happier endings by erica brown

7/29/2019 Happier Endings by Erica Brown

1/31
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Happier-Endings/Erica-Brown/9781451649222


2/31

Purchase your copy of

Happier Endings

from one of these retailers

Hardcover

Ebook

SimonandSchuster.com | Simonbooks.tumblr.com |@simonbooks | Facebook.com/SimonandSchuster |

www.SimonNovels.com | www.SimonPop.com
http://www.simonandschuster.com/http://simonbooks.tumblr.com/https://twitter.com/simonbookshttps://www.facebook.com/Simonandschusterhttp://www.simonnovels.com/http://www.simonpop.com/http://books.simonandschuster.com/Happier-Endings/Erica-Brown/9781451649222http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781451649222http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=HARDCOVER:NEW:9781451649222:26.00http://www.amazon.com/Happier-Endings-ebook/dp/B008J4PIXI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0http://www.amazon.com/Happier-Endings-Meditation-Life-Death/dp/1451649223http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/happier-endings-erica-brown/1113998653?ean=9781451649222http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/happier-endings-erica-brown/1113998653?ean=9781451649246https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/happier-endings/id543373544?mt=11https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Erica_Brown_Happier_Endings?id=dfPugf_KB50C&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImJvb2stZGZQdWdmX0tCNTBDIl0.http://www.simonpop.com/http://www.simonnovels.com/https://www.facebook.com/Simonandschusterhttps://twitter.com/simonbookshttp://simonbooks.tumblr.com/http://www.simonandschuster.com/


3/31

Chapter One

the busess of deah

Aunt Diane and Uncle Roy ound Alyssas body collapsed on thefoor in her apartment late one Wednesday aternoon in Sep-

tember ater no one had answered her phone or many hours. That

aternoon, eerything about their lies changed oreer. It was eery

parents nightmare stretched out beore them in graphic horror. In

her memoir The Year o Magical Thinking, Joan Didion sums up

those painul minutes o deastation that transorm amilies when her

own husband died suddenly o a heart attack in the liing room: Lie

changes ast. Lie changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and

lie as you know it ends.

Alyssa had also died alone, refecting one o our most persistent

ears. We are terried to die by ourseles, let alone and undiscoered

or a long time. The Japanese hae a word or it: kodokushi. Translated

loosely, it means lonely death. In Psychology Today, Proessor Bella

9781451649222text.indd 19 2/14/13 12:32 PM


4/31

happier endings

20

DePaulo contends that this ear is oten treated as a threat among

singles but questions its alidity as a reason to couple up. The likeli-

hood o dying alone is not minimized by marriage necessarily, argues

E. Kay Trimberger, author oThe New Single Woman, but by whether

or not you hae an actie and loing circle o riends.1 Yet we under-

stand this oten unarticulated anxiety; to die alone seems to symbolize

in the most ultimate sense the anomie o an empty society.2 There will

be no one to hear the last word that we eer say, no one to hold a hand

and no one to see the last breath imperceptibly leae us.

I once went out or coee with an older man in one o my classeswho had lost his wie a ew years back and was clearly not oer the

pain. Im lonely. I dont want to spend my last years alone. I dont

want to die alone. He told me that the pain o his wies absence was

so proound that he slept at night with a pile o books in his bed in the

place his wie had occupied or the dozens o years they were married.

He loed her. He loed books. He thought that perhaps there was

some transerence o these loes that would bring him a modicum o

solace. I books were at his side when he died, he would not hae todie alone.

diane and Roy did not suspect oul play or that Alyssa had taken herown lie. They hadand still haeno idea what really happened.

Alyssa struggled mightily in her lie with her own demons. As a teen-

ager, she went through a period o months when she was araid to leae

the house, and she struggled with other phobias, een as she ought

her parents or independence. She neer nished her education in

the classic sense, but ater a string o jobs, she studied to be a nurses

assistant and stabilized her employment. She was married or a brie

and rough ew months. It was a beautiul wedding. In her white dress

and with her wide smile, it seemed that she had nally gured hersel

9781451649222text.indd 20 2/14/13 12:32 PM


5/31

THE BUSINESS OF DEATH

21

out. But the airy-tale picture o wedding happiness soon gae way to

a harsher reality. Not long ater her separation, she joined her parents

in Florida and moed into her own apartment a ew miles away. Alyssa

was needy but ery big-hearted. She loed her dog, Elle, and her niece

and nephew, and she wanted a happy amily like the ones she saw on

Tv screens and in magazines. She desperately wanted to be a mother.

Within an hour o nding her, Diane and Roy were surrounded

by police ocers. My aunt called me screaming. When I got her,

between sobs, to tell me what happened, she said only two words and

then released another anguished cry: Shes dead. She and Roy hadlost their only daughter.

Alyssas body was placed in a thick plastic bag on a rolling

stretcher. Diane needed a prayer. What should I say beore they take

her away? she said in a whisper. I listed some prayers in Hebrew

that are typically recited. I dont know any o that Hebrew. You say

something, and she put the phone on the body bag. I recited a ew

psalms and the central prayer o Judaism, the Shema. I told her that

she and my uncle should ask mechila, orgieness, rom Alyssa. InJewish tradition, emotional closure is critical and tightly ritualized,

and it inoles atonement. We ask orgieness o the dead, and or

some people this is the hardest and starkest reality o saying arewell.

That last Im sorry or eerything is both a letting go and a reminder

that whateer diculties and arguments may hae characterized the

relationship between the liing and the dead, all must be orgien.

There are no more chances or reconciliation or or the conersation

you meant to hae but neer did.

When a body is placed in a bag, or on a stretcher or in a casket, an

unnering change happens to our perceptions o existence. We realize

the stark and unambiguous reality that something as large as lie can

be contained in an incredibly small space. Proessor James Kugel in

his book In the Valley o the Shadowruminations on the oundations

9781451649222text.indd 21 2/14/13 12:32 PM


6/31

happier endings

22

o religion into which he weaes his personal trial with cancerwrites

that he is always astonished by the smallness o the reshly dug, open

holes you see here and there in the cemetery grounds. Can a whole

human being ft in there, a whole human lie? Yes. No problem.3

We caneach o usbe contained in a small spit o earth. The

hole reduces all o human lie to a dark, containable, insignicant

space. I lingered on Kugels words, a whole human lie, haing

just had the same thought when a beloed riend, a pediatric oncolo-

gist, died o cancer himsel. He was a larger-than-lie sort o ellow.

