Funeral Food

Kristin Laurel Funeral Food

After the funeral, the ladies in the church basement served open-faced deviled-ham sandwiches, and green pistachio pudding with mini-marshmallows. There were english muffins, topped with cheez-whiz, each with a single black olive in the middle that reminded me of an eyeball.

Each table, draped in a white sheet, was set with fire-trucks, dinosaurs, race cars, and pictures from your two-year-old life; and there was the one of you, Benny, learning to walk. The one of you, with your small bare feet, touching the top of the earth, touching grass for the first time.

The coffee was weak, the angel-food cake swelled up in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow any of it: the empty words, empty calories, the tears, or that inexplicable hunger that was trying to consume me.

And so I went out into the parking lot and sat in the car. I was crying and (of course) it was raining. I found an old bag of Cheetos.

The Egyptians, I read, buried food with their dead. I wonder if you liked Cheetos. I begin eating them, pretending I am sharing them with you.

We eat the whole bag.

My hands become pasty and orange; and as I lick my messy fingers clean, I am loving you—refusing to feed the hungry grave.