The Politics of a Southern Funeral

Jimmy Lee Yancy's funeral was a graveside service at the black cemetery in Coldwater, where things like churches, funeral parlors, and graveyards are still separated by race. It was a damn shame how he went--"he was eat up with the meth," Muffy, my grandmother, told her niece, Wanda, on the phone, but his funeral was the talk of my family's Saturday afternoon pork sandwich lunch.
"I want one just like Jimmy Lee's," my mother said. "No wake, no funeral home, just say a few words at the graveyard and put me in the ground."
Muffy concurred.
"It was a real nice service, and look at this."
She handed my mother the bulletin the funeral director passed to every mourner, a folded blue piece of typing paper with Jimmy Lee's name in script over a set of clip-art praying hands. Inside was the Lord's Prayer, the dates of Jimmy Lee's life. My mother was impressed by what seemed to me a slapshot, last minute death announcement made by somebody who probably felt more comfortable using a typewriter rather than Microsoft Word.
"I want you to save this and have 'em make me one like it when I die," she told me. "Only I want mine on pink paper."
I told her I'd remember.

I cannot tell you how many times I've discussed funeral arrangements of the future with different members of my family. Where I'm from, the way someone goes out of the world is directly proportional to the fullness of life said person had while she was still raising hell around DeSoto County. I've known for years that Muffy, who doesn't go to church, wants her niece Susie Jones, the Methodist preacher in our family, to do the service, and that she wants to be buried in a pink night gown with a matching housecoat. Neither one can button under the chin, because "I can't sleep with all that shit around my neck," she's always said.

On a heart-shaped piece of notepaper under a magnet on my mother's refrigerator is a list of the songs my grandfather wants played at his funeral: "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Peace in the Valley," both by Tennessee Ernie Ford. My stepfather, the old dope smoker that he is, wants "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray played as his casket is lowered into the ground. Then he wants everyone to go back home and drink a beer in his memory. I'm serious.

My Uncle Doug was buried in jeans and a blue t-shirt that said "Go Mississippi" across the front as Pam Tillis wailed "Maybe It Was Memphis" from a crackly boom box behind the curtain at Brantley's Funeral Home, and my Aunt Jane made sure to have a fresh pack of cigarettes and a couple cans of beer in the casket with Uncle Willie before they closed it and loaded him into the hearse. Muffy was appalled that she'd waste the cigarettes and beer and told her husband, who liked the idea, that she'd put some empty packs and cans in his casket, but she wasn't going to waste such expensive commodities. "Jane's just stupid as hell," I remember her saying as we ate mushy chicken and dressing after the funeral. Frances from up the road sent it, and she made hers with light bread instead of corn bread.

I wonder if Southerners are preoccupied with morbidity, or if my family particularly is peopled with an inordinate number of control freaks. I know just what songs, Bible verses, and flowers nearly everyone in my family wants at his funeral. My momma and daddy already have burial plots picked out and paid for, and when Daddy bought his, he bought two extra, he said "in case there's ever an emergency," but I know he had my brother and me in mind when he got them. I won't even go into the Politics of Where One is Buried in Relationship to Mr. Ed (my abusive-alcoholic paternal grandfather who died of "liver failure" in 1971. The authorities over looked the bullet in his chest out of respect for my grandma, who, until her last day on this earth back in May was always a good Christian woman, God rest her soul).

I guess planning for the future--and I come from a family of planners--naturally involves deciding the specifics of your last hoo-rah before you go to meet the Lord. Maybe it makes things easier for those who have to pull everything together after you go to the other side. That's a big maybe.

As for me, I've got my funeral all planned out, of course. Well, at least I have it narrowed down to one of two options, depending on when I go. If I live to a ripe old age, or at least out live my grandmother and parents, I don't want a traditional funeral service. No wake, no open caskets, no funeral home either. Instead, I'd like to donate my body to science, if science will have it. I'm thinking of willing my corpse to the UT body farm so those kids studying forensics can go dig me up and figure out how I died. I'm an educator, and it makes sense that my last act on this earth would be in the name of education. Then I'll just have a memorial service, where different people stand up and tell funny stories about me, listen to Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky," and then go on about their lives feeling better about things.

Or, if I keel over tomorrow, I want a full-on Baptist service, complete with my cousin Vanessa singing "Nearer My God To Thee" and some preacher who does not know me but agrees to do the service out of Christian charity (and because my daddy gives him $100, "for the church") preaching me right on into heaven. And of course there will be a slide show of school pictures and candid Christmas shots from every year of my life. And tears, lots of tears. Now, I'm not Baptist, nor am I that close with Vanessa. But that's how my mother and father would want the funeral to be, and if anything, I know how to work a crowd.


*I've been wanting to write this piece since my grandma died back in May. Here's my first draft. Maybe I'll expand it into a longer piece in which I deal with a specific funeral. Right now, I'm just scribbling.