Southern Porches

Some of my most vivid memories as a small child revolve around death. My first exposure to the last goodbye was going to sit-ups with my Grandmother. I can remember curling up on the sofa with my head in her lap. My eyes would be closed and I would be in that twilight stage, half asleep and half awake. There were several older women in the room. They were all there for a “sit up”. A neighbor had passed away and the body had been brought home until the funeral. It was the custom for someone to sit with the body through the night and grandmother was always available to lend a hand. She knew that someday she would be laid out in a front room and would need someone to do the same for her. It was only fitting that she pay her dues.

I had been through this ritual before and knew that the ladies would talk quietly about their gardens, sewing, grandchildren, and church, and when they were sure I had fallen asleep, they would bring up the good stuff. The creepy stories about past sit-ups and tales they had heard about scary nights watching over the newly departed. My favorite was the one where the corpse sat straight up in the coffin as the ladies sipped their ice tea and spun their tales. I always looked forward to someone telling that one. No matter how creepy the stories, and the thought that there was a body in the room, I never felt frightened. My Grandmother was there and I always felt safe and protected in her presence.

I would lie very still and take in the sounds and the smells of the night. The smells of the funeral flowers and the mixture of talc and snuff from the old ladies would be stored in my sensory memory bank forever and the soft Southern voices would soon lull me to that warm, soft place where I would dream my dreams.

This ritual has been abandoned and replaced with the newly departed resting at the funeral home, where we all gather to pay our respects and say our last goodbye. My son and his children will never get to experience this first hand, so I wanted to share this memory. It is a nice one that was my first experience with a natural, inevitable process that I have come to see as a transition to a new place and not just an end to this one.