I Can’t Quit You Baby
By: Dark Day
Tags: Horror, Death, Grief, Grief And Loss, Cemetery

The funeral procession made its heavy way to the lower corner of the cemetery where groundsmen waited beneath a black nylon shade canopy. Deer chewed grass on the edge of the forest under cherry blossoms and two squirrel chased each other up the trunk of a pine tree spiraling to the sky above. Around the grave area, flowers and trinkets peppered the grass and headstones to break up the monotony of green and marble. Some of these graves had amassed large collections and piles of potted plants, flowers, statues, flags and whatnot, personalized shrines dedicated to the lives of the loved ones buried just inches below. Some had placed open bottles of whiskey, cigarettes, or a box of girl scout cookies. Others looked more restful, left to themselves and perhaps more at ease in their new state.

Death is the great mystery, the ultimate unknown. Its mute finality shakes us on its own timeframe. We will do anything to cheat it, but it always wins.

The hearse came to rest in front of this scene, drying in the sun and the doors of the trailing cars began to open. Family pulled up teary mustering the energy to take those final steps of remorse, the tribute walk of grief to their lost friend’s body, their father, father-in-law, brother, friend, neighbor, co-worker.

Three days earlier, Dad was alive and happy enough eating breakfast when chest pains developed into full cardiac arrest and a final gasp in the emergency room. 72 years old at the time of death, William had many more chapters of life in mind and heart when death came to close the book on it. Four days later, his embalmed and slowly decomposing body rested as a cold hard sack of bones in a wooden box on pillows in the back of a late 90’s Cadillac coach, his spirit still breathing and laughing in the hearts and minds of his family who now mourned for him.

It is in this state that we slowly begin the long lonely journey of learning not to speak to the dead person aloud, but only internally in prayer and in our minds, a one-way conversation with the void where we know we all eventually are absorbed.

With the coffin placed securely on the lowering machine, the Deacon began his sermon on the grass, starting with the Prayer of Commendation:

“Into your hands, Father of mercies,

we commend our brother

in the sure and certain hope

that, together with all who have died in Christ,

he will rise with him on the last day.”

Breaking this quiet prayer and serenity, a late model Corvette creeped through the throng of parked cars along the narrow cemetery paved road aimed directly towards the funeral ceremony. The driving was erratic and the music from the car could be heard by every one in the area. The Deacon continued:

“We give you thanks for the blessings

which you bestowed upon our brother in this life:

they are signs to us of your goodness

and of our fellowship with the saints in Christ.”

Awakened from a slumber, the funeral party began to comprehend the interruption heading their way- the loud exhaust from the car, the song “I Can’t Quit You Baby” blasting from the open top and the driver completely oblivious to his surroundings, flush in the face, drunk or high or both. In his walled in consciousness and tone deaf to the scene into which he intruded, he parked a few feet from the funeral, turned off his car and kept the stereo on blasted to 11, echoing in the valley.

“Said you know I love you baby

My love for you I could never hide

Oh, you know I love you baby

My love for you I could never hide

Oh when I feel you near me little girl

I know you are my one desire”

Meanwhile the Deacon continued but the son of the deceased walked over to the car to try to dissuade him from interrupting the funeral service. Deacon continued

“Merciful Lord,

turn toward us and listen to our prayers:

open the gates of paradise to your servant

and help us who remain

to comfort one another with assurances of faith”

The conversation between the son and the man in the car only exacerbated the friction between the two worlds. The man in the car was there to visit his dead wife’s grave. His age accelerated by drink and depression, his body was bloated and weak. It was his weekly ritual to continue his drunken mourning at his wife’s grave, the last place he ever saw her.

He opened his door to get out and confront the son who now stepped back. Stepping out of the car and up, the man swayed on his feet as the blood and oxygen rushed to his head and he now noticed the looks from the 20 bystanders looking in shock and disgust.

In this state of horror, all those involved looked on as an already awful situation began to turn even more difficult, more horrible and even harder to forget.

The Deacon continued with his committal sermon

“until we all meet in Christ

and are with you and with our brother for ever.

Through Christ, our Lord.”

The two of them argued and gesticulated a few feet apart, neither understanding or forgiving the other.

“I am burying my dad!” he told the man, his forehead wrinkling with angst and eyes bulging in nausea.

The man was not hearing any of this, lost in his drunken grief, senses locked in the tunnel vision of what he was there to do. This crazy clash of two worlds continued, each of them sure of their own right to express their mourning as they needed, overlapping, at the same time and without care for the boundaries of the other.

“I am visiting my dead wife, I come here every week and I am going to come here now” he finally blurted out.

With the two of them at a stand off, finally the Funeral Director came over to where the man and the son where arguing. He knew the man and called out to him to try to appeal to his conscience and consciousness.

“Rob… not now Rob, this is not the right time”, said the Funeral Director. But the man argued and gesticulated at him again until finally making his point, the Funeral Director took Rob’s arm and made it final “Rob, not now you need to leave. Now Rob, now…”

With that, the man hunched over and staggering, returned to his car and slowly removed himself from the stage, still blasting the final chords of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” from his car on the way out.