Another Funeral

We are standing in a field in Texas, about fifteen of us gathered around two holes recently dug in the ground. There's a priest reading out something approximately Biblical, although under the circumstances it feels as though I should probably refer to him as a preacher man.

I met Daniel, my wife's father, on only two occasions, neither of them particularly happy. The first was at Lena's Quinceañera. He'd recently recovered from a stroke and was having difficulties, one of which was with recognising his own daughter, so there didn't seem to be much point trying to explain who I was. I briefly spoke to Charlotte, his wife and the mother of the two children who aren't Bess, and we left it at that. Our second meeting was at the veterans' hospital. He'd had another stroke and was in a coma, following which, that was pretty much that.

His funeral was mostly people I didn't know. He'd separated from Bess's mother a long time ago, back when my wife was still in her infancy, and the two of them had since maintained a loose familial connection mainly because Bess made the effort. He'd lived a separate life. Charlotte, who went the previous year, was the daughter of Kenneth Cash - a cousin of Johnny Cash, whose name should require no introduction. Half of those attending the funeral bore a striking resemblance to the famed country singer, the hawkish nose, the eagle eyes and sweep of raven hair. It was difficult to miss.

That was 2015, and now here we are stood in a field in Texas doing it all over again in 2019. Both Daniel and Charlotte's ashes were kept at the home of their daughter, Bess's half sister, Christina; and when a third urn of familial ashes came along, it seemed like time to think about burial.

Catholicism is a mostly foreign country to me, but I'm told that what happens with post-mortem remains is informed by the belief that the departed will eventually be resurrected on the day of judgement, so there should probably be something physical left to resurrect, and if couples can be kept together, that will also save a lot of time and trouble in the long run. This is what I've been told, and my own thoughts on the subject are neither here nor there. So four years after the first funeral, we're having a second one, this time concluding with a burial.

Daniel's brothers are both present, which is nice because Johnny is one of the few people I've met on this side of the pond whom I would unreservedly describe as sane. You can have a conversation with Johnny and be fairly certain that it won't go anywhere stupid, weird or pointless, and I'm beginning to appreciate this as a rare commodity. We really don't see enough of Johnny.

Here we stand in a field in Texas. The urns are lowered into the ground, and then various members of the congregation - I suppose we're a congregation - are invited to take up the spade and add the initial servings of crumbling orange soil. I decline on the grounds that my contribution would feel inappropriate, at least to me. Johnny and Carl both step forward and take turns. I look around at Charlotte's people and recognise only her brother, six foot at least, skinny as a rake with his hair flowing and white. Charlotte's sister passed a few years back, so it's just him now.

To my eyes, he very much belongs in this landscape. I suppose, eventually, we all will.