from: From Beginning to End: the Rituals of Our Lives
by Robert Fulgham
For now you only need to know that the deceased is an eighty-year-old retired
schoolteacher named Martha Carter, and she planned her own ceremony, which takes the
form of a committal at graveside. It's a lovely, quiet cemetery on a hillside. Well kept, lots
of trees-the first flowers of spring are in bloom. It's April. A dark green awning has been
erected over the grave, and there are brown metal folding chairs on three sides for close
family and friends.
Interestingly enough, no body is wearing black-not even the minister or funeral directors.
All of the women and most of the men present are dressed for spring -- in bright colors or
bright prints. This apparent dress code alone tells you much about the deceased and her
ideas about what a funeral should be like. She wanted it this way. Her agenda was and is
Life.
Another unexpected touch is the traditional jazz band that comes walking up the cemetery
drive -- trumpet, slide trombone, tuba, clarinet, and snare drum. They're playing a slow
dignified tune that still has the fine edge of swing in it. It's hard not to smile when they
make their entrance. The band finishes playing while standing a little way off from the
gravesite and ends the tune with an "amen" chord. The minister stands up, facing us across
the grave, opens a Bible and begins.
"For everything there is a season,
And a time and purpose for every matter under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
For everything there is a season,
And a time and purpose for every matter under heaven."
We have come together on this fine day in springtime to celebrate the life of Martha Lee
Olson McBride Carter, and on behalf of Martha and her family, I welcome you to this
service. Here we shall honor her memory and respect her wishes.
We have come to mourn and to remember a friend and companion.
We have come to affirm life itself and our part in it.
We have come to consider death and how we shall meet it.
This is a unique occasion in that Martha Carter spent part of the last year of her life
carefully planning the affairs of her death and thinking through what she wanted to
happen at her funeral. In all the years I have been a minister, I have never met
anyone who more clearly understood that death is a part of life or who more carefully
crafted a rite of passage reflecting that wisdom.
Martha included her family in her planning because she wanted, as a parent, both to
meet their needs and to be as instructive about death as she had been about life. She
told me she didn't think her kids always paid much attention to what she said, but
they always watched what she did. When it came to dying, she meant to show them
how it might be done well.
She left it to her family and friends to say what they felt should be said, but she asked
that they not go on too long -- she thought most funerals were too wordy. With that
admonition, I call upon her grandson, Harlan Adams.
A very tall and skinny young man in his early twenties stands awkwardly by the grave,
looks down for a moment, takes a manuscript from his coat pocket, speaks:
My family asked me to give a factual summary of my grandmother's life so
that those who didn't know her well might better understand some of the
memories others will share.
Martha Lee Olson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 20, 1914.
And she died here in Seattle on April first of this year, at age eighty.
It would have pleased her to know she died on April Fool's Day.
The only daughter of Danish immigrants -- her father, John, worked for the railroad in
many capacities during his life, and wife, Ingrid, ran the household, raised her child, and
managed a huge garden that fed the family all through the Great Depression.
Though the family moved from railroad town to railroad town as she was growing up, they
were living in Chicago again when Martha graduated from high school. Martha went off
to the University of Illinois to become a teacher. Both she and her mother worked at
various part-time jobs to make college possible.
While she was in college, her father was transferred to Seattle by the railroad, but Martha
finished at Illinois before coming out to join her parents and taking a job teaching sixth
grade at Franklin Elementary School.
When the Second World War broke out, she began working as a volunteer at the USO to
help the morale of the thousands of young soldiers passing through Seattle on the way to
serve in the Pacific. It was there that she met Marine Sergeant Fred McBride, and married
him a week before he shipped out.
Nine months later, she gave birth to her first child, Fred McBride, Jr.
She never saw her husband again -- he was killed in combat in 1943.
Her father was killed in a railroad accident in 1944.
To add to the tragedy, twenty-five years later, Lieutenant Fred McBride, Jr., was also
killed in combat, in 1968, in Vietnam.
After the war, Grandmother started to work on her master's degree at the University of
Washington. While there she met fellow student, and my grandfather, Edward Carter, a GI
just home from the war in Europe. They were married in 1947.
My mom, Hannah, was born the next year, and her brother Alan a year later.
Grandmother Martha's own mother lived with her until 1955, when she passed away after
a long struggle with cancer.
When Martha's children started school, she began teaching again, at the Seaside High
School, where she taught English literature until she retired in 1979.
She was widowed again, in 1964, when my grandfather died of heart failure.
For the last thirty years of her life, she lived alone, investing herself in the lives of her
children, grandchildren, and former students.
When she retired, she pursued her dreams of traveling around the United States and
Europe. When her health and age brought her traveling days to an end, she became
involved in al kinds of volunteer work-with the American Red Cross, the League of
Women Voters, the Council of Churches, and the Traditional Jazz Society.
