In Loving Memory

by Shannon Bursey

Maisie had never been in a place with so many people she’d never met. They towered over her, like most grown-ups did, and walked in black-clothed clumps as they approached Mom and Auntie Janice and Uncle Larry lined up on the side of the room. From her favorite spot hugged against her mother’s leg, she had to crane her neck all the way back and squint through her crooked pink-framed glasses to see each visitor. Sometimes, she’d tilt her head as far as it could go, looking at everyone upside-down and turning their frowns into smiles. Several had tears in their eyes. Others offered hugs or tender handshakes. Most of them had gray hair.

An older woman wearing a too-many-layered necklace and an exaggerated frown stopped in front of Maisie and Mom.

“I think it is so fitting to have the service on Valentine’s Day,” she said. “You know, your mother used to invite the whole neighborhood over every year to exchange valentines.”

“I remember! Ma insisted that everything had to be on theme. Red velvet cake, strawberry cookies, pink lemonade. She’d buy out the store’s red food coloring and stay up all night baking,” her mother chuckled. It wasn’t her usual laugh, the one she used when Maisie dressed up in silly costumes and danced around the house; this was a foreign bittersweet blend. “Nice to have everyone in the same room again, despite the circumstances.”

“It sure is, dear. Maisie will forever be in our hearts.”

Confused by hearing her name for the hundredth time that day, the young girl tugged on the bottom of Mom’s dress. Her mother placed a comforting hand on top of her head, brushing down rogue pieces of hair that had escaped the hours-old hairspray and gel. Before important events, her mother made an extra effort to wrestle Maisie’s curls into kempt submission; however, inevitably, they would always bounce back into their natural all-over-the-place shape.

The stranger peered down at her, clutching the probably-fake pearls around her neck with a breathy gasp. “And little Maisie! You’re getting so big now! How old are you?”

The pressure of unwanted attention caused the girl to shrink, clinging tighter to the safety of her mother’s thigh.

“It’s okay,” her mother cooed. “Tell Great-Aunt Doris how old you are.”

Maisie’s voice constricted in her suddenly scratchy-cotton throat. Involuntary tears welled in her eyes, partly from the fear of being perceived, partly from the frustration of trying to speak while her body fought to keep her quiet. All she could do was shake her head a timid “no.”

“Sorry, it’s been a long day for her,” Mom explained on her behalf. “She just turned seven.”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful age,” the woman who was apparently a really good aunt said to Maisie. She flashed a dentured toothy grin that tugged her face into even more wrinkles than it already had. Silent tears streamed down the little girl’s cheeks then, a couple drops finding their way to her lips so she could taste their salty sadness.

Thankfully, the old woman didn’t call attention to it, instead adjusting her gaze back to the space above Maisie’s height and moving past them. Mom waved over Dad as she gently peeled her daughter off her lower limb.

“Can you take her please?” she asked.

Relieved to finally see a familiar face, Maisie reached her arms out towards her father. He bent down and picked her up.

“Hey, Daisy Maisie! Why don’t we go explore?” he said as cheerily as he could.

Dad carried her through the crowd, alongside the heart-shaped decorations that were hung on top of busily patterned wallpaper. Dozens and dozens of red roses, Cupid’s and Nana’s favorite, dotted the space. Maisie tried to count them as they went by, but quickly lost track when she tried to add them in multiples rather than going one by one. Instead, she closed her eyes and sniffed the air, attempting to smell them from all the way up on top of the world in Dad’s arms. It smelt like Nana’s house after everyone-and-their-mother decided to bring her bouquets for Mother’s Day.

When she opened her eyes again, she noticed her grandmother lying in a big rectangular box. She was wearing her nice red dress, the one she saved for very special occasions, but her eyes were closed. Her cheeks lacked their usual rosiness, her curly hair lacked its usual bounciness. Of course, she also had on her staple pink-framed glasses, bigger and thicker and more intact than Maisie’s.

Last time she went to the eye doctor, Maisie had insisted on getting pink frames so she could match Nana. The next time the family went to visit her at the hospital, she excitedly ran with spectacles in hand to show her. However, since the glasses weren’t on her face where they needed to be, she tripped on something unseen and fell. Maisie wasn’t hurt—kids on a mission tend not to feel the pain of their own mishaps—but the glasses were decidedly broken.

Devastated, she presented the misshapen frames to Nana. Her grandmother invited her to crawl onto the bed beside her, and together they used a combination of determination, shaky hands, and Scotch tape to reconstruct them. When they had finished, Nana placed them on her granddaughter’s face, where they sat pitifully lopsided on her nose and haphazard tape tickled her ear.

“There. All better,” her grandmother smiled.

And so it was.

