Sitting Up With the Dead

Dear Bubba,

How you doing in the hoosegow? Good I hope! Well, last Saturday I was down to the Looking Good Beauty Salon on Main Street getting my hair curled. As usual, Emma had a shop full of customers. We were all lamenting the early demise of dear ol’ Uncle Grady. He surely will be missed! After all he was a good Christian although he came late to the congregation and shortly after he gave up the moonshining business. He died a natural death, old age I reckon, but we all thought for sure he would be leaving this world in a blaze of glory. There was that time when his still blowed up from his half-wit son putting too much wood under the cooker. He only suffered second degree burns, nothing of any real importance. Granny just salved him up with that old rosin and lard remedy she makes for all sorts of injuries, tied a rag on each hand and let him go. He healed real good but his batch of shine was ruined.

Uncle Grady was laid out at our family church down at the foot of Jewell Ridge. It was a real nice funeral. He looked so natural in his new blue suit. All the elders and the sisters was there.. We had three nights of preaching and singing down to the church. A whole bunch of backsliders came back into the fold after hearing the fire and brimstone sermons Brother Earl preached. All in all, I am very sure Uncle Grady would have thought this was a real nice funeral. Why even the president of the miners’ union came to speak of our uncle’s contributions to the community, most specifically, giving to the poor up in the hollers including a few widows. He will be sorely missed.

Well, I was sitting there waiting my turn to get my hair done, and Effie and Howard came into the shop and brought a big old bag of Hardee biscuits and about ten cups of coffee for the ladies getting fixed up. They do that every Saturday morning regular as clock work. Everyone was talking about how nice the funeral was and we got to recollecting the days before dead folk was embalmed. Now I know it’s hard to believe in this day and age of modern science that only forty years ago, people was put in the ground untouched. Winter wasn’t so bad back then, but the summertime presented us with some problems, heat and bugs and such. Remember how they used to lay people out on the bed at home? Then later, they was laid out in the living room with them fancy lamps at each end of the casket? Those brought back some real bittersweet memories.

Emma was telling us about he r uncle who died when she was child. She said they had him laid out in the parlor at her granny’s house. They called all the family in from states all around. Everybody got there by the second day, except for his useless brother from Ohio. Why it took him a week to get his sorry behind up in the holler to pay his respects. Well, if that wasn’t bad enough, Emma says, that old boy was laid out so long, the corpse starting turning purple and black.

She said, “I swear, that boy was turning black. Hit was the awfullest sight ever was!”

But you know how them old families are. Everybody had to be home before they will plant ‘em in the ground.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, they commenced to talking about sittin’ up with the dead. Yeap. Sittin’ up with the dead. There was this time when old Emma and her sisters was taking turns sittin’ up with Cousin Delmar while everybody else slept. You know it just wasn’t respectable to leave that poor old dead person alone…I’m not sure why…but there she was taking a turn. Well family was all over the place. Some was sleeping six to a big bed, three to the head and three to the foot. Then there was some sleeping in the floor and a few old boys out on the back porch. covered themselves with Granny’s patchwork quilts. You know nights get a bit damp and chilled even in the summer. Then there was a few younger cousins sleeping in the back of the station wagon down by the creek. Everything was real quite and peaceful like.

So Emma was sittin’ up and she was feeling a little spooked being alone and all. She was trying hard to stay awake, walking around the room, humming a few old gospel songs and drinking pop, remembering what preacher Ralph said about cousin getting his rewards in heaven. This was rather comforting as her cousin wasn’t in the best standing and fellowship with the church when he left this world. Finally she settled down in the rocker next to the fireplace safe and sound, when all of a sudden cousin Delmar sat straight up in the casket. That’s right, he sat up straight as can be. Poor Emma almost died of fright. That poor child was so affected by the sight of that dead man lifting out the casket, she just couldn’t go to a funeral for years. To be perfectly honest, she still has troubles on account of that unfortunate experience. Poor thing.

Well, after swapping all them tales of funerals and eating on them Hardee biscuits, I found myself looking in the mirror and I must say, I looked some kind of fine with that new hair-do. I’m going church tomorrow, so I’ll have to wrap my hair-do in toilet tissue to keep it nice and not mess it up when I sleep tonight.

Well, Bubba, I’ll be writing you soon. Look forward to your release. Take care.

Love, Sissy