He loed to eat and talk and teach. He was exuberant. And so, insome wrong irony o the unierse, he got thyroid cancer and could

not eat and could not talk and could not teach. And then I saw the

hole they dug at the cemetery to bury him. Could it possibly contain

him? It did. When he was ty-one, cancer had made him smaller

and smaller, and he shrunk right out o his lie, two weeks beore

becoming a grandather. Gone. I remember a light rain mixed with

the aternoon sun right ater the burial. A rainbow spread across the

cemetery. One o his children said, That was just the sort o thingthat Dad would hae planned. He was a colorul person who seemed

to hae choreographed his own end. A rainbow was perect. It just

made sense.

i understood rom the shakiness in Dianes oice that she and Roycould not be alone, so I promised to be there soon and booked a one-

way ticket. From a distance, my husband and I made calls to morgues,

the police station, detecties, and the pathologists oce to try to un-

derstand what had happened and when the body would be released.

We wanted to spare Diane and Roy the anguish o these conersa-

tions. They had enough pain to manage. I tried desperately to secure

a rabbi to isit the home, and, through an internet search and arious

9781451649222text.indd 22 2/14/13 12:32 PM


7/31


23

connections, someone showed up late that eening. Suddenly the

need or rituals was proound, but its hard to conjure up a spiritual

cushion quickly. Religious communities hae a way o stepping in to

do death, directing us and pushing us orward into the abyss o pain

with a saety net o company and highly choreographed behaiors.

Death rituals in all aiths are small, meaningul acts o emotional

closure that are attempted but neer guaranteed. But Diane and Roy

were not part o a aith community. Jews bury the dead as close to the

time o death as possible. We tried to hae Alyssas body released in a

timely way. Like so many people unprepared or death, they did notknow what to do. The next twenty-our hours were a surreal slap o

American death, an unimaginable walk through a really bad moie.

It was the ery opposite o a good death. It came with price tags and

quick, uncomortable decisions that were permanent, with irtually

no time to think and made in the dense, emotional og o loss.

i only ully understood that death is oten accompanied by a slick-haired salesman when Alyssa died. Death is big business. The aerage

amount spent on a uneral today ranges between $5,000 and $10,000.

An estate lawyer I know told me that the amily o one o his deceased

clients spent $45,000 on his uneral, $19,000 o it on an elaborate

mausoleum. Its what they needed to do. It seems like things werent

going so well or them as a amily. Guilt oer a bad relationship can

be costly, and no one knows how to exploit that guilt better than some

uneral home directors.

Although no one can put a price on a lie, death does hae a

price. Jessica Mitord, whose reolutionary book The American Way

o Death questioned just about eery assumption we hae about the

way we were doing death in America, was outraged by the price o

dying. Her husband, a labor lawyer, was angry about exploitation in

9781451649222text.indd 23 2/14/13 12:32 PM


8/31

happier endings

24

the uneral industry and got his wie, a writer, red up about it. Mit-

ord bought a pile o trade magazines and careully read the articles

and the ads, discoering a world o sales she neer knew existed. One

ad said that keeping up with the Joneses was not only about the high

status o liing but the high status o dying. Other ads appealed to the

search or excellence. Why settle or anything less than the cratsman-

ship, beauty, comort and durability you expect in a liing room set

when it comes to your casket?

Appalled by these sentiments and others, Mitord wrote a maga-

zine article to out these practices, only to nd that eery major trademagazine rejected it. It nally ound a home in a small publication

and, when a progressie uneral society ordered 10,000 reprints, her

ideas sailed ast and uriously into the ghting eer o the 1960s. A

moement was born, and Mitord became its poster child. The book

that emerged quickly changed uneral practices. Clients were sud-

denly more suspicious o what they were being sold and why. Clergy

elt relie that someone was nally exposing dishonest business prac-

tices that now had ritual and myth attached to them. The notion thatpeople needed a memory picturea iew o the deceased made-up

and embalmedbecause it was important or closure was nally

being questioned. So was the grie therapy that was (and still is)

regularly oered as a serice in many uneral homes. The undertaker

was moing into a therapist role but with ew o the requisite quali-

cations. Sanitizing or denying the reality o death in the way that the

dead are buried oten prolongs and attenuates emotional turmoil. Its

hard or an undertaker to be a grie therapist because by dolling up

the dead, he or she may actually be getting in the way o conronting

the reality o death.

People who are grieing and simply cannot think clearly are per-

ect targets or unethical practices. They rush into decisions. They are

heaily infuenced by what they see in ront o them and dont want

9781451649222text.indd 24 2/14/13 12:32 PM


9/31


25

money to get in the way o their grie. Where people spending seeral

thousand dollars might normally shop around, uneral homes tend to

be a rst-stop-only store or burial. You take whats on oer because

you dont know any better and are limited to what is placed beore

you. And bargain shoppers take note: there are no sales.

Mitord describes in detail the casket walk that is presented by

uneral directors in their showrooms. Caskets in dierent price ranges

are strategically placed, and the tour o the casket room oten moes

in a triangle ormation so that by the time the shopper is done, he or

she has moed out o one price range and into another. You shouldntbury old Uncle Fred in the cheapest casket, and ater the guilt walk

you wont. Most people go or the midrange casket because they dont

want to seem ostentatious in their choices, but neither do they want

to be the amily cheapskates. Thats exactly what the walk is designed

to do: price you aboe your original intentions. This reminds me o

a cartoon where a man in a suit escorts a couple into a casket room

and says, What will it take to put one o you into a brand new Eterna

5000 today?4 I buying a casket eels like buying a car, it is because itis like buying a car. And close to the same price o a used one. Unor-

tunately, there doesnt seem to be much o a market or used caskets.

