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Chapter 13
A Town Turns Out For a Funeral

Though I still felt we had a really fucked up family, my mom was the closest thing to a sane family member that I had. We grew closer after I moved out, and we grew even closer as I was preparing to come out to her. Raised by illiterate, poor French parents who often, couldn't put food on the table, as a child, she worked hard in school to learn her lessons AND the English language at the same time. The family's resources were so meager that they often went hungry. Sometimes they had to make a meal out of the only things left in the cupboard, flour and oil. Flour and oil cooked together makes a ROUX which is used as a staple flavoring and thickening agent in Gumbo's and other Cajun cooking. Mamma, my grandmother, would make roux sandwiches for her 3 children to take to school. I remember mom telling me that once she traded her sandwich with someone by telling him it was a peanut butter sandwich and then running away from him as fast as she could before he figured it out.

I thought about my mom a lot over the next few days and noticed that my father never cried, or even seemed to noticeably grieve about the loss of his wife.

Mom had gotten her GED the year before, and was working as a teaching assistant at school. On the day of mom's funeral, the principal announced early release for anyone wishing to attend the funeral. Even though it could have been used as reason to go home early, over 300 children were there when the funeral procession arrived, lining the sidewalk from the street to the doors of Saint Joseph's Catholic Church, forming a honor guard that had never been seen before in our tiny town of Loreauville. I felt their shared love, and loss, as we walked between them, accompanying the pall bearers who gently carried my mom and Sandra's caskets into the church filled with their friends.

Four priests requested to con-celebrate her funeral mass. I don't think anything of this magnitude had ever happened in our church. A visiting priest might occasionally con-celebrate a mass, but to have FOUR priests want to be present for my mom's funeral mass was further evidence of the effect she had on our entire town and its people.

Fr. Carey, who at that time was a very well known priest, Christian music writer and musician, was attached to the church at the university that I attended. I got to know him pretty well over the 2 years that I was there by volunteering and performing with him at retreats and workshops. He and my catholic student center (Neumann Center) friends asked what they could do to support me at this time. Knowing that the last thing we needed was a FIFTH con-celebrator for the mass, I asked Fr. Carey if he would sing for the mass. He said he would be honored to, and I more or less forgot about it because of all of the sudden turmoil in my life.

As we entered the church behind mom and Sandra's caskets, I heard the singing of Fr. Carey and my Neumann center friends. The appropriateness of the words crushed my resolve to not break down during the service:

Can a Mother forget her baby?
Or a woman, the child within her womb?
Yet even if these forget,
yes even if these forget,
I will never forget my own.
I will never forget you my people,
I have carved you in the palm of my hand,
I will never forget you,
I will not leave you orphaned,
I will never forget my own.
(Isaiah 49:15-16)

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