When I asked her once what church she belonged to, she said she belonged to them all-
mostly because of her work with the Council of Churches. I know she was raised Lutheran,
married an Irish Catholic the first time and an inactive Baptist the second time. When I
was asked to drive Grandmother to church, I never knew where we were going to go.
Sometimes it was to the Greek Orthodox early mass, sometimes to the Episcopal vespers
service, and sometimes to the Quaker morning meeting. She found meaning and friends
wherever she worshipped.
She lived the last two years of her life depending on a dialysis machine for kidney function,
but she never complained. To her it was an opportunity to put her affairs in order. When
she was too weak to get out of bed, she made the decision to stop treatment and to die,
which she did a week later.
I've given you the basic facts of the life of a remarkable woman. I could talk about what
she meant to me and tell stories about her for hours. I really loved and respected her.
However, if she was here, Grandma would say I have done what I was asked to do and
said more than enough and should sit down.
So I will.
The minister stands and says:
Martha Carter knew a lot about pain and sorrow. Martha Carter was close to death all
her life. All four of her grandparents died during her childhood. Her first husband and first
son were killed in wartime.
In the middle years of her life, both of her parents and her second husband died. And, as
she explained to me, half of her friends and acquaintances had died during the last ten
years. She said she was tired of death and tired of dreary funerals, and especially hated to
show up for this one today. She wished there could be some laughter at her own funeral.
When I asked her how to do this, she suggested I share a story she heard George Burns
tell.
A teacher was asking her students what their fathers did. All the pupils named their
fathers' occupations -- plumber, clerk, fireman, etc. One boy didn't volunteer, so the teacher
asked, "Well, Billy, what does your father do?" And Billy replied that his father didn't do
anything -- he was dead. "Well," asked the teacher, "what did he do before he died?" And
Billy answered: "He went AAAAGggghhhhh."
If you asked Martha Carter when she did, she said "teacher" -- even after she retired, she
never said "retired teacher" -- she was always a teacher. Her family has asked one of her
former pupils, Dr. Richard Havens, to speak about her teaching.
Dr. Havens is a middle-aged scholar, bearded, dressed to blend into his habitat-
conservative tweed suit with vest-but oddly enough, wearing a boldly striped black-and-
white shirt and sporting a pink-and-yellow silk tie. As he stands to speak, he pulls the
flamboyant tie out of his vest and looks down at it. In his other hand, he is holding a large
shopping bag. He says:
Mrs. Carter gave me this tie. And I say "Mrs. Carter" because no matter how old you
get, you always address your teachers as you did in high school, and you always feel a
little like that kid you used to be when you are around them. You can't ever be peers. I
can't imagine ever calling her "Martha." I can't believe she's dead -- because if she can
die, then so can I.
greetings, she stood back to look at me and take stock. I was wearing this suit. As she
noticed and you can see, I have adopted the disguise of college professor. She was
appalled. She said I looked so old and stuffy and serious. She gave me a hard time. How
could I stand up in front of young people and teach them anything exciting if I looked like
a cadaver? She said I was going to look dead for a long time before I actually was put in a
coffin. She said I just had to lighten up. She remembered that I was a good dancer in high
school, but she bet I hadn't been dancing in years. And she was right.So she took me by the hand and off we went to a men's store up the street where she
announced to the clerk that this young man, meaning me, needs help. Insisting I take off
my coat and vest and remove the drab tie I was wearing, she looked over the selection
of ties and picked this one. While I was dutifully knotting it around my neck, she took
the clerk's scissors and cut my old tie in half and dropped it in the wastebasket.She had the clerk put my vest in a bag to carry with me, and then, helping me into my
coat, she had me stand in front of the mirror and said I looked much better and that I
should loosen up and I would live longer. She said getting old too soon wasn't good for
me. She paid for the tie and was out the door before I could thank her.When I was in school, I thought she taught English literature and writing.On refection, I know that what she really taught was how to learn and how to live. I went
into teaching because of her. The gift of the tie reminded me that I had paid too much
attention to English literature and not enough to life.
Pausing, Dr. Havens removes his tweed jacket and vest and, laying them aside, he pulls a
lime-green linen jacket out of the shopping bag and puts it on. Out of the pocket of the
jacket, he takes a red foam-rubber clown nose and sticks it onto his nose. He looks so
wonderfully, foolishly transformed that we cannot help but laugh and applaud.
I don't dress this way all the time, you know. I bought this jacket to wear for this service.
I think Mrs. Carter would approve. I find it's hard work getting young again after you've
decided to be old.