Early the next aternoon, I arried at Diane and Roys house in Flor-ida. My grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousin and his wie were all sitting

on the brown leather couches in the amily room in a stupor. A rabbi

was arguing with them about how to bury Alyssa. My aunt suspected

that Alyssa would hae been scared to be buried in the ground, ha-

ing once said as much. Because o the water tables in Florida, many

people are buried aboeground in aults, but a traditional Jewish u-

neral requires burial in the earth. In the words o the book o Job, we

go back to the earth that we come rom. In Hebrew, the name Adam,

9781451649222text.indd 25 2/14/13 12:32 PM


10/31

happier endings

26

the rst primordial being, comes rom the word adama, earth. Noth-

ing can be more natural. We let the body go back to where it belongs,

in Mother Earth. The rabbi would not perorm the ceremony i the

amily picked a ault burial, but he lacked the sensitiity to help them

understand the spiritual message behind these choices. I asked him

politely to leae, and I droe my aunt and uncle to the Eternal Light

Memorial Gardens cemetery. To make the decision, they needed to

see the options and make them real.

In what elt like thousand-degree heat, we walked to the arious

aailable plot sites and began the heart-wrenching decision o whereAlyssa should lie eternally. Diane was crying, her whole body trem-

bling continuously; she said she didnt care. And she didnt at that mo-

ment, because it was simply too oerwhelming to bury your daughter

and to be in this mall o death wares, where a man in a bad toupee

and a polyester suit was selling waterront plots or more, graestones

near a mausoleum or less. There was no room and no time or buy-

ers remorse.

Dianes rst shrug o not caring where Alyssa would be buried soongae way to caring a great deal. They decided to bury Alyssa in the

ground. Diane looked or mystical signs to gie her direction in bury-

ing her child somewhere that signied some small part o Alyssas lie.

A butterfy fittingmaybe that was the spot. The shade o a leay tree:

Alyssa would hae liked that. We tried to ignore the bugs and heat as

we walked rom place to place. Diane and Roy were araid or Alyssa

to be alone. She had suered enough loneliness or one lietime. I

asked my aunt and uncle where they planned to be buried, but they

had not decided that yet, until that Thursday. Maybe you want to be

buried next to her so she wont be alone? I suggested. We looked or a

site or three. It got more complicated to locate a plot or three, but it

eased the edge o ear just a bit.

You cant be buried just anywhere in a cemetery. Some patches

9781451649222text.indd 26 2/14/13 12:32 PM


11/31


27

are lled and crowded. New spaces hae to be lled systematically.

Diane wasnt happy with the new burial area, but she didnt hae

much choice i she wanted a three-plot site. Roy noiselessly ollowed

her lead. She walked back and orth and then lay down on the ground

to see i this was where she too would place eternal roots. Okay. This

is okay. Well take this, she told our salesperson. Thinking that she

came to bury one person, she let that day with three plots. Do you

want the $4,000 marble bench with her name on it or isitation?

said the real estate agent o death, implying that any committed isitor

would, o course, opt or it. No. Diane was done.Mosquitoes swarmed the grass, and I kept swiping them rom my

ankles, aware o the small irritations in the ace o lies much larger

irritations. As we walked, Diane asked questions with urgency.

What will happen to her soul?

I dont know. Nobody knows, Diane.

What does Judaism say?

Judaism says lots o dierent things, but theres no one answer.

Bad answer. I elt oolish saying this, and I knew as it let mymouth how unsatisactory it sounded. Yet thats what happens when

you hae a our-thousand-year-old tradition o debate. There is no one

answer. No one has died and come back to tell us. Maimonides, the

medieal philosopher and physician, says that when we work on our

spiritual lies in this world, our souls will lie on in another, ree o

the body, as our bodies go back to the earth. The body holds the soul,

but i we dont spend time deeloping and nurturing the soul, then

when the body dies, there is no soul to lie beyond its physical casing.

I did not tell this to Diane. Words escaped me. She did not want to

know about Maimonides at that moment. Eery question was really a

restatement o one word: why. And or that, there were no satisactory

answers. We were quiet or a while as we thought about Alyssas soul.

Then we droe to the uneral home to arrange or the burial the

9781451649222text.indd 27 2/14/13 12:32 PM


12/31

happier endings

28

next day. Diane was lying across the backseat o the car, quiering

with tears. Who dries to a uneral home to bury a child? Why?

Why? The same question tumbled out again and again. Roy and I

said nothing.

We were ushered into an oce and sat nerously waiting or the

uneral director, who came in suited and somber and extended an

arm in handshake and consolation. He had the practiced sad oice

o a death proessional as he handed me some papers with a list o

serices. Diane grimly checked the boxes. There was the rerigeration

ee, the morgue ee, the tahara (ritual purication), the hairstyling (inecessary), the shemira serices, where a person stays up all night with

the body reciting psalms, the shroud costs. There was the cost o the

casket. Diane looked to the uneral director or guidance and compas-

sion, but the dark wood desk starkly separated those who were grieing

rom those who were working.

The casket room was down the hall; it was also the room that held

Alyssas body, so I only peeked through the doorway. It was time or

the casket walk. All the caskets were named ater biblical heroes.The Asher casket was more expensie than the Esther model. Asher

was made o burled wood with a silk lining; Esther was just a simple

maple. There was also the Abraham, the Joshua and the Daniel;

biblical patriarchs and matriarchs graced lies end as retail objects

with names like womens shoes or wigs. There was also a magazine-

like rack o side panels in the corner that could be placed, or an

additional ee, on the sides o the casket, like car accessories. I you

were a military person you could hae a casket sporting a fag; others

might want one with a fower theme or a watercolored landscape o

a sailboat on the sea. While I did not see any Major League Baseball

caskets in this Jewish uneral home, I had seen pictures elsewhere.

