The first dead human I ever saw was the dad of one of the kids in my high school band. I remember the kid played percussion, and I think he was one of the Michaels that we referred to as Michael with a last initial. Pretty sure the dad died of a heart attack. Anyway, I went to the viewing with my best friend David, who was also in the band, and as we stood there in line with my middle school band teacher, we had one of those totally inappropriate jokey moments and were all shuddering silently, trying to conceal our laughter. Michael H.(?)’s dad wore a suit and was laid out in a fancy coffin, and I was struck by two things, his stillness and how much he resembled Michael.
I also went to the viewing of a co-worker’s father in 2004. This was when I was teaching in New York City, and I didn’t even know the guy very well. But he’d always been nice to me and he had given me one of my top three pieces of teaching advice: “If you see a kid doing something wrong, acknowledge the kid who’s doing it right.” The father looked stiff in his tuxedo, clownish in his make-up. Mr. Yount (working in an elementary school, learning first names is optional) seemed truly appreciative that I had come, but I felt uncomfortable and left as quickly as I could without being rude.
I’ve seen lots of roadkill in my life, including my own pets in childhood, and a few months back, I watched a white cat dash into the road and get hit by a pick-up truck, flipped and torn apart by the tires. That experience gave me some mini-PTSD, I think, as I kept thinking about it for weeks. The image still plays in my mind when I drive down that little stretch of 70.
(I’m pretty sure I myself ran over a squirrel last year, but I didn’t see it in my rear-view mirror so I prefer to think it escaped and is scampering around Mt. Moriah Road gathering nuts for this winter.)
And then, of course, there’s Boone. When my brother-in-law took him out of the Animal Control truck, he just seemed heavily asleep. E. put him down on a piece of wood in the driveway. I knelt sobbing and touched my forehead to my dog’s side. When I ran my hands over his chest, I found the bullet holes; my hands came away bloody. His glassy eyes stared, and his tongue hung comically out the side of his mouth like in the cartoons. E. and I dug a hole in my front yard. I lifted Boonie up, carried him to the hole, and laid him in his grave. We mounded the dirt on top of him. The next day I planted a little flower garden there and sank bricks into the ground for a border. I look at that little garden every day.
Anyway, I’ve just been thinking about this because before Boonie died, I never understood the tradition of viewings. But a few months after his death, I was discussing the concept of acceptance with somebody, and I realized that that’s what seeing, touching, carrying his dead body had done for me. It helped me accept that he was dead. At the time, I wished I could turn back the clock, I played all the what-if games with myself, and six months later, I still cry about it. But he’s dead. He’s dead, and I accept that.
