I wouldn't Want To Be Found Dead
It was my maternal grandmother, Vivian Bowen Moore, or "Granny," as I affectionately referred to her, who raised me. I was raised by my grandmother from the time I was five years old until the day she died when I was twenty-seven years old. Granny received permission from the courts to do so. Despite the fact that Granny was of normal height, she had the most gorgeous salt and pepper hair, save for a streak of solid white hair that swooped from left to right and framed her face. She took great pleasure in her beauty, and she never left the house without being "put together," as she put it. The women of her generation were brought up in a similar manner as well.
Her girdles were the one piece of apparel she wore over and over again. Granny was even renowned for mowing her lawn while wearing her girdle below her shorts. As a result, when my grandmother's burial was held in 1996, my mother and I were surprised to discover that the girdle we had given to the mortician had not been utilized. Naturally, my mother and I asked the funeral home to kindly place Granny in her girdle, which they gladly did, as we had requested. Of course, I can only imagine the difficulty these poor funeral home employees must have experienced in attempting to find out how to properly complete such a difficult assignment. Having worked in a funeral home for a small amount of time myself, I am aware that the deceased are not truly dressed by the morticians. The cloth is usually simply split down the back, put across the corpse, tucked in, and then pinned securely up under his or her head and shoulders. I can imagine the workers desperately trying to put one leg in at a time, pulling and tugging, as this stiff, rigid woman I adored silently chuckled at them from Heaven. I can almost hear her chuckling. They would have appreciated the significance of the girdle if they had had the opportunity to meet my grandmother in person. She insisted on wearing her girdle at all times, claiming that she would be found dead without it. Granny's girdle fetish has been a running joke in my family for as long as I can remember.
When two of my favorite aunts heard about the incident, they decided to check for themselves to see if the item had been placed on her body. They found nothing. We had no idea that one of my extremely round, well-endowed aunts had lifted herself up on the edge of the casket while the rest of us were looking on. She just pulled her body up high enough so that her breasts would lay inside the edge, allowing her to reach in and feel.
It would have humiliated anyone, but these two wonderfully chubby and squatty ladies were not embarrassed by what transpired next. During the time when the one aunt was attempting to push herself away from the coffin in order to find firm ground, the coffin began to give way as well. It was completely weird to hear both of them begging for aid at the same time. My grandmother, for all I know, was yelling for aid as well. Despite narrowly avoiding calamity, the entire room couldn't help but burst into uncontrollable laughter as they realized what had happened. I'm certain that if Granny had been able to speak, she would have said something along the lines of, "I can't even rest in peace because you folks are bugging me."
It has been seventeen years since Granny went to be with the Lord, and there isn't a single day goes by that I don't think about her. In my opinion, she was more larger than life. Despite the fact that she gave up her golden years to raise me, I will always have her looking out for me and my family. My living room is decorated with an 8x10 portrait-style photograph of her, which serves as a continuous reminder of her deep affection for my family.
