Dressing for a Funeral

I purged my closet this summer. A big purge that included almost all of my long pants that aren’t sweats. I’ve just started replacing the winter stuff I need now that the weather is going grey, but I wasn’t shopping fast enough and discovered this weekend that I had nothing appropriate for a winter funeral. It’s not my fault, not anyone’s fault really, I just wasn’t planning for a funeral. I wasn’t prepared to say goodbye to someone I last said hello to in July. I’ve been here before – in need of funeral clothes the week of a funeral. It was another funeral I wasn’t prepared for in any way and the feelings are so familiar.

That one, another loss too soon when we were only 25, resulted in a heavy outfit with the old obligatory black theme. As I was paying for it way back then, I hated it. I hated it not just because of why I was buying it, I hated it because it was something I would only ever imagine wearing to a funeral. It hung in my closet for years after, never worn again before ending up in a donation bag a few years later. There was nothing wrong with it – black button-up shirt, black and red striped skirt that might have been a little too long for me – but it screamed You wear this to a funeral.

I didn’t do that this time. I shopped online for hours in a state of emotional paralysis. It took an entire day/evening, dozens and dozens of tabs open across my laptop, too many of them standard funeral attire. One by one, I closed those tabs. I’m not 25 this time, and this time it’s Amber, and Amber knows how I am with clothes. She was there when I ranted as a pre-teen about my mom’s dress code rules regarding my black t-shirts. A new rule that I was sure was because I’d bought a Pepsi shirt with a pinup girl on it. My mom might not know even still that 12-year-old me thought that specific shirt pushed my rotation of black shirts into restriction, but Amber did. I told her all about it. And you know what? Amber thought my shirts were cool. She told me so. We told each other a lot back then.

We were those kinds of friends once upon a time. The kind that moaned and groaned about parents and teachers and siblings. We shared crushes on movie stars and boy bands, and the cute boys at Hillside Elementary and then Hunter JR. We passed notes, stuck together at recess and lunch when we could, and we were band geeks together. The band member status started way back in elementary school. We both jumped at the chance to join the band – who wouldn’t want to get out of class a few times a week, more during holiday performance schedules?

We both picked the clarinet and spent a lot of time sharing first and second chair positions; never competing with one another though. If she beat me; I was excited for her. If I beat her; she was excited for me. The goal was to hold onto the top two as much as possible so we could always sit next to each other during practice and performances. And if one of us slipped back, it seemed we’d both slip back and then we’d be climbing back up to the front together again. It was harder to hold onto those seats once jazz band changed to marching band, and we realized how cute a few of the drummer boys were. Talking about them was more fun than practicing.

Amber and I grew up together in the 80’s. Oldest daughters, oldest sisters, half the time trying to be older than we needed to be. She and I shared secrets and worries. We made life plans and imagined different futures. We went to concerts together and she brought me along to family parties. We froze our butts off pretending to play Christmas songs while marching downtown, and she read every single page of the first “novel” I wrote when we were in the 8^th grade. And when my parents sold our house that same year to move across town, Amber planned a surprise going away party for me, using the lure of a baby horse to get me to Grandma Harmon’s with her on a random evening.

Then we were the grownups we’d been so eager to be, and life is different when you’re really grownup. She got married and had kids; I had a kid then got married. We’d meet up from time to time, once or twice with our kids but usually on our own, and it was always like no time had passed between us. We did a paint night one year, made glass art another year, and brought family along often. When it was just us, we talked households and kids, jobs and worries, and we’d end all those chats the same way, promising to do it more. After I moved away, I ran into her by chance on a trip home, but we only had a few minutes to catch up, each heading off to different obligations. Thanks to Facebook I have a few of our chats from these past years, not enough. I would have been more insistent in July if I’d known I was going to lose her. You need to come see my little piece of the forest, I said to her then and how I wish we’d been able to make that happen. I wish we’d been able to drink coffee on the deck, so I’d have memories of her here and not just the ones far away. Instead, I’m dressing for a funeral.

I just bought clothes this time, not funeral clothes. Not dark, sad pieces that will be shuffled to the back of the closet to hide until they end up in a donation bag. In my emotional state, I have to admit, I couldn’t remember exactly what I purchased. I knew I bought a black cardigan with flowers on it, and I knew I bought a plaid wool skirt, but those items were not purchased to wear together. Of course, I could have doublechecked my email receipts and verified which of all those open tabs ended up in my cart, but I decided to wait for the surprise today. It all works and it all fits, and none of it feels like funeral clothes, so I won’t let any of it get pushed to the back of the closet. The sweaters are like big hugs, which is exactly what one should wear to a funeral, and any other day when that might be needed, and if I have to say goodbye, it is exactly what I want to say goodbye to Amber in.