I knew that you could go down with your team, een i they were

doing well that season. There were no prices or the caskets. You had

9781451649222text.indd 28 2/14/13 12:32 PM


13/31


29

to ask. I was astonished at the lineup and ollowed up later when I

was home with an online price-check.

costco, as it turns out, has a line o cheaper caskets, but none haethe same Old Testament names. Instead, you can get the Edward, the

Continental, or the Kentucky Rose. I I were Christian it would hae

been a toss-up between the In Gods Care line and The Lady o Gua-

dalupe casket. I like any interior that eatures a little pillow. Its more

comorting somehow. Other attractie eatures o my Lady include:

ice-bluecrepeinterior

embroideredLadyofGuadalupeheadpanel

gold-coloredhandleswithLadyofGuadalupeappliqus

adjustablebedandmattress

The last eature is particularly important to me because Im not a

great sleeper. I wasnt sure I loed the ice-blue interior color. Personally,its a little rosty, and although Costco does note that they hae selected

the most popular styles and colors, with the highest quality linings,

they currently do not oer color choices. It is a limiting actor.

I was also intrigued by a comment made to a journalist who did

some research into casket sales. When he inquired about the dier-

ence between caskets or men and women, he was told by one uneral

director that ladies caskets are more tapered with chamered edges,

thereore considered more slimming. 5 I will certainly be pursuing

that option: I am not going to be buried in a at casket. No way.

Its hard enough to get to a discount warehouse on an ordinary day,

but at times o emotional stress its worse. They dont carry multiple

styles in eery store either. I recommend online ordering een with

the unpredictability o shipping times. Costco does oer expedited

9781451649222text.indd 29 2/14/13 12:32 PM


14/31

happier endings

30

shipping on caskets, and the Federal Trade Commission requires

uneral homes to accept any casket purchased rom an outside source

although they recommend that the purchaser notiy the uneral home

o their purchase within one business day. I guess it must be like walk-

ing into a bookstore and then buying the book on Amazon instead. Its

a real bummer or the uneral home.

What about the return policy? Costco will only accept the return

o a casket due to reight or cosmetic damage rom shipping. Basically,

youre stuck with it. So i youre thinking o picking out your eternal,

cushioned closet and youd neer go retail, make sure you pick a clas-sic style that can weather ashion changes.

I you dont like anything at Costco, you can try BestPriceCasket

.com. As they say on their home page: We supply uneral homes and

we also sell directly to you! Same Price. Buy Direct. Its a compel-

ling pitch, and its een more conincing when you see their online

adice bold and underlined: Do Not Tell The Funeral Home About

Purchasing Our Casket Beore You Get Their Itemized Funeral Price

List. Call Us Beore Talking to ANY Funeral Home, Because Eery-thing You Tell the Funeral Home Aects Your Funeral Pricing. We

Will Tell You What to Say.

Clearly they know something that we dont. I wanted to know their

trade secret, so I called.

Best Price. Can I help you?

I want to know what to say to a uneral home i I order a casket

rom you.

Let me put you through to sales.

I waited or a long time on hold (but not an eternity!), since I

could sae thousandsand i were talking about an eternity then a

ew more minutes wouldnt really matter. When a saleswoman did

pick up, I repeated the question and listened to her answer.

Ask or an itemized price list and then compare prices. Its like

9781451649222text.indd 30 2/14/13 12:32 PM


15/31


31

a car dealership. You dont go in there acting like youe got a lot o

money. Get the best price while obiously getting what you think

your loed one wants. A lot o them [uneral homes] are used to it by

now because there are a lot o online dealers. Theyre losing money.

I you get an itemized price list, they cant try to compensate or the

loss o the casket ee. They cant oercharge you at that point. In

other words, i you do tell a uneral home up ront that youre buying

a casket elsewhere, they may try to make up the dierence in other as-

sociated burial ees. The itemized list is the key. The woman in sales

closed her presentation with an acknowledgment o the diculty: Iyoue neer dealt with it, it can be a really high-pressure sale.

She asked me where I was rom and said that they ship to my local

airport once a week. We ship all oer the United States. Its no prob-

lem getting a casket to you within a day.

I think Ill wait.

while we sat in the uneral directors oce, Diane looked at me withconusion. Most o the other serices were basic and required. Alyssa

would hae no hairstyling, but the morgue ee was nonnegotiable.

The list o check marks on the bill, line items o hell, increased.

Its only money, I thoughtbut its also money. You neer want to

eel like you skinfinted your nearest and dearest because you didnt

buy her the burled wood. My husband, as a medical resident, once

stumbled on the newspaper obituary o a patient who had died in the

emergency room (not my husbands ault). The mans son had writ-

ten: And I know that whereer my ather is right now, he got there

cheaper than anyone else. I guess he didnt go or the burled wood

either.

Traditionally Jews are buried in simple pine caskets. The Talmud

decreed oer two thousand years ago that all Jews are to be buried

9781451649222text.indd 31 2/14/13 12:32 PM


16/31

happier endings

32

in the same type o shroud and the same type o casket. We are all

departing the same world, and we hae to leae in the same way.

Death is the great economic equalizer in Jewish law. Whateer death

accessories were displayed on the sheles that day were a letoer rom

someone elses tradition. My uncle was relieed about the simple op-

tion and remembered that he had learned somewhere that Jews leae

this world simply. The casket was o yellow pine with a simple Star o

Daid on the top center panel. Later, when we stood by the casket as

it was rolled rom the hearse to her burial spot, I meditated on that

star, holding on to that last image I would associate with my cousin.Audrey Gordon, who was once an assistant to Kbler-Ross, won-

ders in her writings about the rationale behind excessie casket

purchases, suggesting that the expense is oten the way that a am-

ily represses its guilt oer past treatment o the dead or deends itsel

against its eelings o anger because the loed one has abandoned

them. These eelings need to be worked through as a normal part o

the process o grie so that later memories o the deceased can be en-

joyed without pain or aoidance.6

Gordon unearths the oten unhealthy subterranean tensions that

trael in amilies around burial practices that, ironically, bury the

problems more than they bury the dead. The New Yorker recently

carried a cartoon o a middle-aged woman in black standing beore a

lectern. Behind her was an eleated casket. She addressed the guests

at the uneral: Mother wouldnt hae wanted us to eel sadshed

want us to eel guilty.7

Ater Diane and Roy wrote out a ew checks, the uneral directorasked i they would like to see Alyssa and say goodbye to her. My aunt

asked i I would join them, but I wanted to gie them the priacy o

their last arewell. I had not ound her lying dead on the foor, and I

9781451649222text.indd 32 2/14/13 12:32 PM


17/31


33

wanted to keep one memory picture clear in my head. It was not the

Alyssa the last time I saw her but my rst cousin at age six or seen.

