Bury Aunt Rosie…A Rosie By Any Other Name

     I could feel the cold, wet Philadelphia slush seeping up into the soles of my L.L. Bean penny loafers and the cold, damp Philadelphia wind curling around my ankles and eddying up into the recesses of my much too light L.L. Bean one-hundred percent cotton trousers. I heard an invisible car skidding somewhere in the distant darkness and a soft thump that sounded like I was listening to it through earmuffs I didn't have. It was a week after Christmas. It was almost midnight. It was cold. It was snowing. It was Philadelphia. I was allergic to cold. I was allergic to snow. And, like my mother, I was probably allergic to Philadelphia.
      I’d left home in southern California that morning in warm blue skied sunshine to attend my mother's funeral with my brother and his wife. My mother had passed away quietly, about as quietly as my mother could do anything, in a Philadelphia rest home where she’d been living for the past several years. During her life, my mother wouldn't have been caught dead in Philadelphia. Ironically, now she was. On the whole, my mother would rather have been in Brooklyn.
     Since graduating from college my brother, Tony, and his wife, Lee had lived all of their lives in Philadelphia. They’d raised their family of three sons, each of whom had inherited Tony's unusual sense of humor and whimsical charm, in the same house in the suburbs. Tony and Lee had cared for my mother during her last years. Except for the Philadelphia part, I'm sure my mother appreciated that. I know I did.
     Tomorrow my mother would be buried in the family plot in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Lyndhurst was the place to which my grandfather had immigrated when he moved his family from Italy to the United States at the turn of the century. One of the first things he must’ve done on arrival in Lyndhurst was buy a family plot. I didn't know why he’d done that. It must have been a new immigrant special of some sort. I didn't know why he left Italy. I didn't know why he chose Lyndhurst. I didn't know why my mother was being buried in Lyndhurst. My mother had left Lyndhurst as a young woman when my grandfather decided to move his family to Brooklyn. On the whole, my mother would rather never have left Brooklyn. Brooklyn was the only place my mother had ever really loved.
     My mother's name was Marie Rose but everybody in our neighborhood in Brooklyn called her Aunt Rosie. At the time when we lived in Brooklyn, Rose was a very popular name. To distinguish among all of the Roses in our neighborhood, a system of classifying them by distinguishing characteristics or geography had developed. There was Fat Rosie and Rosie from Coney Island Avenue. There was Rosie with the mole.  I knew why Fat Rosie was called Fat Rosie. I knew why Rosie with the mole was called Rosie with the mole. I don't know why my mother was called Aunt Rosie. I don't know why she wasn't called Marie.
     My brother pulled up to the curb at the airport unloading zone. He waved at me through the blowing snow and the struggling windshield wipers of his station wagon. He was muffled into his Philadelphia hat, scarf and gloves. I didn't own anything that would even begin to pass for winter clothes in Philadelphia. I didn't own a hat. I didn't own a scarf. I didn't own a pair of gloves. I could, I suppose, have ordered all of them from my L.L. Bean catalog but my mother had died so suddenly I hadn't the five working days L.L. Bean requires for delivery to California. "Bro, great to see you," he greeted me reaching across the front seat both to open the station wagon door and to grip and embrace my hand. "How was the flight? I like your jacket. When we get to the house, I can let you borrow some real clothes." Real clothes? How cold does it get in Philadelphia?
     Rubbing my ungloved hands together briskly and looking out through the condensation of my breath and the snow crystals collected on my glasses, I settled into the front seat. Philadelphia. "How are you and Lee doing with all of this?"
     "No problem. Just about everything's under control," he said pulling away from the curb. "Just like the old days, Bro. You and I in the front seat and Mom in the back."
     "What?"  Our mother hadn't died that suddenly. She certainly hadn't died in the back of Tony and Lee's station wagon. I turned to look into the back seat. All I could see was a cardboard box about the size of a shoe box.
     "Mom's ashes. You know they really aren't ashes at all. They're actually more like little stones or pebbles."
     "In a shoe box?" Visions of Nike logos danced in my head."I think it's okay. Part of the undertaker's service. Lee thinks we need to move her into something nicer for the funeral. We can stop at Cost Plus.” Cost Plus. Late as it was our only other choice was probably a 7-Eleven. In my head visions of Nike logos were replaced by visions of slurpee containers.
     After just a few minutes driving, Tony pulled off the highway into a nearly deserted strip mall and parked in front of Cost Plus. Once inside, we were confronted with and challenged by an array of containers, vases and urns that would have done an Arabian bazaar proud. Aladdin would have gone crazy rubbing small containers in here. We settled on a simple plain blue ceramic urn. I rub checked it for genies.
     "Now all we need is a ribbon - and a bow."
     "Tony, this isn't a Christmas present. It's a funeral urn." In some cultures in the world, white is the funeral color of choice. Until now I hadn't been aware Philadelphia was one of those cultures. We bought a white satin ribbon and white satin bow.
     As we walked to the checkout counter, Tony pulled up so short we nearly collided. "Hey, Bro, what do you think of this?" He’d picked up a cardboard Chinese  food takeout container. He was grinning wickedly, his impish sense of humor shining clearly in his dancing gray eyes. "Remember how Mom used to love to get Chinese takeout on Sunday nights back in Brooklyn? Remember the fortune cookies? She would have loved this. It would be the perfect way to send her off."
     Maybe he had a point. Maybe it would seem like a little bit of Brooklyn to send her off in a Chinese food takeout container. If only it came in ceramic.
     "Lee would never buy it," I said. Lee doesn't speak or read Chinese but she’s very analytical. She would have wanted to know what all of those Chinese characters on the container meant before sending our mother off in it.
     "Let's take it along, anyway, for backup. Maybe we could even throw in a fortune cookie," he added.
     It was a short drive from Cost Plus into the Philadelphia suburbs. My mother sat quietly in her current home, the cardboard box. Her planned new home, the ceramic urn, and her potential vacation home, the Chinese food takeout container sat, condominium style, beside her current home.
     We pulled up to the curb in front of their house, gathered up our packages and my luggage, then started up the walk to the front door.
     "Damn it," Tony whispered softly.
     "What?"
     "Mom's ashes. The box must be leaking."
     "Badly?" I asked.
     "No, only maybe an arm or a leg but Lee will be furious with me."
     We stopped. He looked around.  "See that bag by the front door?" He pointed to a large paper bag standing at the side of the door. There was a shovel standing upright beside it. "It's full of the stuff we use to shovel onto the ice on the sidewalk. They look just about like Mom's ashes. Grab the shovel and put some on the sidewalk to cover Mom's ashes. Mix them up good. Lee will never know the difference. She won't see it until tomorrow."
     I did as instructed. It was his house. That was his mother as well as mine being scattered all over the sidewalk.
     The house was silent. Lee was asleep. We set the box of ashes, urn, ribbon and bow on the kitchen counter. We left the takeout container in the trunk of the station wagon - the better part of valor.
     "What do we do now?"
     "First we have a drink, then we move Mom from her box into her urn."
     "How do we start?"
     "With her legs. Try not to spill any more of her."

