i can hear my mother whistling underground (by chris d.)

I'm skipping slightly ahead for this re-post (below), because Chris just finished a painting inspired by it (will return to sequence tomorrow). Enjoy.

burdens let go
originally posted August 23, 2006
I was one of four pallbearers at my mother-in-law’s funeral on Tuesday. The sun was brilliant. Beyond the cemetery trees, the boys sat in their heavy equipment, waiting their turn, to earn their pay, chiding the guy in the bitch seat. Dorothy's pine casket was an awkward, heavy load, my free arm swinging wildly to keep balance as we shuffled from the hearse -- ants carrying a comrade. Inside, on a ruffled mattress, the woman who sent us corny supermarket greeting cards for every ocassion, who sang “Happy Birthday” to each of us on the phone or answering machine, who was so devoted to her youngest daughter that she became trapped by her mental illness. We slid the coffin onto the green belt straps over the hole and listened one last time to the Scottish priest with the diabetes-ravaged leg. The casket was not lowered until we left the cemetery, but this morning I believe I can hear her – 130 miles away – whistling beneath the earth. Something I never heard her do when she was alive. Rest in peace, Dorothy.