Too Many Funerals

June 19 2011

My mother answers.

Only when she’s out, when he’s left alone

does he pick up.

And it’s her voice, as well

on the answering machine.

Dead air, at first;

as usual, confused

by technology.

Then enunciates extra-carefully

into the electronic void.

Thinner, with age,

her disembodied words

sound unnaturally bright, and chirpy.

My mother answers

and does most of the talking.

His intermediary,

his social convener

his lifeline

to the outside world.

But on the 3rd Sunday in June

there is the obligatory call.

The ritual exchange of pleasantries

bland inquiries,

diverting handily

into politics, and sports.

We are each happy, well,

no problems

to speak of.

The word love

does not come up,

and we are both comfortable with this.

He was a good provider

and I, a dutiful son,

and this is more than enough.

My mother takes the phone

so happy I called,

and now all of the brothers

have remembered

wished him the best.

As if anyone could forget

in the tempest of ads

for aftershave, golf.

My father told me

tomorrow he attends the funeral

of a friend, his age, who finally passed.

A mercy, he says.

In a man’s 90th year

there are too many funerals.

And who makes new friends

at this late stage?

He has outlived everyone.

He has run out of friends

in his adoptive city,

and no one is left

in the city he grew up.

“But I have your mother” he says

before the phone

is handed off.

He is stoical

as men of his generation were taught

and he taught us.

Not one to complain

about the infirmities, indignities

of age.

The phone lines are humming

the 1st Sunday, of summer

from daughters, and sons.

Although Mother’s Day

is busier.

Which a father understands.

And would be just as glad
if his day of thanks
was hers. 


When I called this Father's Day, this is close to what my dad actually said to me:  "I've run out of friends", or "All my friends are gone", or something like that.

He is the last survivor of his immediate family:  the youngest child, who has lived the longest. We easily think about the importance of friendship in school age kids, in adolescents and young adults. But close friends are probably more important as we age and our world shrinks. In this case, of course, it's not simply a loss of companionship, but a very real and poignant reminder of imminent mortality.

Anyway, when he said this, his sadness showed through his manly stoicism. I thought I should honour it with a poem.