Girl at a Funeral by Jamie Horan

In the summer of 1996 when she was about a eighteen months old, Haeley, our second child, stepped through a neighbor’s railing just off the side of his third front step and got herself into a bit of a jam. Summer, her three-year-old big sister, burst into the house, “Dad, Dad, Haeley’s stuck! C’mon, c’mon!  Hurry, dad!” Out we went!

Military funeral of Major Douglas A. Zembiec, 2007. 

I got there amid the normal panic that seems always to accompany these kinds of things, people yelling “bend the bars,”  ”put grease on her ears,”  “call the fire department,” etc.  She stood there on her tippy toes, my neighbor holding her up from behind carefully to avoid hurting her neck. Her head was a bit too big to pass through and was awkwardly turned sideways on the concrete step. I got in front of her, and chuckling a little bit said, “hey dolly, stay still for me.” I reached down, as my neighbor and I gently turned her sideways and moved her back though the way she went in. I lifted her up to calm her and she grabbed me around my neck with all her might. I began laughing softly to put her at ease and before long she was laughing, too. There were many such calamities with Haeley, each starting with a bit of real danger and ending in a belly laugh.

The summer of 2015 found us all together in a limousine. Haeley, in her intrepid way, had the year before entered the United States Naval Academy. As we readied ourselves for the day, she asked if I thought she should wear her uniform to the service. “Well," I said, "Pop was a WWII veteran and in his honor, I think it would be the right thing to do.”

She did not like wearing her uniform off USNA grounds, but as a first-year (Plebe), she was obligated to do so while traveling to and from the academy. She expressed this dislike to me on more than a few occasions. Once, while I was taking her to the train station after a brief stint home, she appeared to be a bit shaken. I asked if she was okay, and she told me she was afraid for us - me and her brother - when she was traveling in uniform. I knew why, of course. She, like all U.S. service personnel, was a target in that uniform and she knew it. On this bright and cloudless day though, I doubt these thoughts were in her mind. Today, we were burying her Pop-Pop.

 It wasn’t until we arrived at the cemetery that I fully realized there would be an honor guard. There was talk of it of course, but the undertaker who’d arranged the service was non-committal; he said that he would try to arrange it, but as it was July 4^th week, he was not certain that those he relied on for that task would be able to make it.

As Pop’s immediate family, we were in the second car, just behind the hearse.  As we pulled up to the

Navy funeral of Commander Charles Keith Springle, 2009.

grave site - the procession of attendees’ cars lining in behind us - I noticed with satisfaction from the opposite window a dozen or so older men in uniform standing at attention, their commander saluting as we came to rest in front of them. I thought immediately of how proud Pop would be that these men, themselves all veterans of foreign war, would assemble to honor his life and the effort he willingly applied to the great cause of mankind, which had compelled so many as boys and forged so many as men. The bright sun shone off of their polished insignia, momentarily blinding any whose eyes were caught by the glare. Proud but not prideful, they assembled silently in two rows behind Pop’s carriage along with several younger pallbearers.  These now very old men had donned their uniforms with an earned pride and deliberation that imparted to me a sense of reverence. I watched as a small detachment of them began to take positions around our car. They opened our doors and stood solemnly as we climbed out.

As I exited the car, looking for small ways to be useful, I noticed my daughter Haeley in the midst of several of the honor guard. One man in particular was talking quietly to her as the others listened intently. Seeing her in her “dress whites” had apparently attracted their attention. It occurred to me that she was part of this world now, and I was happy for her. After watching for a moment  I got moving, helping my mother-in-law to the front of the assembling procession, seeing that my wife and our two other daughters were okay and finally, checking back on “Diddaboy” (our then eight-year-old son, Eman), who was only too happy to be pulled from the busyness surrounding him in the car.

A few minutes passed and the procession began:  Dad’s flag-draped casket led the way up the small hill, followed by the priest and the rest of us. We assembled at the grave, where one white chair was located about eight feet from the center of the sarcophagus.  Mom, now ninety years of age, was then seated in this chair, with her daughter (my wife, Annamarie) and the remainder of our family standing on either side of her. I glanced behind me at the crowd of about fifty people. Some were smiling gently and chatting. I nodded in affirmation at one or two and turned back as the funeral director began to talk, interrupted almost immediately, as though to break the tension, by a noisy crow in a nearby tree. 

