The Loss Of A Loved One [FICTOID]

As funerals go, it went.  There must be an inverse law that the more dignified (read pompous) a person was in real life, the more raucous their send off should be.

So be it.

Uncle Jerome wasn’t a bad sort, but he was a stickler for details and decorum, not the kind of uncle who got down on his hands and knees to play with his nieces and nephews, but the kind who would overreact to the least little breach of etiquette.

We always got the feeling he was balancing on a tightrope stretched across a sewage pit.

A bachelor well past his prime, when he died nobody knew about it for three days, that’s how little anyone wanted to be around him even though they claimed to love him.

He was found in his garden, watering can in his hand, aphids and ants and ladybugs crawling across his bloated face.

We held the funeral in his house, and since it couldn’t be open casket, we saved a ton of money on his burial since we didn’t need to dress him up or make him presentable.

We saved more money on the service by hiring an elderly imam to conduct it.

Uncle Jerome wasn’t Muslim, but he put aside some money for a holy man and we saw nothing wrong with us getting the cheapest one we could find.  And boy howdy, was this imam cheap.  He displayed the mannerisms of a 17th century sultan and the bank account of a 21st century pauper.

“Does anyone know why these two should not be wed?” he asked, standing under the chandelier while reading in unfamiliar English.

“You’re on the wrong page!” we hissed, but he didn’t care, and if he didn’t care, Uncle Jerome cared even less.

© Buzz Dixon