of funerals I've been attending has gone up exponentially over the past few years. I can't really remember how old I am, but I wish I could tell you when I was going to die. How many years I've lived is nothing compared to how many years I've got left, in my books anyway. For instance, I know that Jean-Marie was at least as old as I, but in my eyes, she might as well have only lived one day. Not even one day, half an hour. That moment of time where it was me and her, talking about children and politics. That's all I can really remember of her, try as I might. I can't think of anything earlier or after that. That's how I view my own passing life: I might as well have only been alive the moment before I stop breathing. That's all I'll remember of it anyway.

This morning, I woke up and got dressed for Jean-Marie's funeral. Getting out of bed, my bones ached in fifty different places. Sometimes at my age, you don't even want to move anymore. One of my friends woke up one morning, swung his legs off the side of his bed and threw his hip out. After 2 weeks of hospital care, he was a goner. 3 years later and he was dead, but it all started with that hip. Before that, we would sit on his porch drinking beer every Friday and talk about what it means to be alive.
Before he died, I went to the hospital to see him, dragging along a couple of beers. He didn't even look away from his TV when I walked in and said hello, he just held a vacant stare at some show teenagers like to watch. I sat in the cafeteria drinking my beer and left, resolving never to remember him in that hospital.
In short, you've got to be careful these days. The slightest injury could lead to your becoming a simple vegetable: he's not the only friend I've had to come to this end.
But I digress: I got out of bed carefully, dealing with all the pain in the world focused on no specific part of my body and walked over to my bathroom mirror, steadying myself against the marble counter top, looking over myself. I looked long, like I was looking into a fun house mirror. It seemed like my jaw hung too low and my forehead too high. I wiped the crust from my eye and realized I had been crying in my sleep again. I poked at the mole that had taken over my left cheek seemingly overnight.
Shower, put on clothes (an unreasonably difficult task), take care of hygiene. After all, while I might look like an old man, I have no intentions of smelling like one. One of the most vivid memories from my childhood, and sorry to say one of the few, is the stench of my aging uncle Harold. No one could ever really place his smell, but it was kind of a family game to try: pickles and herring? Urine and coal? Spoiled milk and cabbage? None ever really seemed to fit exactly, but all had some semblance of truth to them. It was almost like a blend of them all.
I decided to walk to the church since it wasn't too far away and who knows when the day would come when I couldn't walk anymore. Brisk morning air caved in around me, suffocating me with cold and movement, but I kept my stride and made it to the church before anyone else was there.
I walked in and Pastor Ericson greeted me with his usual, “Glad you could make it.” He was youngish, about 30 maybe, and his hair was combed to cover up his balding head. He smiled solemnly, like I guess they teach you in seminary: If you're giving a funeral, you smile like this. Wedding, like this. Homily, like this, unless you're making your point, in which case, look sternly at the congregation so that they know that this is when you listen. Raise your voice if you can without seeming too angry.
I walked into the sanctuary where Jean-Marie's coffin was sitting, surrounded by white flowers, orange flowers, a veritable rain forest. The stand she was one had wheels and a crisscross pattern. Her coffin was overly elaborate and gilded. I prayed like hell they wouldn't stick me in one of those God-forsaken boxes when I died. Sure, it's cushioned all to hell, but I want the worms and maggots to be able to get at me easier. The way I see it, the sooner I'm gone the better.
I walked up to the box, sitting open in front of the alter. She looked nothing like she looked the other day. She had become brittle and stretched, whereas the other day, she was vibrant and spritely, smiling at me while we spoke. Today, she wore a starched frown, immovable.
She wasn't really Jean-Marie anymore. But at least she was a few days ago.
I took a seat in the back of the room and watched as people filtered in to pay respects. I read her obituary, which said a lot about her family and a lot about how much of a kind and giving person she was, but said nothing really about her. You could copy and paste the article for probably a thousand other reasonable women in the world. It didn't help me remember her, it didn't help me understand who she was any better. All I had of her was 30 minutes the other day, and that was her whole life for me. I pressed my brain, trying to remember how we'd even met, whether we'd ever loved, what we had done together in our beautiful and destructive youth, but I came to nothing. The memories were blurred and smudged photographs of carnivals or movie theaters or cars. I remembered we were close, but nothing else.
The funeral progressed, and people walked up to have a closer look at the body. When I got there, I leaned down and kissed her lips. I figured if I hadn't done that before, I had probably wanted to ever since I met her. Then I folded her obituary, put it in my pocket, and walked home.