OLD FRIEND

By: Dottie PR

I thought I should buy a new dress. It was June and all the old people were dying. Not in any order, but they were all over 90, and the family was large, so my life became littered with wakes. Most people dug up outdated, grey, navy or black ensembles, but I would buy a new dress.

I had read that wakes came to be because way back when, when doctors were sparse and medical knowledge was just emerging, sometimes they couldn’t tell if a person was just drunk and passed out or actually dead. So they laid him out on the kitchen table, invited the neighbors, and partied while they waited to see if he would “wake” up.

So you can understand why, after passing through the groupings of pruned aunts and second cousins, I approached Uncle George’s casket with some trepidation. To my great relief, he couldn’t look more dead. He was presented in his neat three-piece suit left over from his city days and his signature bow tie in the bold choice of red.

Uncle George was an artist and he loved New York City. He always asked me how it was, as if it were the ex-wife he regretted leaving and I was her new best friend. I told him about the museum exhibits I’d seen, described the new buildings and told him about the latest hot spots. I could see in his eyes that he knew he shouldn’t have went for what was behind the big curtain when he loved what was in the box.

I couldn’t pinch him, he looked like chalk, I was afraid he would crumble. So I kneeled down as if to say a prayer and whispered “ Hey Uncle George, want to catch a train into the city, it’s a beautiful evening and I have a new dress.”

I waited. Then sighed. Farewell old friend. I turned to see Auntie Vera propped up in the front row of seats sandwiched between the pruned Aunts, patting her hand, whispering in her ear. As I approached her, her eyes were bright with sadness but she smiled at the evolution of faces she had revisited all her life,these faces like notes, some more frequent than others, made her hum to herself.I leaned down to hold her small, fragile hand and I kissed her papery cheek. I knew the next time I saw her, I'd be wearing this dress.