Back from a Three-Day Country Funeral

Until this morning at 8:15 a.m., I had been away from St. Dunstan’s for three whole weeks. The first week I was working, the second, I couldn’t get out of bed and the third week I was I Blount County, Alabama for a country funeral that lasted three days.

So who died? Well, that’s in some ways a modern, city question. Where my husband grew up in the green rolling terminus of the Appalacians in rural northern Alabama, it wasn’t really a question at all. In fact, when I packed up my suitcase to leave Thursday night, I had no idea that I should be packing my bathing suit. I did have the feeling that I could be sleeping on a blowup mattress snuggled next to four of his relatives at some aunt’s house I’d never met. But honestly, I didn’t think he would subject me to that. We’ve been married nearly 13 years and I’ve been a fairly decent wife.

In the car through the night as we burned up the highway, the smell of smoked pork butt rising from the back seat, I dropped hints about how a hotel would be better than imposing on grieving relatives. But he seemed not to hear. He was happily going through complicated family connections. The newly passed away relative was named Sibby (an awkward coincidence given that my name is Sibley). She was one of his mother’s seven sisters’ son’s x-wife, a Polish Catholic woman from Massachusetts.

Her kinfolk were arriving from as far away as London and as nearby as Tupelo and B’ham. I listened to stories about how cousin J.P., Sibby’s son, broke into the school with some other boys and stole a bunch of toilet paper to roll a teacher’s house, and how that gave him a police record at age 16. I heard stories about Aunt Ruby who had her daughter-in-law, Sibby, out hoeing rows in her vegetable garden 30 minutes after she met her.  

When we arrived at the farm, Ron’s 1^st cousins Joe and Martha Ann came out to meet us. Martha, like Sibby, had married into the family, so she shared a special bond with Sibby. They were not Blount County girls, but by God, they could show their country in-laws that they indeed knew how to work.

 In the distance, I saw candles burning on the porch, which was mostly dark and filled with the tired murmur of voices. Two goofy yard dogs wagged their way to us as I stretched my legs and took a deep breath of jasmine and summer night. Joe hugged me, sized me up, and kindly steered me toward our accommodations, an air-conditioned camper with a kitchen and sitting area. There were similar campers set up around the yard. Then the wide porch of the house became a gathering place for all of the cousins who had, like us, just arrived, or come from the airport, or driving in from Birmingham or Boulder.

So there were three days of this. Little boys underfoot with water guns, hooting, and back-slapping. As the heat of the afternoon subsided, a caravan of six cars filled up for a trip to the old swimming hole. That was down the road a few miles off at the Black Warrior River’s Locust Fork, down a steep bank, and reflecting in its surface yellow stone footers that once supported a covered bridge built by the ancestor of my husband and his kin.

So I’ll wrap this up. Sibby was Catholic and the funeral was held at St. Henry’s Catholic Church in Warrior, about four miles from Hayden. Her daughter spoke during the memorial service and said that whenever someone walked through Sibby’s door, she would drop whatever she was doing, no matter what it was, and stop her world for them. And that may be why her Southern Methodist kinfolk felt called home to see her off, all at once and together.

That’s why it jolted me to hear the priest say only Catholics were invited to take communion. For one, I hadn’t been to church for two Sundays. For two, well, I mean shouldn’t everyone be invited to share in the Eurcharist? Indeed, about half of the people in the church for Sibby’s funeral had been breaking bread for two days in a community of family. Like Frost wrote, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

Like home, it seems like the Eucharist should be a place where you can’t be turned away.

So this morning, when I pulled up to St. Dunstan’s, there were just two cars in the parking lot. I was so glad to see Patricia getting ready to robe up for the 8:30 service. “I’m back!” I said. “I’ve been away at a three-day country funeral.”

“Who died?” she asked.

“My husband’s first cousin-slash-aunt,” I said. I went on a minute about the Catholic service and not being able to take communion. I’ve been to a Catholic mass on Christmas Eve, honestly, but it was so long ago, I don’t remember their communion practices or being excluded. I told her I ended up being seated next to the priest for the lunch that followed and how I was essentially tongue-tied.

“Did you tell him you have a girl priest?” Patricia smiled.

For anyone who doesn’t read the Sunday bulletin closely at St. Dunstan’s, they might have missed the words “All people are invited to receive Communion”. And of course, that’s how you feel at St. Dunstan’s, accepted and at home.

Now, I qualify for Communion, as it were, and I particularly savored the fresh wheat bread this morning and the feeling of friendship kneeling at the altar next to Joscelyn, who had slipped in beside me just after the service started. With a joyful ‘thanks be to God!’ the service was over, and I went back to my pew, not to retrieve my purse, but to sit down and chat with Joscelyn, who I hadn’t seen in a while given my three-week absence.

When we finally did get up, we went to the kitchen where Peachy was arranging fresh cut blue hydrangeas from the church yard. Joscelyn and I poured a cup of coffee each, chatting as we slowly made our way to the front door, where outside the parking lot had begun to fill for the regular service.