mother loved you all," he began, "and I know that she would be touched and honored to see so many of you gathered here together this morning in this beautiful place to give thanks for her life."
He paused and glanced down for a moment, as if checking his shoelaces. The faintest shiver passed through the crowd, like a whisper of breeze on a still summer day, barely enough to ruffle the glassy surface of a pond. Crowds at funerals did not burst into applause. They shifted in their seats, looked at their watches, and ran a tongue quickly around their lips.
"Her life didn't last as long as we expected and probably not as long as she expected," Philip went on. "Her serving of life was a little small, but the funny thing about a serving of life is that we don't know how big or small it is until it's gone, all eaten. Another funny thing is that the size of the serving doesn't have anything to do with how good it tastes."
He paused.
"My mother loved her life," he said. "She ate it up. She savored it. I know she wanted more, the same way we all wanted her to have more. We all want more for ourselves and everyone we know. She didn't get more, but she didn't feel sorry for herself. She was grateful for what she had been given. She enjoyed it. She enjoyed all of you, and I know she would be touched and honored to see you all here this morning, in her memory. So, on her behalf, I thank you all for being here today and for being part of her life. You made her time on earth richer and better, and I know she hoped she did at least a little of the same for you.
"As many of you know, my father died years ago, when I was a teenager. I know I wasn't expecting his death and wasn't ready for it, but maybe we're never ready to lose a parent. It means too much, it's always momentous, and the world can never be the same, but it happens anyway.
"My mother never complained about losing her husband, although she must have been as surprised and unprepared as I was. She never complained about being left alone to raise a teenage son -- about becoming a single parent involuntarily. She did complain about me sometimes – right to my face."
He paused to let this laugh line play out.
"But she was always there. She made sure I had what I needed. She expected me to be something. She expected me to make something of myself. She had expectations, and a child needs those. You steer by them whether you agree with them or not. They help orient you to the world and figure out which way you're meant to go, even if you end up going in another direction.
"I particularly want to thank Caricia, Sam's mother, who came out here on a holiday just after the first of the year and found herself in a war zone. She laced up her boots and stuck it out, and there's no way we could have managed without her. There's no way for me to thank you, Caricia, for everything you did, everything I saw with my own eyes and a lot more I'm sure I didn't see. I can only say thank you. I can only say that you made life better at an impossible time, not just for my mother but for Sam and me. If God is listening today, in this beautiful house of His, I want Him to know this about you. I'm sure He does know, but I want Him to hear it coming straight from my lips. You are what we should all try to be."
Sam needed no introduction, so far as Philip was concerned. By not mentioning Sam's significance, he was stressing it. With a quick nod of the head, Philip stepped away from the pulpit and returned to his seat in the front row. He had kept away from politics, spoken of love, been funny and, most important, been succinct. Voters tended to appreciate brevity in their speechifyers and to reward them for it.
The priest took his place on the dais. There was a prayer, a hymn, another prayer, a benediction and, at last, a recessional in which the casket was solemnly wheeled away from the front of the sanctuary. It disappeared through a door and out of sight. It would be loaded into a hearse for the brief trip to the crematorium and a small private service. The party, an open house, would begin in mid-afternoon.
It was no surprise, really, Philip thought, that tales of heroic and supernatural deeds lay largely in the deeps of time. The casket-wheelers paused at the side door.
Long ago, there had been no television cameras, no bloggers or texters or cell-phone video, and no 4G. Long ago, there had been more imagination, because there had to be. Imagination wilted in the glare of reality, and people too shrank. Famous individuals loomed large and godlike for a time on oversized flat-panel screens in sports bars and airport lounges, until their pettinesses, weaknesses and vices were exposed. Their humanness emerged, and they were replaced, for a time, by other oversized figures. As gadgetry dissolved imagination, the passings of the seasons of man were vastly accelerated.
