Burial

BURIAL
JON-JACOB POCAHONTAS was born with serious medical problems. Six weeks premature, he was rushed in mid-labor to the closest hospital–-one hour away–-where, by the time he arrived, he was already partially born-–posterior, his mother unable to push him out. It was a forceps delivery, but the real problem was that the umbilical cord had wrapped itself around little Jon-Jacob’s neck, cutting off the necessary oxygen supply for an estimated eight minutes. Eight critical minutes. The result: severe brain damage, deafness, blindness, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and, it appeared, epilepsy. As if things weren’t bad enough, he was also unable to suck.
But he was alive, had two adoring parents who loved him entirely, and a team of physicians who rallied around the clock to keep his tiny, little body functioning. Though the prognosis was not good, it looked like he was going to make it-–at least for awhile.
And he did make it--for awhile.
Though the first few weeks were touch-and-go, he seemed to stabilize after a time, and Mom and Dad Pocahontas were able to finally bring him home: two months to the day after his birth. Still, despite the hopes everyone had, the facts were sobering: he had to be tube fed; he was gaining no weight; his skin developed deep sores and bruises for no apparent reason; and he made few, if any, meaningful movements or sounds. He didn’t even cry. Except once: A week after his arrival home, Mom and Dad P. decided to have him circumcised. Taken back to the hospital and strapped tightly to the board, he made soft little semi-sounds during the entire ten-minute procedure–-sounds that could have been interpreted as a cry, though the doctor said it was probably just a coincidence. At the end of the surgery a single tear rolled from each eye.
Home again, J-J was photographed constantly. His parents’ favorite picture was of the three of them: Mom on the left and Dad on the right, and their son between, on Mom’s lap. The original picture showed an expressionless face with a vacant stare, but the photographer was able to touch it up into something that they were all very pleased with. They had two enlargements made: one for the night stand by their bed, and the other in a beautiful frame over the mantle above the hearth of the fireplace.
As the months drew on, the caring parents began to realize the very real consequences of raising a child with such grave disabilities. Often at night, they’d wake up to the sound of the alarm monitor that indicated that J-J’s breathing had stopped. They’d take turns getting up to revive him. But sometimes, in the privacy of their own thoughts, they’d ask, What’s the point? Neither of them ever voiced the view to the other, but they had each considered the option. Of course, they never acted on the impulse; and when little J-J died–-legitimately–-at the age of one year, one month, and one day, they grieved as any parents would.
The casket was small, and during the viewing the evening before the funeral–-and the morning of–-he looked beautiful: at peace and dressed in his mother’s favorite yellow sleeper. His tiny hands, one on top of the other, rested across his stomach. There was hardly any crying when the lid was closed for the last time and fastened.
The funeral was brief.
The internment, however, went not quite so smoothly. At the cemetery the casket had been placed atop the steel frame above the grave, and when the workers began to lower it into the ground, one of the pullies failed to operate properly. The casket slid into the grave with a thud and rested on one end. The small crowd gasped in horror, while the workers sweated and swore under their breath. Mom and Dad Pocahontas were beside themselves. The director of the funeral home rushed over and ordered the workers to retrieve the casket, which they were already doing. They got it out of the grave, but the parents were still carrying on. The director, for his part, tried to approach them, but all they could say was, "Our baby! Our baby!" over and over again.
When they had finally calmed down enough to be able to articulate their feelings, Mom Pocahontas said that she couldn’t imagine what their little darling had just been through, that he must be a mess there inside the coffin, tipped on his head, with his yellow sleeper crumpled and rumpled, and that there must be something they could do.
The director thought and thought and finally brought the workers over and asked if they could open up the casket.
"Let’s take a look," he said.
They had the tools right there with them, and in no time at all, they had the lid off. J-J was still inside, of course, but no longer with his hands folded across his stomach. Now they were up near his face and bent at an awkward angle; the rest of his body too had scrunched up to one end of the inside of the box, and his head lay twisted in an odd way, the stitches in his mouth torn and some of the embalming fluid leaking and wetting his hair. Mom and Dad Pocahontas burst into more howls, while the director himself worked to arrange the body to its better position, straightening the pajamas and rearranging the hands and wiping about the face with his own handkerchief. Done, he once again approached the grieving parents and asked for their permission to close the casket.
They granted it, and the workers, who had repaired and tested the pulley devices while the director had done his job, carefully lifted the casket and carried it over to its final place. Those who had remained gathered once more for the burial, which now proceeded without further incident.