“You wouldn’t believe what once
or twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.” — Mary Oliver from The World I Live In, a poem.
Captain Mark, who skippered tankers out of Valdez was sent off like a Viking by his friends and family. His wife and her sister built a Viking ship out of waxed fish boxes. It had a red and white paper sail and we placed wild and garden flowers in it before it was carried solemnly down to the beach at the cannery. Ketch tried to light it with a flaming arrow, and it was smoking a bit, so Sean sprayed more fuel on it and then ran at it with with a burning stick, tossed it in the hold, and half-dove away just as the first box of fireworks inside it exploded. As it burned, Mark’s wife launched a dozen more sparkling chrysanthemums into the sky. The blasts echoed off the cliffs. “Cover your ears!”
I stood farther back and watched and hoped we didn’t have to call an ambulance. I thought about life and death and big bangs and glorious sunsets. When more mortars were unpacked and we were all urged to light what looked like cartoon sticks of dynamite, Debra left to rescue her dog, who was in the car. A bottle of whiskey was passed around and we took sips and toasted Mark. There was silence, except for the waves and the crackling embers, and a few quiet conversations, but no one was quite ready to leave. Should we say a few words? How about a song? Glen lead us in a sea shanty call-and-response sing-a-long.
What do you do with a drunken sailor? Shave his belly with a rusty razor! Earl-eye in the morning. Ho, hey and up she rises.. We sang timidly at first then louder and more on key, verse after verse. I knew at least most of it from grade school music class.
I had been writing Sam’s obituary before we came out to the cove for Mark’s send off. Sam and his plane went down in the mountains the week before, right after a terrific wedding on this same beach. Sam was supposed to come to the party but at the last minute did a favor for a pilot and his wife from Yakutat who needed a ride home from Juneau. They never made it. It still seems impossible.
Sam was a good, old pilot (78). I love old pilots. He used to tease me about not being a keen flier, and I used to assure him that I’d fly anywhere with him.
As the fire died down and the last of the big fireworks were launched. (Cover your ears, hold my beer, run!) I thought I’d never let my kids do this. Someone is going to get killed or maimed. Then I thought, shouldn’t we say a little something, a few holy words. But what? To say they are in a better place isn’t true. Look around at where we are. Who would want to leave all this? My T-shirt said Fair Winds and Following Seas. It was last year’s Southeast Alaska State Fair theme. It was perfect. So I whispered that to whomever might be listening.
It was one of those nights that was such an emotional scramble of laughter, tears, reverence, and a bit of terror thanks to the amount of fireworks and the old knees on a lot of the igniters ( I mean, what if he falls? )– And “cover your years” is the same direction Sam gave when he blasted the cannon up at the Fort in town on the 4th of July.
Calling a funeral “a celebration of life” is a challenge. I mean, when a cool guy like Mark or Sam dies it doesn’t feel like a time to dance. And yet, we turned mourning not exactly into dancing as scripture says– but certainly singing and lighting stuff on fire in a sunset made for joy and awe. So I stood there, grateful and wistful. What a world. I will miss this life, we all will, won’t we?
Before I turned to walk back to the truck with Chip, I looked up, and I hope– and I want to believe— that I saw Sam and Mark streaking over our heads in those bright, light blue banners in the sky.