Jesus, if and whoever He had been, wouldn't have gotten far in such a culture, Philip supposed. He wouldn’t have had a chance. The tomb from which He rose on Easter Sunday would have been dusted for fingerprints and subjected to microfiber analysis. So would the rock the angels rolled away from the mouth of the cave. Surveillance cameras would show conclusive proof that the crucifixion had been faked, or the resurrection had been staged with a stand-in. The blood stains on the burial garment didn't match Jesus's known blood type and were in fact pig’s blood. Dental records indicated a hoax. Mary Magdalen refused to release her tax returns and had given inconsistent accounts to separate satellite-news services about the nature of her marriage and pregnancy. Judas had a Swiss bank account!
Jesus had been a dissenter and an outsider. He had challened received wisdom and established authority. Dissenters made fine kamikaze pilots who put on memorable shows for a moment or two, but they had a way of turning themselves into ashes and were soon forgotten. They tended to be history's losers, and the winners wrote history. The winners wrote it the way they liked it. They wrote it in the way that most flattered them. Ashes were swept up and put in the trash can, or the urn.
Philip knew he stood to gain little by public rabble-rousing. He had no wish to turn himself into a heap of noble ashes. You could do no good in the world by getting yourself wiped out, even if you were right. At your mother’s funeral, you said what you were expected to say, and people would quietly applaud you for it. When it came time to vote for you, they would remember.
IV.
By early afternoon the spring sun was warm, but the air remained as cool as the sea. If you stood in the sunlight you soon glowed with heat and wondered if you'd remembered to put some sunblock on the tips of your ears, but if you stepped into the shade in the garden, you almost at once regretted not bringing a sweater. The garden, although a south garden, was full of shady spots.
People drifted by singly and in clumps, sweating and shivering. From two kettle barbecues rose rivulets of smoke that gathered overhead in a thin blue haze. The smoke smelled of chicken breasts marinated in lemon and garlic, kebabs of paprika-swabbed swordfish, skirt steak rubbed with chili powder, bratwurst parboiled in beer and onions, and hamburgers.
On various tables were piled dishes, platters and trays of other delectables brought by the guests. These included potato and pasta salads, macaroni and cheese, a cauldron of white gazpacho, blanched asparagus dressed with Meyer lemon vinaigrette, a strawberry tart, frosted brownies, an amaretto cheesecake, and oatmeal-raisin cookies.
In ice-filled coolers on the brick were dozens of bottles of beer, white wine, sparkling water, still water and fruit-juice coolers. On a nearby table sat a half-dozen bottles of red wine in various states of undress. People poked and picked their way through this bounty as if they were at a rummage sale, interested but anxious not to be seen as greedy or grabby. The smallest of the ambulatory children went straight to the sweets, seeing with their bright eyes one of those priceless childhood moments when the rules and regulations of grown-ups about food were unenforceable and the good stuff could be snapped up without further ado.
In front of the house, television vans fitted with satellite dishes were gathering. Lights flared. Power lines coursed over the pavement like tangled vines. Correspondents with immaculate hair clustered on the sidewalk in front of the house, but Ph
ilip would not let any of them in. He was polite but firm. This was a private function. No, he was not giving interviews at the moment.
Even ambitious political figures had limits, he thought but did not say. It was important to be seen as discreet; it was advantageous to be seen as not taking advantage of a solemn situation. He smiled and let his picture be taken, and that was it. Guests continued to flow up the front stairs bearing their tinfoil- and Gladwrap-wrapped vessels, as if they were ascending a temple to make an offering to some disgruntled deity.
"I see lots of familiar faces," Sam said. "Practically the whole neighborhood is here."
"Not to mention most of the board," Philip said. "Have you seen the mayor?"
"Not yet," Sam said. "I'm not sure I’d recognize her. She changes her hair every five minutes."
At that moment their eyes settled on a woman standing at the door to the study. Was she the mayor? They should have been able to tell for sure, but they couldn’t. The woman was dressed in the subdued style of a certain class of the well-to-do, and she radiated an air of confidence and authority. The well-to-do were important in politics and in the lives of those who lived in and for politics.