Bury Me in a Red Dress

I recently saw a cartoon on Pinterest in which a woman exclaimed, “Oh God, I’ve become my mother!!!” My sisters and I often use this phrase with each other when one of us makes a comment that we remember as Mama’s. There is truth in the statement. My mother, bless her heart, was one of a kind with opinions that she never kept to herself; she had no filters. But I have also noticed that small habits of hers – good and bad – are surfacing in my life. For example, each morning I read the obituaries in the paper. Mama always read them saying that she wanted to make sure she was not listed among the deceased, but she was equally interested in the surviving family members, the pallbearers, and the time and place of the funeral. Mama believed in attending funerals, sending flowers and providing food and sweet tea for the family. I have attended many funerals in my lifetime and have noticed the gradual change in Southern funerals over the years; they are different from the ones she was accustomed to, but tradition and custom continue to be prevalent because that is the way the Southern mind works.

As a young girl, perhaps 5 years old, I attended the “visitation” of a neighbor’s maiden aunt who had lived with them. The visitation, or wake, was at their house and Mama insisted that they we all go to pay our respects to the deceased. I had never paid respect before but I dutifully prepared for the occasion by practicing solemn faces in the mirror. After selecting my best sorrowful face, we walked down the street to the neighbor’s house. The family had brought the body home and there in living room sat the coffin with the aunt laid out in her best Sunday dress for all to mourn. The presence of the deceased made such an impression on me, I remember going home and trying to decide just where in our house my coffin would be placed. And of course my best dress was red so that was what I would wear. All my sisters and I had red dresses, so I thought with the four of us dressed similarly, we would make a pretty good impression on our respect-paying neighbors at my funeral. Unfortunately a few months later, Mama took all the dresses and made kitchen curtains out of them but I still wanted to be buried in that red organza dress.

At one time, it was customary that the deceased wear their best clothes for interment; the family and all the attendees would wear black or suitable dark colors. Never have I seen anyone buried in a red dress but I did see one lady wearing a penoir set, decked out in lilac satin with fluffy white lace while sleeping in her coffin wearing her glasses. The family said she looked natural that way. Recently the dress code has evolved into wearing what the person would wear on a normal day, whatever was confortable and natural in their past life style. With the rising popularity of cremation, the selection of clothes does not present any major decisions. The funeral becomes a memorial service with inurnment of the ashes, which can reside on the mantel at home, be placed in a Columbarium, or distributed in the end zone at Bryant Denny Stadium, if so desired.

I have attended the funerals of various Christian denominations – Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Catholic. At these services, I have heard different eulogies and sermons praising the life of the deceased. I was even present at one “glorious send-off” where Aunt Alma was not in the casket in front of the pulpit; she was in heaven baking cookies for Jesus. I hope he likes raisins. I have been to funerals of those who were “religiously unattached,” where the preacher did not know the deceased or their family and could not even pronounce their name correctly. Once I attended the funeral of a black gentleman, the father of a good friend, and was seated in the middle of the “Amen Corner” with the Deacons and Elders because all the other seats were taken. I admit that I got caught up in the ecstasy of the moment I shouted a few good “Amens.”

It was customary for the local police department to provide motorcycle escorts to the graveside service for funeral processions, stopping at major intersections, and blocking traffic to provide a right-of-way for the line of cars traveling to the cemetery. The preacher led the parade, followed by the hearse, pallbearers, family members in hierarchical order of relation and inheritance, friends and guests. During the drive to the cemetery, on-coming traffic would pull off the road and stop until the last funeral car – indicated by the headlights being on in broad daylight – had passed by. The demise of this service due to a legal liability reduced the solemn nature of the procession and now attendees drive to the cemetery unaccompanied.

Currently it is common to pay our respects to the life that is no longer with us, as well as comfort the family, with services called a Celebration of Life. Family and friends offer anecdotal life experiences of the deceased and their relation with God, family and community. At a co-worker’s funeral, he had requested good food, good wine and five friends to say something good about him. There was a jazz band and dancing. We all had a good time in his memory, but the celebration left me with a dilemma. I could not think of five people who would say something good about me lying there in my red dress.

In typical southern fashion, following the graveside service of Scripture and prayer, the church members host a lunch at the church social hall for the family. Ladies provide casseroles and desserts while the men cook the meat entrees. A Methodist church in Cottondale has refined this tradition to a culinary art form by putting together a feast of fresh vegetables, potato salad, chicken and dumplings, ham, Southern fried chicken and cornbread. The dessert table is filled with homemade cakes and pies including a caramel cake that is to die for, an insensitive and sacrilegious statement that is as true as the cake is delicious. All southerners know that providing comfort food for the grieving can alleviate any sorrow.

Our distaste of funerals is linked to our own mortality but out of civic duty, Christian friendship and respect for life, we attend services wherever they may be. Funerals are for the living; the deceased have no concern for our absence or presence. Realizing that the family is experiencing sorrow and personal loss, we want to be there to provide our love and support. I have experienced both joy and sadness at these occasions – the devastating loss of a family member and the joy of being reunited with family members not seen in a long time. Yogi Berra said, “You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”

When it is time for my service, I hope that my family will bury me in a red dress. In the meantime, I’m still searching for five friends who will say something good about me; I have no filters. Oh my God, I have become my mother!!!