Meredith’s Musings | The White Box

article by Meredith McKinnie

We gathered at the funeral home – me, Mom, Dad – only one day after Sister’s passing. We huddled around the table, exchanged pleasantries with the funeral home director, and pieced together the people we knew in common. Turns out, the funeral director had gone to school with my brother, though he didn’t know the Sister we were there to bury. The wound was still fresh, the news still settling, the reality too horrific to fathom, but the endless questions and immediacy of planning a funeral forced reality upon us. “How old was she?” the director inquired.”36…she would be 37 tomorrow,” Mom replied. The director winced, Dad sniffled, Mom nodded, and a tear escaped down my cheek.

Dad kept asking the director if he knew random people. “What about ‘fill in the blank’? You know him?” Mom and I wanted to be anywhere else, and attempted rushing through the questions. As Dad refuses to hurry anything, he kept distracting himself by seeking personal connections, ties to the still living. In retrospect, I wonder if he was making sure he could entrust this man with his little girl, the one he never expected to bury. She was to be left to his care – Dad was searching for proof that he’d care.

In an adjacent room, we considered several coffin options. Dad veered toward a mauve box with hand-carved roses weaving throughout. It looked like what Dad imagined for a little girl. At that moment, I remembered that to him, Sister was probably still a little girl – his little girl. Mom and I spotted the bright white box with silver handles. It looked like an over-sized jewelry box, clean and simple, yet elegant and sophisticated. It looked youthful, still in its prime. Bonnie was never one for dramatic color or large fashion statements. She preferred clean lines, classic silhouettes. She didn’t need embellishments to stand out. We chose the white box and selected a red rose spray to be lain on top – quintessentially classic. On the way out, I joked with Dad that with the cost difference, the mauve box being more expensive, he got the rose spray for free. Dad smiled, patted my back, and left his hand on my shoulder – his way of saying thank you.

During the service a week later, the white box shined from the front of the church. I have mixed feelings about a coffin being present at a funeral. It symbolizes death, and we want to celebrate our loved ones having lived. But it sure was pretty. Sister would have said so. At the grave site, the now-smaller crowd hovered around the white box, half under the tent and half standing in the bright sun, though the January day was chilly. Seated on the family row, I stared into my reflection in the silver handles. The crowd behind me appeared distorted and distant. I thought about the funerals I’d attended before, how Sister would often be standing close by, no doubt lightening the mood with some irreverent comment. She always forced me to laugh when it was most inappropriate. I wanted to laugh then, to commemorate her presence. I settled for a smile. I imagined she would have leaned in and said, “You look pretty today, Meredith.” I’d worn a long navy dress with butterflies throughout the print. When I pulled it out of my closet the night prior, I knew I was choosing butterflies to remind me of my Sister for the rest of my life. I think I made the right choice.

As the crowd dispersed, each person walked by, hugged the family, and placed a flower on the white box. Some slightly grazed it with one hand; others tapped it with a closed fist. The motion says goodbye to someone not there to respond. The box stood so gallantly above the overturned red dirt. I kept thinking it was a shame to get that pretty box so dirty. It felt wrong to just leave my Sister there, alone in the ground. This ritual, so often practiced, felt not enough for such a full but short life. What could we do but take her out in style, to give her the dignity of a classic box with clean lines and fresh red flowers. I don’t know how much all the accoutrements matter, whether the details signaled the love we still hold for her. But we hold it nonetheless. We made the choices we hoped she would have made. We wish we had never had to make them at all.