She is in a photograph at her ballet-school production, wearing a sky-

blue tutu and an ornate bonnet. Against a white studio background,

she bends orward like a blue fower with one o her eet pointing

upward. She has a big smile, ery sure o hersel or the audience.

Later, when my aunt and I sorted out photos o Alyssa to put out on

the coee table or the shiva, we saw that big smile again: a still-lie

in heels at her high-school prom, a serious third-grader holding an

open notebook, a breathing, laughing, birthday-party-going kid. Weloed making birthday parties, Diane said with a sigh. I brought the

pictures downstairs and put them all oer the coee table. At a shiva

people are supposed to talk about the dead, not about the mundane.

Pictures help isitors ocus. I kept going back to the picture in the

blue tutu. Like the pine casket she was later buried in, Alyssas lie was

simple then. Clear. Straightorward. Happy.

I stood in the hallway waiting or a long time. It was not my place

to rush them. Leaing Alyssa would eel like a betrayal, as i youstopped holding on to the last isible piece o her. But at some point

you hae to say goodbye. In the casket room, Dianes oice rose and

ell in anguish. I spent the time asking the uneral director a ew ques-

tions. Why did they hae this open iewing time? This is not tradi-

tionally a ritual in Jewish burial. Ater the tahara process, the casket is

usually coered and sealed.

The director, with a gentleness that had years o experience behind

it, paused: Families who lose someone special in a disguring ac-

cident or in a state o physical dismemberment, want and need to say

goodbye to a person who looks most like the person they remember,

especially when the death is sudden. He was pulling out the memory

picture card, but I had one mysel, so who was I to argue? There

might be some relie or Diane and Roy. They knew that ater they let

9781451649222text.indd 33 2/14/13 12:32 PM


18/31

happier endings

34

the body, someone would careully take care o Alyssa, clean her and

prepare her properly or burial.

There was some other actiity going on down the corridor, a

chapel serice. Funeral home employees and driers with black satin

yarmulkes placed awkwardly on their heads were ready with an easy

sympathy to moe the proceedings o another sad arewell along. One

o them stood just outside the building, leaning against the white

brick exterior, haing his last smoke beore the guests walked outside.

While I had the uneral directors attention, I wanted to under-

stand the appeal o the ault burial. He explained that when water ta-bles are high, people oten opt or burial in aults to preent the early

decomposition o the body. Een those who get buried in the ground

must by law hae a concrete slab sealer oer the casket to ensure that

the body stays where it is placed. Other people opt or embalming and

some opt or both.

So how long does the body last when youre embalmed?

It can last or a hundred or two hundred years.

Why would someone want to do that? I asked aloud, while think-ing,Are we so araid o not being that we postpone it? Could it be that

we are still in denial even ater we die?

I dont know, he replied. I heard a lot o I dont knows in those

ew days.

Mary Roach in Sti, her amous book on cadaers, obseres that

undertakers used to tell eeryone that sealed aults and embalming

fuids were permanent ways to presere the body. Im glad that my

undertaker did not lie to me. Two hundred years is a long time, but

it is not oreer. Roach helped me understand the lie through a law-

suit she shared in her book. A man whose mother died bought space

in a mausoleum; eery six months he would bring his lunch to the

cemetery and open his mothers casket or a isit. One rainy spring

he came or his biannual isit to nd that his mother had grown a

9781451649222text.indd 34 2/14/13 12:32 PM


19/31


35

bearda mold beard. He sued the mortuary or $25,000 and since

thenexcuse the punmums the word on oreer.8

You cant really check on a dead bodys decomposition, at least

legally, so all you get or your embalming ee is the mental assurance

that you hae done your best to keep the worms and the water away

or a little longer, not to mention putting o the earth to earth bib-

lical injunction. I noticed on the Costco website and other online

casket stores that a ariation o the ollowing warning appears in bold,

almost like the warning on cigarette packages, in case you didnt al-

ready know that smoking can kill you: THERE IS NO SCIENTIFICOR OTHER EvIDENCE THAT ANY CASKET WITH A SEAL-

ING DEvICE WILL PRESERvE HUMAN REMAINS. Eery time

you click Add item to your online death cart, this warning appears.

No store wants to be responsible or your delusions o eternity.

The warning sums up a antasy and a repeated theme o unhappy

endings. The warning is really about the denial o death. A dead body

decomposes. It can be aulted, embalmed, sealed or presered in any

number o chemical fuids, but any method will just delay the inei-table. Happier endings come to those willing to accept the grim real-

ity o what happens to the body. They come to terms with endings, or

at least the end o this lie as we know it. Theyre not trying to outlie

nature by ooling themseles.

when the uneral director let, I directed my attention down thehall to the chapel. Watching another uneral take place while you

are putting details together or the one you are hosting has an odd,

stagehand-rom-Hades eel to it. I watched the theatrics o the mourn-

ing process as I waited or Diane and Roy to emerge rom the casket

room. Short, older coupleshey, this is Floridawalked out with

their heads bowed, the women holding tissues, the men searching

9781451649222text.indd 35 2/14/13 12:32 PM


20/31

happier endings

36

pockets or car keys. Funeral employees stood in arious places direct-

ing trac and oering hushed words o consolation.

Sorry or your loss. The parking lot is straight ahead.

May his memory be or a blessing. The parking lot is straight

ahead.

The parking lot is directly ahead o you. So sorry or your loss.

There was a script here, and the actors had clearly done this show

a thousand times beore.

