“COVID Funeral”

“Are you ok?” my mother texts.

“No, not really” I respond.

I’m anxious. The tears are waiting behind my eyes.

She sends me a photo of my grandmother’s body. White. In a casket.

I wasn’t ready for that to appear on the screen.

“Mommy! Outside! Play outside!”

In my most pleading tone I pull my toddler into me and say, “Mommy can’t play right now, sweetie. Mommy needs to do something important. Please watch your show. I’ll play later.”

A voice comes through a scratchy microphone, “Dorothy Quenzer Altmann was a wife, a mother, a sister, a grandmother...”

I reach for a toothpick to test the cinnamon rolls I just pulled from the oven.

“Death reminds us how fragile life is. Time is not just measured in years...”

My son barrels into the room, roaring like the dinosaurs on TV.

I force a smile for him.

“What’s that?” He grabs my phone.

“STOP!” I shout and yank it away from him. He’s not used to seeing me like this.

My pelvis aches. Our third baby, still growing inside, me kicks hard. I wonder if this one is another boy, or a girl.

“Johnny do you have to go potty?” I yell from the kitchen.

My mother enters the frame on screen. She’s wearing a black dress and white pearls. She looks almost normal, except for the glaring face mask.

I turn away.

I need a break.

I serve myself a cinnamon bun from the stovetop. A maternal instinct to save this morning with sugar and carbs.

The eulogies are over, but the camera’s still running.

I watch my family say their final goodbyes, kneeling before the body, dressed in their Sunday best. Their faces are covered with masks and their hands are firmly clasped, despite their normal tendencies to reach out for a squeeze.

I’m in my pajamas a hundred miles away, surrounded by flour on the floor, flowers on the table, and sympathy cards on display.

“The service has ended.”

The screen goes blank.

The middle child stirs in his crib.

I have to change his diaper. I have to clean the kitchen.

But instead I stare at the photo my mother sent me.

They buried her in the dress she wore to my wedding.

She doesn’t look like she’s sleeping.

She looks dead.

The baby kicks again.

I close my eyes and sigh.

Time to go on with my day.

Time to go on living.

“My childhood home”

I lay on the bed

In the home of my youth

The sounds are the same as they’ve always been

My mother’s voice through the vents

My father’s work in the yard

I know how the light hits every doorknob

Every bedspread

At every time of day

In every season

Of every year

I know which windows don’t have a shade

And which curtains my mother has replaced

I left in search of my own life

I bought my own bedspreads

My own curtains

And returned with arms full of children

And a heart full of gratitude

For when I lay on this bed now

I hear my children’s laughter through the vents

I hear the hum of their toys

I lay in the bed of my youth

With the exhaustion of a mother

Knowing that this is the one place

In the entire world

That I get to be

A child.