“No, not that button. You gotta click the one that says, ‘Stop video.’ Bottom left.”
“Yours says ‘Stop’ because your video’s on. He needs to push ‘Start video,’ and it’ll turn on.”
You say nothing. You scan the other boxes on the video call, trying to match the names and unfamiliar faces to what you recall of the distant branches of your family tree.
Your uncle, the reluctant camera man, turns his phone to provide a horizontal view; it widens the scene, allowing for a full picture of the columbarium and its occupants. You spot your grandmother sitting in the center of the garden, her two daughters standing vigil behind her. You wish your father were there too.
Your grandmother has chosen to wear her red coat and lipstick. You wonder if she’s wearing the blue eyeliner and mascara that she’s convinced make the color of her eyes deepen. You bet that she is—it’s her favorite, you know. You wonder why she began to wear red after her husband died. One thing’s for sure: nothing in your family has ever been conventional, and your grandmother is keeping that tradition alive. You try to remember if she wore red after your father died; you wore pink.
In front of her, the priest or deacon or chaplain—you’re unsure, you weren’t raised Catholic and haven’t participated in church in years—begins to recite a book of prescribed prayers, inserting the deceased’s name when it seems prescribed. Your family members are still arguing over the damn camera. One of your aunts wipes her tears with her coat’s sleeve.
The people on the video call begin to quiet when they hear something about God and love, but you can’t really make out what’s being said because the wind is whipping against your uncle’s phone. Your eyes scan the screen, counting profiles and noting who is in attendance and who is not. You observe that you are the youngest one on the video call and the only one there with the same last name as the deceased.
Your uncle shifts again, and he captures the shaking of your grandmother’s shoulders as her chest heaves and her cries slip between painted lips. You ache for her, wanting to close the distance between you and her, but all you can do is watch as your own eyes become glassy in the corner of the call. Somewhere between your tears, you notice that opening your window’s curtains really helps with the quality of your video. You’ll have to remember that for next time you work from home.
The priest—you’ve decided he must be some sort of priest—throws holy water across the deceased’s urn, reciting Scripture as everyone mumbles along with a monotonous cadence: Amen, Amen, Amen. You wonder if the wind carried some of the holy water across the garden and onto the skin of the living. What would that do? Bless them with the same blessing bestowed on the pile of ash inside that five-inch box?
The priest asks if anyone would like to say a few words. Silence follows, or what you’re sure would be silence if not for the wind still messing with the video’s audio. You wonder if, had you been there in person, you would have stepped up and broken that silence. You’d like to think you would, but you’ve always believed yourself to be braver than you really are.
“We therefore commit this body to the ground,” continues the priest, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.” You watch as your grandmother struggles to stand, bracing herself against her wheelchair, and then walks forward. She places the box into its designated slot. All you can think of is the way the phrase “ashes to ashes” feels wholly inappropriate given that all that remains of the deceased is about two pounds of dust in a tin box, but that could just be your cynical skepticism talking. You’re never sure.
The priest leads everyone in a final prayer. You bow your head in respect, closing your eyes, listening. You were unaware that sometimes they say Amen more than once, and you open your eyes after the first. As the prayers continue, you watch the scene at the columbarium and then find your eyes drifting over the screen. You find a mirror there—the other heads tipped forward in reverent agony, the many roaming eyes. You wonder whether technology disrupts or tempers the power of prayer, whether the idea of faith is just a facade, like the idea of family. How do you quantify grief when it’s placed in front of a camera?
Your grandmother sits back down and curls inward. The priest thanks everyone for attending and places a placard over the slot where the deceased’s box now rests. Your uncle walks forward, determined to get a close-up shot of the name engraved upon granite. Next, he makes his way to your grandmother, placing the camera in front of her, flipping the screen so that she can see your face alongside everyone else on the call, “Look who’s all here!”
Your grandmother shoves the phone away, and you feel disgusted with yourself. You’ve become an intruder to an intimate moment between a widow and her loss. You’ve sat through a menagerie made for mourning and expected a different outcome. Your uncle quickly dismisses the video, thanks you and the others for your attendance, and stops the meeting.
You turn off your computer as quickly as you’re physically able. A sickening feeling simmers inside you as tears trail down your cheeks. Someone is dead and all you can do is stare listlessly into the reflection of yourself watching, looking back from the empty screen over 1,700 miles away. You wonder how obvious your tears were to the rest of your family.