One scholar has called the modern uneral a kind o perormance

art that is closer to Hollywood than it is to any religious practice. Webuy into the theater o it and the conentions that come with theat-

rics, howeer hollow or distinguished they might be. Death can be

done any way a clients amily chooses, but not reallyits any way

that the amily is directed to choose by morticians who present their

wares to ulnerable customers. Tom Jokinen, who wrote Curtains, the

memoir/exposofworkingasanundertaker-in-training,interviewed

an owner o three uneral homes in Milwaukee who told him that a

uneral is a show. He een tells his sta when he sees a amily walkin the door, Its Riverdance time. At his homes they sere ood and

drinks at isitations: We are not in the uneral business; we are in the

hospitality business.9

Mitord discoered the same sales pitch elsewhere when she met

a uneral director and mortuary school graduate who described a u-

neral as an odyssey:

I welcome the amily as I would guests to my own home. I oer the

rest room, soda, and hospitality. Today, Id come out with embalming,

dressing, isitation. At the end o the arrangements conerence, we

hold hands, say a prayer, hae coee. Im a tour guide! . . . We must

all be tour guides.10

9781451649222text.indd 36 2/14/13 12:32 PM


21/31


37

This ebullient approach has a great deal to do with the loss o a

religious public who would, until only decades ago, hae ollowed

whateer practices were conentional within their aith tradition and

house o worship. Families today are told that they hae choices when

it comes to death and that church practices need not hamper their

indiidual style. The problem is that when it comes to death, most

people dont hae an indiidual style. The spiritual writer Bruce Feiler

obsered in his own creation o mourning rituals that the elaborate,

careully staged mourning rituals o the past are rarely obsered

today. Old customs no longer apply, yet new ones hae yet to mate-rialize.11 What doesnt seem to work is the bumper sticker one hip,

young uneral director has on his car: Lets Put the Fun Back in

Funeral.

Max Rilin-Nadler, the ounder oFull Stop magazine, describes

his isit to the 130th National Funeral Directors Conerence. He saw

a new breed o hearses and walked through a hallway o cons. He

saw a makeoer using a cosmetics line or the dead being applied to

an older womanwho was still alie. No one seemed to considerthis odd or in poor taste. Why would they? To those in the business o

death, the distinction between the liing and the dead is a simple mat-

ter o economics.12 Rilin-Nadler learned about a new iPhone app

that lets you know the progress o a cremation and went to a Funeral

Directors Under 40: A Night on the Town eent. Someone he met at

the eent tried to prepare him or the eening and said, lowering his

oice, Funeral directors are notoriously heay drinkers. There will

denitely be some hookups.

While it all sounds strange to the noice, death is an industry like

any other. It has its conerences and trade publications. And it also has

a new role: to ll in the gaping holes let in the absence o accepted

aith traditions. Jokinen beliees that the religious practices that hae

9781451649222text.indd 37 2/14/13 12:32 PM


22/31

happier endings

38

been eclipsed by personal style hae oten resulted in a hodgepodge cer-

emony.Thiskindoftheaterisweakonsubstanceandhighonclich:

Take God out o the picture. Whats let? The sucking oid is still

there. How do we ll it? With sacred customs, or by picking and

choosing the best rom the lot and adapting them or the occasion: a

bit o Zen, a touch o Zoroastrianism, yes to candles, no to Psalm 23,

a clown, a puppy, show tunes, trained does released at the graesite

to symbolize the fight o the soul, or whateer else refects the unique

lie lost. Were no longer a marginally organized tribe o belieers, buta marginally organized tribe o indiiduals, where each lie story is as

important as the next.13

To that end, human beings become dened less by their aith and

conictions and more by their hobbies. So you can get gol-themed plates

or a casket and urns shaped like sh or the ashes o the aid sherman.

You can hae a gardening theme or a teddy bear or the inant death.

The summation o a human lie is reduced to whateer keeps us busy ora ew hours on a weekend. There is no larger purpose or grander scale to

the end o a lie. It boils down to what you do in your leisure time.

This trend is not at all surprising i you compare it to sociologi-

cal trends in irtually eery other area o American lie. In Habits o

the Heart, a bestseller about indiidualism and commitment in the

United States, the authors argue that Americans hae come to make

sharp distinctions between priate and public lie, to the detriment o

the latter. Fierce indiidualism has weakened the bonds o commu-

nity responsibility and the notion o the collectie, which results in,

among other things, the Disney-themed uneral.

viewing ones primary task as nding onesel in autonomous sel-

reliance, separating onesel not only rom ones parents but also rom

9781451649222text.indd 38 2/14/13 12:32 PM


23/31


39

those larger communities and traditions that constitute ones past,

leads to the notion that it is in onesel, perhaps in relation to a ew

intimate others, that ulllment is to be ound. Indiidualism o this

sort oten implies a negatie iew o public lie. . . . But on the basis o

what we hae seen in our obseration o middle-class American lie, it

would seem that this quest or purely priate ulllment is illusory: it

oten ends in emptiness instead.14

Americans, the authors beliee, are hurting rom sel-imposed

loneliness and a bankruptcy o meaning that is oten conerred byeeling part o a community and something larger than sel. When we

become our hobbies we promote the sel and let go o the transcen-

dence that so oten accompanies long-standing, communal participa-

tion in rituals. We might supplant the need or religion by being a an

o a sports team or by joining a raternity or a ciic association, but its

not only about being part o any group; its about being part o a group

that holds inherent meaning, that is concerned with goodness, respon-

sibility and moral irtue.

roy, Diane and I let the uneral home to ponder what else we hadto do to prepare or the uneral the next day. Its an odd to-do list, to

be sure, and not the kind o thing you want to write down and then

check o when the tasks are completed:

plotcheck

casketcheck

deathcerticatecheck

schedulefuneralcheck

callSocialSecurityofcetoregisteradeathcheck

orderdeliplattersfortheshivacheck

9781451649222text.indd 39 2/14/13 12:32 PM


24/31

happier endings

40

Much as a checklist seemed inappropriate, I wanted to make sure

we had done eerything and that the uneral wouldnt hae any obi-

ous missing parts, because I was a noice at this, and there was not a

second chance to get it right.

