My two previous ramblings about the Indian Funeral had a point. And that point is, the tribe of my husband believes that in the hours after the burial the dead will share with the family a last meal, a feast.
We shared a meal with my husband's grandmother, after her family took up shovels and rakes, took off jackets and hats, and buried her themselves. The men dispatched by the county to take care of such things stood in the background in their faded denim, watching the family take up their shovels.
Grapes of Wrath dirt makes a terrible lonely and hollow thud when it hits a casket 6 feet deep. Being Baptist, I'd never heard such a sound. Baptists don't usually bury their dead. We don't eat with them either...
But my husband's tribe does. And during the feast, while I sat behind my husband, spouses can't sit beside the blood-kin, I thought about our little one, gone too soon. The family probably wondered why the white girl was crying on her fry bread.
I didn't just eat with his grandmother. I ate with my baby too.
No comments:
Post a Comment