Maisie knew this wasn’t the same Nana lying before her now. Dad seemed to walk quicker past the open casket, turning his body so that Maisie wouldn’t see it (or at least, couldn’t look at it longer than he didn’t know she already had). They went into the adjoining room with outdated parlor furniture and rose-tinted finger foods.

“Uh-oh,” her father said, dramatically dragging his feet. Maisie giggled as Dad began his usual bit. “The gravity must be stronger here. You’re getting so heavy. Can’t... go... any... further!” He plopped her down on the sofa, wiping his brow. “Phew! We made it! I think that deserves a snack. What do you say?”

Maisie nodded excitedly, the mention of food reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since before the musty building with stained glass windows.

While Dad was preparing them a plate of the nearby food, a group of more people she didn’t recognize came by to speak with her father. He exchanged pleasantries while keeping a paternally watchful eye on Maisie, who—never the troublemaker—was sitting patiently waiting for him.

While Dad conversed, she replayed in her mind what she had been told by the family strangers throughout the day.

“Your grandmother has passed.”

Passed what...she wasn’t sure. Was there a test to get into heaven?

“She’s in a better place now.”

As far as she knew, there were lots of other better places to be. The ice cream stand where they split banana splits. The roller skating rink where Maisie just learned how to spin in a circle. The end of Nana’s couch that was always more cozy because of the sun from the window.

“It’s just like she’s gone to sleep forever.”

Maisie wondered if there was something she was supposed to do when she went to bed tonight to ensure she’d wake up in the morning. What if she never did? She’d never again see Mom or Dad or Nana...Well, she supposed she already wasn’t going to visit Nana anymore. The realization caught her off-guard, and her eyes stung with the threat of new tears.

Before the bigger-than-her emotions opened the floodgates, a man sat on the loveseat across from her. He was wearing a black vest with a red bowtie, his salt-and-pepper hair combed into a neat part. Unlike the other people she encountered lately, there was a golden pin on his shirt that informed her who he was: CONNOR O’KEEFE. Funeral Director. There was an indescribably warm aura about him, something that made Maisie less nervous than she usually was with new people.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look in her direction. Maisie studied him as he carefully unwrapped two heart-shaped lollipops at once. He popped one into his mouth, then looked incredulously at the other, as if noticing it for the first time.

“Goodness! It seems I’ve opened two by mistake. If only there was someone I could give this to,” he wondered to no one in particular.

Maisie scooted closer towards the man, adjusting her funny glasses to read the word “cherry” on the wrapper. She scanned the room for Dad, who was historically the more lenient gatekeeper of sweets. Noticing the situation but still preoccupied with company, he smiled at the director before giving his daughter an approving nod. She beamed.

“Can I please have the other lollipop?” Maisie asked.

He looked at her then, a kind, not-sad smile brightening his face. “Of course.”

She grabbed it gently, then triumphantly stuck the sucker in her mouth. Through the candy, she uttered, “Thank you!”

“I couldn’t have eaten both of those myself. I should be thanking you, Miss...?”

“Maisie.”

“Miss Maisie,” he repeated, glancing over at the casket where the deceased elder Maisie lay. “I’m Mr. Connor. I know your grandmother.”

She took the lollipop out of her mouth. “How do you know her?”

“I’m a mortician.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a lot of things. I help families plan events like this. I drive the hearse—that’s the big black car—to the cemetery. But most of my job is taking care of the bodies of people who have died.”

“Like Nana,” Maisie said.

“Yes, like your Nana,” he replied. “How do you feel about that?”

“Okay,” she said automatically. She sucked on the candy thoughtfully, distantly remembering how she was about to cry a few minutes ago. “Sad.”

He nodded. “That’s okay too.”

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the sugary taste of cherry on this morose Valentine’s Day.

“I like your bowtie,” Maisie finally said.

“Thank you. I like your pink glasses.”

“Thanks. They’re broken.”

“I noticed,” he replied. “I like them better that way. It looks like they have a unique story to tell.”

“Glasses can’t tell stories.”

“The people behind them can.”

As she considered this, Maisie noticed that her legs were too short to reach the floor; naturally, she started swinging them back and forth. A new thought popped in her head, then immediately came out of her mouth. “How many dead people have you seen?”

Mr. Connor grinned.“I’ve been a mortician for forty years, so...a lot.”

“More than a hundred?”

“Yes. More than a hundred.”

“Wow,” she marveled. “Were any of them scary?”

“Well, none of them came alive again so that’s good. That would have been really frightening if someone started moving.” Crossing his eyes, he held his arms out in front of him like a mummy and stuck his tongue out with a groan. Maisie laughed.

“That doesn’t look scary!”

He reverted back to his normal expression. “You don’t think so? You must be very brave then.”

She smiled shyly, not used to hearing that word to describe herself—especially coming from an adult.

“You must be brave too.”