Unless youe been through it beore, its hard to imagine how any-

one goes rom the heart-wrenching chaos o losing someone you loe

to organizing a uneral, signing documents and buying a plot. Eery

minute o eery hour people die, yet unless its the death o someone

you loe, the rituals and practices that ollow death seem like the

machinations o a secret society that you were neer inited to join.The small, emotional cushions o rituals aid in the transition rom

the news o death, especially sudden death, to the burial. At rst, it

seems like a bad dream that someone else dropped you into without

an instruction manual. It can be a ery lonely and alienating time,

when raw emotion has a head-on collision with resentment and theo-

logical anger. It becomes dicult to know whats normal and what has

to get done.

The uneral director mentioned that, at some point, we neededto inorm any companies that extracted payment in the orm o bills

rom Alyssa that she had died. We also might want to call a local paper

to put in an obituary. Wanting to spare my relaties the diculty

o canceling out Alyssas bureaucratic relationship with the goern-

ment and utilities, I called the phone and cable companies mysel.

I expected a little sympathy on the other end. Een a two-word so

sorry would hae worked at this point in my ragility. But the news o

Alyssas death, which elt so enormous in my mental space, was insig-

nicant to those on the other end o the phone. It happens eery day,

I reminded mysel. It happens seeral times a day, calls like these. To

them, she wasnt a person, just a number, another bill, another noti-

cation. Another act.

Hanging up the phone, I elt that Alyssa was rapidly disappearing

9781451649222text.indd 40 2/14/13 12:32 PM


25/31


41

rom the world. And she was. The words o the neuroscientist Daid

Eagleman oerwhelmed me: There are three deaths. The rst is

when the body ceases to unction. The second is when the body is

consigned to the grae. The third is that moment, sometime in the

uture, when your name is spoken or the last time.15

Alyssa was certainly not disappearing rom the hearts and minds o

her amily, but her name was quickly erased rom the lists o institu-

tions that rame our prosaic daily lie. This was a new kind o end to

me, and it elt like sandpaper chang on memory. It only strengthened

my resole to capture Alyssa in the eulogy at the serice the next day. Iwanted words to bring her back to lie i we couldnt hae her with us.

I wondered how many words it would take to gie an accurate picture

o Alyssa. Was that the goal? Was it to speak to her or to the others at

the uneral? Was it to question the suering or to say goodbye?

Someone posted the news on Facebook, and a new layer o words

cropped up. My remaining cousins best riend few in rom the East

Coast with a pile o printouts rom Alyssas Facebook wall that said

how special she was and how she would be missed. Just as she wasdisappearing in some places, her death was generating communica-

tion momentum oer the internet. Used to the ormal note sent snail

mail, I was shocked by this outpouring o cyberloe. The internet

has changed the way that grieing amilies help others learn about a

death and respond to it. Danna Black, an owner o the company Shia

Sisters, which plans Jewish unerals in Los Angeles, comments on the

use o the internet in modern grieing: I the grieer eels comort-

able sending out an e-mail, you can eel comortable sending one

back. Just dont Reply All.16

My aunt fipped through the pile, stooped oer with tears to com-

ment on how nice it was to hear rom Alyssas childhood riends and

co-workers, many o whom Diane had neer met. These cyberisits

were oddly comorting, and they raised a new set o questions: what

9781451649222text.indd 41 2/14/13 12:32 PM


26/31

happier endings

42

happens to all our passwords, our eBay account and our social media

networks when we go? An iPod user wrote in to an Apple magazine

recently to ask whether or not she could bequeath her iTunes collec-

tion (o which she was clearly proud) to someone ater shes gone. She

said she doesnt expect to die anytime soon but thought it a reasonable

question. The answer is no: your highly indiidualized embrace o

technology is so highly indiidualized that youre taking it with you

when you go. Perhaps this is why a riend o mine told me that she

wants her cellphone to be thrown into the casket when they lower her

down. Really? I was actually looking orward to the peace and quiet.

no one wanted to speak at the uneralor, more correctly, no oneelse thought they could speak at the uneral. No matter how uncom-

ortable you eel, speak at the uneral o a loed one i gien the op-

portunity, or create the opportunity with a memorial serice. No one

at a uneral is expecting amily members to be eloquent or dry-eyed.

Go ahead and cry. The release o tears and the choking actually helplisteners appreciate what this person meant to you, and this helps

others release their emotions as well. Your speaking rom the heart

grants permission or eeryone to be in that ulnerable place with you.

Jewish tradition has an expression: Words that leae the heart enter

the heart. They leae the heart o one and enter the heart o another.

There are ew regrets worse than I wish I would hae said my nal

goodbyes and told eeryone what my mother really meant to me.

Theres nothing I can do now. You neer get that opportunity again.

I interiewed my remaining cousin and then my aunt and uncle to

understand what they regarded as quintessentially Alyssa and what they

thought had to be said as we sent her o. Suddenly capturing and sum-

marizing a whole lie in a ew minutes seemed both urgent and impos-

sible. And then I thought o the noonday sun in Florida and wondered

9781451649222text.indd 42 2/14/13 12:32 PM


27/31


43

i, on our checklist, we had told the cemetery sta to put up a tent. I

not, Id cut short my remarks. Speaking longer would not necessarily

honor her lie more.

Diane and Roy didnt want an obituary or Alyssa. They mourned

her priately. They werent looking or attention. They wanted it all

to be oer. A riend suggested that the amily take tranquilizers or the

uneral. They wanted to numb the pain. It is well known that people

who medicate themseles hae a harder time recoering. I you dont

conront the pain ully it is harder to get on the other side o it, een

i you neer really get on the other side o it. My aunt and uncle de-cided against it. Bob Deits in Lie Ater Loss suggests that i you take

a tranquilizer at a uneral it preents you rom being as aware as pos-

sible o what is happening around you and what your own emotional

state is.17 That day, there was a high leel o awareness.

It started to rain just as the uneral was beginning. The ushers held

open wide gol umbrellas. For the amily, the rain didnt matter. God

was crying with us, on us. We pushed the simple pine casket through

the gray drizzle, slowly moing it on a roller bed oer the wet earth.The ushers lowered the casket to the wails o onlookers. Following Jew-

ish custom, eeryone under the tent was asked to shoel a clod o earth

into the opening. The amily tossed in dirt rom Jerusalems Mount o

Olies. We read Psalm 23 together. Yea, though I walk through the

alley o the shadow o death, I will ear no eil, or Thou art with me.

