Ann Martin - Claudia And The Sad Goodbye

Corrie and I got off the phone, and soon us sitters had to go home. Kristy told me several days later that, as we were leaving, she could feel our spirits sinking. We'd had fun telling Mimi stories. We'd remembered her the way she would have wanted to be remembered. But the next day would be the funeral, and it would not be happy or funny.

How, Kristy wondered, how on earth would we get through Mimi's funeral? I was wondering the same thing.

Chapter 9.

Stacey and her mother decided to drive to Stoneybrook instead of taking the train. That way, they wouldn't need anyone to pick them up at the train station, and they could go back whenever they wanted. Also, Mr. McGill likes to drive. Only he decided, at the very last minute, not to come to the funeral. I was a little hurt when I saw just Stacey and her mom get out of the car, but then I thought, Well, Mr. McGill hadn't known Mimi very well. It wasn't until later that Stacey told me, pretty reluctantly, that she'd heard her parents arguing the night before. She thought maybe they needed a day apart from each other. Besides, her mother has always liked Stoneybrook better than her father did. He's happier in the city.

Stacey said the ride to Connecticut was pretty quiet. She had a feeling her mother was thinking about her father. And Stacey was thinking about me. Plus, they were both sad about Mimi, of course.

The McGills arrived at the cemetery right on time. Mimi's burial was to be held before the funeral service, so the McGills just joined the long line of cars that were driving slowly through the cemetery and parking by the side

of the road. I watched Stacey and her mother climb out and stretch their legs.

All I wanted to do then was run to Stacey and hug her, but a funny thing had happened that morning.

Our family had woken up formal.

We began the day formally, Janine and I following all sorts of somber instructions from our parents, and we spent the rest of the morning being formal.

When Stacey arrived, her first sight was of the plot where Mimi was to be buried. The casket was sitting next to the open grave, and Mom and Dad, Janine and I, Russ and Peaches, and a few other family members were standing nearest to the casket. Friends and neighbors were behind us. I turned my head and saw Stacey, and we looked at each other.

But I could not run to her, and she could not come to me.

She and her mother joined Kristy, her mother, and her older brothers Sam and Charlie, at the back of the crowd.

The burial service began. It was quite short, but Stacey remembers much more about it than I do. All I remember is thinking, as the casket was being lowered into the ground, Mimi's not in there. So I didn't cry. A bunch

of men were just putting a box in the ground. That was all. Then Mom made me throw a white rose into the hole. I thought, What's the point? Mimi won't see it. But I did it anyway (since we were being formal).

Stacey remembers more. She remembers the minister saying some words about Mimi and then saying a blessing over the casket. And she remembers that the graveyard was silent, except for the minister, because no one was ready to cry yet. A burial is just too separate from the memory of the dead person.

It is surreal.

Stacey remembers the rest of the service and then everyone slowly walking back to their cars and driving to the church for the funeral.

I don't remember any of that. It is a blank for me. I dropped the silly flower in the hole — and then suddenly I was in the church, in the front pew with my family.

The thing I learned about death that day is that if it's your relative, you always get to be in front: Maybe that's to help you feel closer to the dead person.

Stacey also remembers the funeral service better than I do. My mom gave the eulogy, and she referred to Mimi as either "Mother" or "Mimi" throughout the whole talk, which

was nice because almost everybody knew her simply as Mimi. Everyone who was at the funeral, I mean, and according to Stacey an awful lot of people were there: all the members of the Baby-sitters Club, even Logan (but not Shannon; she didn't know Mimi), and most of their parents. Then there were people like the Newtons and the Perkinses and our next-door neighbors, the Goldmans, and of course all the rest of our relatives. (You could tell how closely related they were to Mimi by how near the front of the church they got to sit.)

Stacey said that not many kids came to the funeral, and I think that's okay. Little children probably wouldn't understand what was going on, and there's plenty of time for them to learn about death when they're older.

Later I wondered who had baby-sat for all those kids. Probably smelly old ladies. I guess we're not the only baby-sitters in Stoneybrook.

Stacey and her mom sat in a pew sort of in the middle of the church. Also in their pew were Mary Anne and her father, Dawn and her mother, Kristy and her mother, and Sam and Charlie. (Watson didn't come because he had barely known Mimi, so he stayed at home and helped Kristy's grandmother watch the little kids.) In the pew in front of Stacey were

Mallory and her parents and Jessi and her parents. Stacey said that, much as she thought the girls in the club needed comfort then, they suddenly found that they could hardly even look at each other. Stacey was seated right next to Mary Anne, who started to cry buckets as soon as my mother began the eulogy, but she didn't reach for Mary Anne's hand and Mary Anne didn't reach for hers — or for her father's. She just cried silently and kept pulling dry tissues out of her purse and dropping wet ones back into it.

Stacey didn't cry. She said she felt like a stone.

That was a very good description. It was exactly how I felt.

And that made me feel guilty on top of everything else. All around me, my relatives were crying. Next to me, Janine, who was wearing Mimi's diamond. earrings, was sniffling. On the other side of me, my dad even started to cry and then I almost panicked. I'd never seen him cry before. (What do you do when your father cries?) Even my mother cried a little while she was speaking.

I felt like I just didn't have any tears in me, but that I owed it to Mimi to cry, so I thought

about how I had thrown the magazines on her bed, which did bring a few tears of shame to my eyes. I dabbed at them with a Kleenex and hoped that if Mimi could see me from somewhere, she would notice me crying, but not know why I was crying. Then I began to wonder if she'd want me to be sad in the first place. It was too confusing.

I didn't pay a bit of attention to any of the service. When it was over, I just stood up and filed into an anteroom, following in Janine's formal footsteps.

In the anteroom, our family formed a line and greeted the other mourners. At last Stacey and I could be together — for a few seconds. We hugged, and Stacey said, "See you at your house later."

There was going to be a reception at our house in about an hour, in just enough time for Mom and Dad, Russ and Peaches, Janine and me to finish greeting people, rush home, and set out all the food everyone had been bringing by since Wednesday. I couldn't wait. I was hoping the formality would wear off during the reception and I could be with my friends.

The formality did wear off. Mom and Dad

let us club members go in the den with a platter of food and talk by ourselves. Logan came, too.