“I try to be,” Mr. Connor replied. “Sometimes I have to work with people who died because of scary things though. A car accident, a terrible sickness. Or I see folks come in who are younger than me, who didn’t get to live a great long life like your Nana did. That can be hard.”

Maisie scrunched her eyebrows together, twirling the stick of her half-eaten, lumpy-looking lollipop heart. “Why do you do it?”

“I’ve asked myself that many times over the years,” he admitted. “But I always find the same answer. I like helping people, and this job lets me do that every day.”

“It does?”

“Oh yes! You see, no matter how someone dies, I have the very important task of preserving their physical body. I may not be able to fix it to be exactly the way that their loved ones remember, but with careful attention to detail, I can make them look at peace.”

The last few trips to the hospital, Maisie had noticed that Nana was different. A curly-straw-like tube connected her hand to a bag of red jelly behind her. If Maisie climbed up on the hospital bed, her parents warned her to be extra careful not to bump into her too much or too hard. The visits grew shorter and shorter, as Nana needed more naps.

She did look peaceful now. Maisie was happy to know that Mr. Connor had taken good care of her, but was sad to arrive at the conclusion that Nana couldn’t come back home to the people that loved her. It was a strange sensation for the young girl, joy that made her cry and somber that made her smile experienced in the same moment.

“I think you did a good job,” Maisie said with a sniffly grin.

“I appreciate that. It’s nice to know that my work brought some comfort for her family and friends.”

“I wish she was actually here, though.”

Mr. Connor nodded in understanding.

“Can you hold up two fingers?” he asked, putting up his own pointer and middle fingers as an example. She copied him. “Now place them on the inside of your wrist on your other hand. Do you feel that?”

Maisie concentrated on the spot. Slowly, she felt a faint but steady ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum.

“Yeah!” she said.

“That’s your heartbeat,” he explained. “Now there are lots of science-y explanations for this, but my favorite is one that I didn’t learn in school. Back when my grandmother was still alive, she told me that it’s the sound of all our loved ones—past, present, and even future—cheering us on. So if you’re feeling sad, just listen to your heartbeat and know that you’re never alone. Their love always lives inside you.”

Maisie paused and continued listening, warmth filling her like one of Nana’s hugs. When she was feeling better, she stood up and threw her arms around the mortician. Dad started to approach them with a plate of cut-up vegetables in hand, staying back a few paces so as not to interrupt.

“Thank you,” she said into his chest. Maisie could feel some tears creating a wet spot on his vest.

When she pulled away, Mr. Connor looked her in the eyes through her lovingly-repaired pink-framed glasses.

“You’re very welcome, Miss Maisie.”

The director stood up to greet her father, whose eyes had also become glassy, partly from the loss of his mother-in-law, partly at the sight of Maisie breaking out of her shell. The two men shook hands.

“Take care now. And Happy Valentine’s Day to you both,” Mr. Connor said with a final genuine smile.

Dad sat on the couch beside his daughter. Before he could put his plate down, Maisie was already eagerly placing her fingers on her Dad’s wrist and sharing the tale that she had just been told. Satisfied that she was going to be okay, the mortician left them to rejoin the gathering of the living.

***

Fifteen Years Later.

Maisie meandered through the cemetery, reading the gravestones through her new pair of pink-framed glasses, which already had a scratch on them from being placed too close to the bouquet of thorny red roses during the drive. She had never met most of the people buried here, but she wondered about the lives they lived, all the stories they had to tell. Maybe she could use some of their names in the book she was writing.

It was a sunny winter’s day, the kind that could trick you into thinking it was warm until you stepped outside and felt the chill in the air. She closed her eyes and tilted her head all the way back to soak in the sunlight, smelling the sweet scent of the flowers she carried. It was peaceful here; away from the liveliness of the city, she could hear the comforting sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. When Maisie opened her eyes again, she spotted Nana's headstone.

Maisie felt that familiar happy-sad blend, one she had gotten to know even better over the years—when she broke up with her toxic boyfriend or when she graduated college and packed up her dorm room for the last time or when she suddenly thought of her dead grandmother while eating a banana split.

She crouched down and used the sleeve of her jacket to dust off the helicopter seeds and pollen that cluttered the gravestone. Hoping to better preserve the carved text, she picked pieces of moss out of the letters “M” and “A.” Then, she gingerly removed the dead bodies of petals from previous flowers and placed all but two of the new roses on this resting place.

“I love you, Nana,” she said.

She straightened and lingered for a moment in her memory. Eventually, she turned and continued down the path, twirling the stems of the final flowers she was holding. Finally, Maisie arrived at the other grave she intended to visit.

“It seems I’ve brought two roses by mistake,” she wondered aloud to the quiet cemetery. “If only there was someone who I could give this to.”

Chuckling to herself, Maisie kept one, then shared the other with the man who lay before her.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Connor.”