I spoke about Alyssa, how easy it was or her to loe. Her big heart. Her

willingness to orgie. We said the El Maleh Rachamim prayer, God

Who is Full o Compassion: Lord o mercy, bring her under the

coer o Thy wings, and let her soul be bound up in the bond o eternal

lie. I asked or a moment o silence so that each person could ask or

Alyssas orgieness. We recited another psalm. My then ninety-six-year-

old grandmother came late, pushing her walker in the rain. She inter-

rupted the serice with a loud cry: Put me in instead. Take me.

9781451649222text.indd 43 2/14/13 12:32 PM


28/31

happier endings

44

I tried to ignore the outcry and keep going, but my grandmother

was right on some leel. It makes logical sense in the world o reason

or old people to die and young people to lie. But I couldnt let the

weight o her words derail the ceremony. I quoted rom the book o

Job. I asked anyone who wanted to share a last word with Alyssa to

come up and place a fower in the grae and share a piece o their bro-

kenness with her. There was silence, utter silence, and no moement

whatsoeer. Slowly, one person rose, took a fower and let out a cry.

More people came up. We used up all the fowers.

I prayed with the group o mourners that we allow Alyssa, in herdeath, to show us how to loe. And then I took a deep breath: Alyssa,

teach us to say I loe you more oten because it came so easy to you.

Its not always so easy or us. Teach us how to show deep emotion

because it came so easy to you. Teach us not to blame each other or

what we didnt gie you but to take care o each other because thats

what you would hae wanted.

We said the Kaddish, a Jewish armation o lie that neer men-

tions death. Leon Wieseltiers words in his book Kaddish kept ring-ing in my ear: magnied and sanctied. Magnied and sanctied.

I wished Alyssa arewell and nished my remarks: Goodbye, allen

angel. It was not clear what to do next, how to end the serice. We

were stuck in space and time, immobilized by the graity and awk-

wardness o it all. I could not ask anyone to leae.

Just then the director whispered in my ear that another serice

was about to begin. The amily was rozen in the ront row, under the

moable tent. No one wanted Alyssa to be alone. Each member o the

amily wanted to be the last to go home. My cousin asked i he could

put a letter in beore they nished the burial, as the bulldozer moed

in with its monster claws. The note futtered down on top o the dirt

rom the Mount o Olies.

Cars turned on their lights and windshield wipers as the rain

9781451649222text.indd 44 2/14/13 12:32 PM


29/31


45

cleared. I moed my aunt and uncle into the car, one slow ootall

ater another. Diane wept in the backseat. I dont want eeryone to

come oer now. I dont want to see anyone. And I knew exactly what

she meant. Diane, theyll all be there when you get home, een i

you dont want them. Some o them may already be there. Its what

riends do. Theyll be there or you. They also need to griee.

We arried at the house and took out the memorial candle that

would burn or seen days. I took the cardboard mourners chairs

reinorced, o course, since mourners come in all shapes and sizes

which are lower than regular chairs, out o the trunk where the directorhad put them during the serice. The dining-room table was coered

with platters o cold cuts. People were already eating when my aunt and

uncle sat down. I prepared the ritual bread and boiled eggs that symbol-

ize lie and put the plate beore Diane and Roy. They couldnt eat.

The next days were lled with people. My aunt and uncle passed

in and out o the reerie o loss. With each new isitor there was a

little punch o new anguish as the story got repeated and the un-

answered questions mounted like an emotional landll. The shivaended. The candle burned out. The guests let. The hurt stayed.

Alyssas death raised so many questions or me about death. I saw theway that religion helps the dying and the suriors with rituals that

cushion liminal time, that in-between time when you experience the

rst shock o death but hae not made headway through deaths many

stages. What did people do who did not hae these rituals? Could they

still hae a happy ending? Im not so sure. I thought about the role o

riends and community as a saety net or those who surie the worst

deaths. Could someone who dies alone hae a happy ending? Yes.

Alyssas seemed to be a meaningul end. I watched how our memories

sit through the bad like an emotional siee that leaes us mostly with

9781451649222text.indd 45 2/14/13 12:32 PM


30/31

happier endings

46

the residual good. Could we harbor resentment toward the dying and

still beliee that the death represents a happy ending? I think so. I

thought a lot about money and death and how the property inest-

ments we make or burials, ar in adance o when well need them,

help keep our amilies whole een when we eel desperate. Can you

hae a happy ending when you dont make any burial plans? Possibly,

but it makes it much harder. Can you hae a happy ending without

someone to usher you through death? Possibly, but I realized how

important it is to hae a guide or an escort through the experience,

since the practical and theological keep collapsing on each otherwhen it comes to death. I also understood the acuum that a death

like Alyssas let, a crater-size bowl o sadness that seemed like it would

neer go away. Would the pain eer depart with the departed? I had

questions that needed answers. I had homework to do.

i also realized something new about loe during those long days. For

suriors, loe is the aterlie. Its the wounds that suddenly dissipate be-cause youd trade all o them in or a ew more minutes with someone

you loe. Its the way that the deceased stamp themseles all oer the

liing, in little gestures, in expressions they would hae said, in the ex-

pectation that when you turn the corner in a amiliar space, you will see

them again. Its what Rilke called a shooting star in his poem Death:

O shooting star

That ell into my eyes and through my body

Not to orget you. To endure.18

where I had so many questions, Diane had one. Where is Alyssa?Dianes curiosity about the aterlie was not intellectually motiated.

9781451649222text.indd 46 2/14/13 12:32 PM


31/31


47

She wanted to know i Alyssa was still out there. The thought that her

existenceon any leelwas truly oer was too unbearable.

Eery day or the next month I spoke to Diane. Eery day, she re-

peated her question: Where is her soul now?

I dont know, I replied. I think its with you.

happier endings by erica brown

Documents