Jennifer
We had the funeral for my aunt Beatrice . The funeral seemed to be exactly what a Catholic funeral ought to be.
After the funeral, one sister, one daughter, and I returned to the house to resume the sorting-and-taking-stock task. Around dinner time, a girl appeared who had just learned of Beatrice’s death that afternoon. She was very upset and kept saying how close they were. Did we need any help? We had her come in. It turned out that she was a junior in high school and lived a few blocks away. Moira met Beatrice last summer when Cranberry was loose in the evening so she brought Cranberry to the address on the tag. Beatrice was on the floor, and “was not well†or “had been drinkingâ€. They became good friends.
Beatrice told her all about: growing up (Moira’s grandmother grew up in the same place), her first marriage (but not more than we’d figured out already from the wedding album), all the schnausers (we had remembered them all, but Moira knew that Groucho was the one that they “adopted†, I vaguely remember that), the Frost work (and Moira’s English teacher was going to have Mrs. Smith in when they did Frost in the spring; not yet because the teacher didn’t want the end of the year to be anticlimactic; yes, Moira does have a copy of her published book on Frost), the current book (Moira was glad the literary executor would try to publish it), St. Ignatius (Moira was relieved the funeral was there, Mrs. Smith loved it there), step-sons by name, and children thereto.
We kept expressing surprise that Beatrice had opened up to her so much, and Moira explained that she was pushy but had sometimes stayed away because she worried she was too pushy. She was extremely upset that she hadn’t been around since , well, obviously since late March. She had tried at some point(s?), but when Beatrice didn’t answer or something she didn’t go over and insist on going in as it sounded like she often had in the previous months, because she was busy getting ready for a trip. (School vacation trip?) Often when Beatrice didn’t answer the phone or told her not to come over she said she wasn’t well and Moira thought she had been drinking (and sometimes Moira visited anyway).
Just before Moira left, we asked her if there was anything we could do for her, and she said, “Don’t give away the coffee table, her husband made that, she told me all about that.†We assured her that we were not planning to get rid of it, it was one of our favorites, but what did she know about it? And she explained how “Bill , no, Mr. Smith†, had collected tile from demolition sites and he hadn’t glued the pieces down until Beatrice made him do so when they got married. (Another thing I once knew, but had forgotten.) She was quite amazing. I think she was the ONLY person who knew Beatrice both drinking and sober. And she liked all of her.
Beatrice’s first wedding.
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There’s a sweet addendum to the Moira story. She responded to a card (on a copy of a pen-and-ink andwatercolor by my uncle) from me with (among other things) the comment, “I hope she could have considered me a friend.†I didn’t quite know how to answer that, not knowing why she seemed not to have mentioned Moira to anyone, and then Saturday I found a jewelry box in a drawer labeled “Moira, for her graduation†, that’s not until NEXT year, by the way.