. . .

     The drive from Philadelphia to Lyndhurst the next day was quiet. The funeral mass went well. Nothing more of our mother had spilled. The ribbon and bow had been a nice touch there on the altar with the Christmas decorations. White had been a good choice after all. Just about all of my mother's Lyndhurst cousins, nieces and nephews were there. Nobody had come from Brooklyn.
     On the drive from the church to the cemetery, I remembered something.
     "Tony, we need to stop at a florist." I’d promised my wife I’d put a dozen red roses on my mother's grave.
     There was a florist just outside the cemetery gates. Tony pulled up in front and I climbed out of the station wagon and went in.
     "Could I get a dozen red roses?"
     "A dozen? I don't know if I have a dozen fresh today."
     "I need to put them on my mother's grave," I tried.
     "In the grave or on top of it?"
     "In the grave, I guess." I hadn't really thought about it, but decided now I wanted her to take them with her and not leave them behind to wilt and die in the cold in Lyndhurst. They were her roses, not Lyndhurst's. In the grave, they'd be closer to her - closer to Brooklyn.
     "If you're going to put them in the grave, I can give you a dozen yesterday's roses. Who'll know the difference? It'll be just her and her roses." He paused, waiting for my response.
     "Yesterday's roses?" I thought. I didn't say anything.
     "I can give you half off," he said trying to close the sale.
     "Yesterday's roses? Half off?"
     "OK, OK, sixty percent," he said arranging roses one by one, without waiting for me to respond. "I'll make them up nice. They'll look like new. I'll even add some nice fresh baby's breath."
     I didn't say anything.
     "I'll add some nice forget-me-nots," he continued, adding small, delicate blue flowers to the growing mixture. "She was your mother after all. Nothing can take the place of a mother's love, may she rest in peace. We take Visa, MasterCard or American Express."
     After we had put my mother's ashes into the grave and the priest had blessed and sprinkled them with holy water, Lee tossed in a handful of Lyndhurst earth. Tony tossed in a handful of Lyndhurst earth. Both were careful to miss the white ribbon and bow. Nobody had thought about a handful of Brooklyn earth.
     I dropped in the dozen discounted yesterday's red roses in a nice bouquet with fresh baby's breath and fresh forget-me-nots. I’d put them in the Chinese food takeout container. Since I didn't know what the Chinese characters on the container said, I’d added a message of my own to the outside: "Bon voyage, Mom. Welcome back to Brooklyn. Say hello to all of the Rosies. Rest in peace."
     It was the kind of message, I thought, my mother might have enjoyed finding in a Brooklyn Chinese Sunday night takeout fortune cookie. I was sure my mother would consider heaven an improvement over either Philadelphia or Lyndhurst. I wasn't at all sure she would feel that way about heaven and Brooklyn - unless maybe the Chinese food is better in heaven.
     Now I could feel the Lyndhurst cold push up through the damp grass and fill the air around me with a chill. I pulled the belt of the heavy Philadelphia coat my brother had lent me tighter around the waist. Lyndhurst and Philadelphia. Philadelphia and Lyndhurst. But tonight my mother would be in heaven with the rest of the Rosies and tomorrow I would be on my way back to California with L.L. Bean.