So Long, Betty Harris

It was a beautiful day for a memorial service. David stared out the window. He willed the clouds to roll in. This is a sad day, dammit. 74 and a light offshore breeze is just poor taste. Why don't you cry? He directed his thoughts at the sky with clenched fists, all too aware of the futility of his aggression.

His mother's death had not been a long time coming. One day she was healthy, the next day she was sick, and the next day she was gone. Or so it seemed. He could apply a similar formula to his entire life. One day he was born, the next day he graduated from college, and the next day he turned 36 years old. None of it mattered, or would ever matter again. His mind condensed history into a brief, easy-to-process abstract of a lifetime, and he desperately wanted to read the full text. It was difficult to remember his mother.

Why was it so difficult to remember? Time stretched before him as an impossible, treacherous uphill climb with no indication of a finish line, yet the treacherous, uphill climb behind him now appeared as a casual stroll down the block. So much happened, though! Thirty-six years, and so much if it lost to the careless catalog of time. She was alive, and now she was dead. His memories of those thirty-six years, and the twenty-eight before them, were now nothing more than a greatest hits collection to be paraded in front of yet another group of people who took for granted the stability of a life not yet lost.

Sorting through those captured memories felt like constructing a resume, a detailed yet highly-biased profile designed to convince the world of his mother's perfection. She wasn't perfect, of course, but it becomes necessary to cover one's blemishes when they aren't able to answer for them. There were dozens of pictures in which his mother appeared genuinely unhappy, and he often recalled her as a genuinely unhappy person. Those pictures were shuffled into boxes that quite possibly would never be opened again, and the world would soon forget that Betty Harris rarely displayed her authentic, impromptu, gleaming grin.

Why was she so unhappy? It was the question with an answer he'd never understand, and he felt compelled by protocol to force it out of his mind. The dead were happy to be alive, and it was best to remember them that way. If death is the ultimate sadness, then the trivial sadness of life must be forgotten.

And so the collage was smaller than originally planned. Betty Harris's life became a series of disconnected smiles that somehow constructed a happy person, and no one dare question aloud their significance to the bigger picture. David wanted so badly to question their significance, but who would understand? He missed his mother because she was his mother, and this woman on the looped slide-show was not his mother. Mom was gone and buried for three weeks now, and with her she took any possibility for an accurate biography.

So there God was, providing his own contribution to the charade. 74 and a light offshore breeze, and not a cloud in sight. David prepared himself for the parade of sympathizers and well wishers who would comment on the fitting weather, on how Betty Harris so loved the sun, and how it was God's way of letting them all know she was in a better place. Celebrate her life by forgetting her life. Just pick and choose the parts you like best, David. It's so much easier that way. So long, Betty Harris. It was a great ride.