Wing Chairs

I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to buy used wing chairs from the funeral home. There they were, displayed on their perfect, compulsively watered front lawn with a sign and a number to call. I think they were asking $75 a piece for them and I ended up getting them both for $140. The seller, a quiet, dignified man explained that they had only been used in the waiting room. No one had spilled anything on them, and the only place they were really worn was on the top. The seller explained that this was where the director would rest his elbow as he stood by during services, etc. This seemed to be accurate, and after I convinced myself that they really hadn’t been in the near vicinity of the dead people, I thought they would fit right in at home and could some day be reupholstered.

But I was never quite, um, comfortable, with those chairs and didn’t have the decorating budget to rehabilitate them. Still, they were useful without doing any harm, and I got along with them until the point when a good friend died and I went to that same funeral home with her brother to make the arrangements for her cremation. The chairs in the waiting room that had replaced mine were soo much nicer. Although my friend who passed away had taken great delight in the back story of the provenance of my chairs, it was hard to feel good about them now. Three and a half years went by and my friend’s daughter decided to have a garage sale. We agreed it was time to offload the creepy wing chairs.

I told Eric about the chair plan at dinner one night and mentioned that I was excited to be getting rid of the bad energy they brought with them. This led to a wider discussion of the topic, including his father’s ashes, which resided in a box in a pretty antique cabinet that he’d brought with him, and was now in the kitchen. We talked about how having them in their place in the kitchen was starting to be bothersome. The door to the cabinet kept popping open. Spontaneously. I would close it firmly and it would happen again. It had started to get a bit spooky.

We talked about the fact that when his father was dying, thirty-five years before, he had asked that his ashes be scattered at the private high school where he had been a football star. When Eric tried to honor his wishes and scatter the ashes it turned out the football field had been paved over and was now the parking lot of the Pak N Save. Step two was thwarted as well. He took a trip across country to scatter the ashes on the football field where Dad had played in college. The field had been converted to astro-turf which just wouldn’t work. A series of adventures ensued including having the maid accidentally remove them from the safe in a cheap hotel room in New York City. The ashes were recovered and seemed to be on their best behavior for the next few decades while they moved from place to place, but now it appeared there’d been enough delay in finding a final resting place.

We agreed that they needed to be relocated, but we had to find a suitable resting place. It appeared that football fields were out and since this man had not liked the beach, despite having lived much of his life in South Florida, a scattering at sea was not a good option. I kept pressing. What else did he like? It turns out he liked golf. All of a sudden that seemed to present a perfect solution. We’d take him to a lovely, little local golf course. Eric, who can be wildly spontaneous, outdid himself that night. He suggested we go right then. We were still sitting at the dinner table and it was 9:30. He grabbed a little trowel and the box of ashes and we started for the front door. We were intercepted by Lana, who immediately sensed something was up. I told her we couldn’t explain but had to go right away because we were on a mission. She said that was creepy. Little did she know. We passed a cop car when we were nearing the course but he was going the other way. What relief. Timing is everything.

The golf course was beautiful even in the dark. We shined a little flashlight around until we found the perfect spot, a sand trap. Eric started a gorgeous, spontaneous eulogy to his father. I cried quietly while he dug a small hole in the sand and poured most of the ashes into the hole. We were almost done, when suddenly there was a car and there were lights. It was the cop. He’d circled back around and now he was walking out to the sand trap while shining his light on us. We both sat down. We had to. If we’d remained standing he would have seen that something was going on. He asked what we were doing and we said talking. Talking? He questioned again. I explained that we had teenagers at home and just needed to get away and talk a little. And sit in a sand trap? You could tell his gut just didn’t buy it, but he didn’t have any evidence to the contrary, and he slowly retreated and then drove away.

We cracked up. We laughed so hard we could hardly stop. It was the most intimate of moments between us and the sadness and the ridiculousness all blurred together. We quickly finished the job and got out of there. Dad must like the golf course because that was years ago and he’s been no trouble. The cabinet door has never opened by itself again.