During the preparation for the funeral, Annamarie and I had assisted Mom with the selection of the passages that our priest would read.  Now as he did so, we all stood and reflected on those words, Pops’s life, our lives, our impending ends, and our hopefulness for the hereafter. As he finished, I heard the guard commander call the guard to order. They marched in lock step, to a place in front and to the side of us, where they halted, turned, aimed and fired. They fired three volleys, each time crisply returning their rifles to their ready. With the same precision and without pause, the bugler began to play Taps as the echo from the last shots faded.

At his moment I looked down the line to my left to see Haeley, standing crisply at salute along with all the remaining guard. At its finish, her hand fell slowly and deliberately to her side.  I recall being so impressed with how she’d left us as a smart, confident and adventuresome kid, and stood here now as  a thoughtful, diligent and responsible young woman.

The commander then turned and stood at attention at the head of Pop’s casket.  We waited there as five guardsmen approached the casket, marching as they did as young men. Of the five, three moved to one side and the commander assumed a position as the third man on the other.  In perfect unison, they gripped, raised, snapped, creased and folded the flag over the casket, where it made its way to the commander’s hands in that perfect triangular form. I could hear whispers behind me. People were chatting affirmations in small bits trying not to interrupt, but unable to conceal their admiration for this venerable tradition. The crow cawed again and again, but no one seemed to notice.

And then it happened. From the corner of my left eye I noticed Haeley break from the rank and step forward. One slow step - then another - and again! Stop! Pivoting to her right at a crisp ninety degrees, she stood there, perfectly still. In what seemed like a long-rehearsed interplay, the commander, now facing Pop’s casket, snap-turned to his left-face as Haeley, in her blinding white uniform and gloves marched in lock step toward the waiting commander, who himself mirrored her movements exactly. They stepped forward one step - then another - until they stood apart facing each other at the center of the grave.

The chatter had completely stopped. There was no sound. I glanced up at the crow, who seemed to be as stunned by this as any of us. No one moved. We were now a collection of transfixed figures, as though cast there in stone by some unknowable force. Slowly, Haeley extended her gloved hands to receive the flag, which was placed neatly between her palms. She took one step backwards, then turned on her heels and stood squarely in front of her grandmother. Tears the size of nickels fell from her face like heavy rain, yet she stood solid and still in her frame. There was a gasp from somewhere behind me and I heard a woman’s voice whisper “Oh, my Lord!” No one saw this coming. I stood there and, closing my trembling jaw, swallowed hard as I felt my heart rise in my chest.                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Stepping forward and bending slightly at her waist, as still as granite, she knelt before her Mom –Mom, the woman who had been there every day of her life. Patiently, without the slightest adjustment in her body or the faintest quiver in her voice, she extended her hands. It had fallen so quiet, I could hear the pat-pat-pat of Haeley’s tears hitting the flag as she held it. Glancing down and to my left, I saw mom looking up at her granddaughter with wide eyes. She smiled faintly, as though the heartache she’d carried to the graveside had suddenly lifted. She seemed to be floating there, not only unaware in that moment of her grief, but seemingly oblivious to her purpose there.

“Mom-Mom. On behalf of the United States Army and on behalf of a grateful nation, I present to you this flag of the United States of America as a symbol of our gratitude for Pop-Pop’s service to his country. “

Haeley stayed in that position, holding her grandmother’s hands until she steadied. Slowly, she rose to attention, took one step back, turned and marched slowly until in front of her original place, she fell into the rank, lowered her head and wept, shaking from shoulder to knee. I wanted to go to her - to once again pull her though that railing - but this time I could not.

I turned to see if anyone had really absorbed what I had just witnessed. Seemingly everyone was weeping quietly to themselves. Many held their hands on their foreheads or over their mouths; others, like me, stood with watering eyes and beaming smiles. They knew. They knew what I knew: that this was a singular event and they would not see it again.

All of us, I’m sure, experience moments in our lives which impact us in a visceral way. They imprint a mark on our souls, and although the years pass, we recall them in ways more tactile than abstract. Our hearts still skip that beat. We still breathe in the same spotty rhythm we did in those moments. Sometimes these memories remind us of our great regrets, our failures in character or judgment.  Other times, these remembrances return us to our moments of greatest joy, moments that we knew when experiencing them would never leave us. People often say “You can’t take it with you.” No matter where you finish, you leave as you came.  I don’t think that’s true.  When I go, this mark comes with me.

Author’s Note:  Haeley will graduate from the United States Naval Academy on May 25^th, 2018.