"Well, there was this teacher." And the teachers they talk about always seem to have the
same qualities. They were hard -- had high standard and demanded the best not only for
their students but of themselves. They respected their students and demanded respect in
return. They were good at teaching because they loved learning themselves. And they
taught both by what they did in class and by how they lived outside the class. Great
teachers are more like great coaches -- they see themselves on the sidelines doing
everything they can do to make the players do as well as they can in the game, knowing
that losses and failure are not shameful but often more instructive than winning.She had this wonderful way of beginning a course. She gave each student a piece of paper
with his name on it and a grade -- an "A." She wanted us to know she started out thinking
the best of us, and it was left to us to change her view.Mrs. Carter was a great teacher.Three specific examples, among many, stand out in my mind.She began preparing for her retirement about five years before she was sixty-five. She
wanted to travel in France and decided to learn French. Instead of going off to some cram
class in the evening, she enrolled herself in the freshman French class in our high school
and insisted to her colleague that she wanted to be treated just like any other student and
held to the same standards. Imagine! A teacher wanting to learn something! Not in secret,
but right there in front of us.She also wanted to know what it felt like to be a student in our school. And though she
worked very hard, she wasn't very good at French. And we knew it. Because when the first
report cards came out, everybody wanted to know her grade, and she showed us when we
asked: a "C." We were astonished. But she said everybody wasn't good at the same thing,
and she would just have to work harder.That she had experienced defeat meant she knew what the rest of us experienced
sometimes. She could have quit. We thought she was humiliated, but she said ignorance
was a sign of hope, not failure. And she took French for three years. She got successful
senior students to tutor her, and she ate lunch at a table in the cafeteria where only French
could be spoken. She subscribed to French magazines and newspapers and struggled
through them. Every one of her English students who took French became her French
teacher. When she moved up to "B"s her second year, we all rejoiced with her. And when
she made "A"s the last year, we insisted that she be placed on the school honor roll and
made a special member of the Honor Society.Mrs. Carter had learned French. But more than that, she taught the whole school
something none of us will ever forget: Hope and tenacity and hard work can pay off-you
CAN do better. She taught the students how to learn. She taught her colleagues how to
teach.The second memory of Mrs. Carter I want to mention is kin to the first. Her interest in the
lives of her students was legendary. Not in a personal, snooping sense, but in an
educational way. If she knew you knew something she didn't know much about, she would
inquire of you. A football linebacker would find himself explaining how he learned plays or
how he knew what to do when the other team had the ball. The guys who were interested
in cars would find themselves under the hood with Mrs. Carter, explaining how a
carburetor worked. A kid who played guitar in a band would get grilled on the difference
between a reggae beat and a rock-and-roll beat. If a student was doing well in her class
but didn't seem to be going about writing papers the way Mrs. Cater suggested, she
wanted to know how the student actually went about the task; and if Mrs. Carter learned
something she could pass on, she wouldn't claim it as her idea, but she would explain in
class that So-and-so did it another way and ask So-and-so to explain it. We called her
"the Chief Investigator" and "Inspector Carter" behind her back. What I know now is that
she was interested in how minds work -- she respected ours, especially if they worked
differently from her own.But the last memory is the one being made here now. I knew she had complete kidney
failure and didn't have long to live. I'm deeply moved by the care she put into preparing
for her own death when she knew her time had come; the insistence that this occasion
be about life; the request that we not come in black or be too solemn; the jazz band and
the party tomorrow night; and the little odds and ends she sent all of us the past year.
What an exit. What a classy way to go.When I was young, she taught me how to think, how to learn; later, she taught me how
to loosen up. And beginning here and now I realize she still isn't through with me. She
taught me how to die.
The minister stands and remains silent for a time. Then he speaks.
Jennifer Jason was Martha Carter's student in high school. Eight years later she
became Martha's daughter-in-law when she married Martha's son, Alan, and subsequently
became the mother of Martha's first grandchild. She has been asked to speak on behalf of
the family.
One look at Jennifer Jason Carter and you surmise that she must be very much like her
mother-in-law at the same age-short chestnut hair, rosy complexion, trimly dressed in a
yellow suit, she gives the impression of confidence, intelligence, and vitality. She says:
Our family talked with Martha about this service for most of an afternoon just before
she died. That evening, after Martha had fallen asleep, we talked for hours. That was part
of Martha's memorial service-as all the memories of her came back to her family. We
laughed and cried and sat sometimes in silence.
today-they wouldn't know where to stop and wouldn't be able to finish because of the
strength of their feelings. I'm pleased to speak for them.We asked Dick Havens to speak first because Martha was above all else a teacher-both at
school and with her family. The best moments of her life came when those two words
overlapped. In her prime, she seemed so strong, so serious, and so sure of herself that her
students thought of her as invulnerable. And, even on her worst days, she managed to
teach.I remember one day in class when she surprised us by being irritable and ill-tempered.
She got angry at one student and then dismissed the class early because she felt none
of us had really done our homework. "Out, out," she snapped, pointing at the door.
Stunned and cowed, we silently collected out belongings and passed into the hallway.
Before we got very far, she came to the door, and in a voice so soft we hardly heard
her, she called after us to please come back. She was in tears. When we had resumed
our seats, she sat down behind her desk and, with tears streaming down her cheeks,
told us she was ashamed of herself and how sorry she was for the way she had acted.
It wasn't our fault. She said she was not feeling well, had not been sleeping well, and
had some difficult things to deal with in her personal life. But she apologized for taking
things out on us, and since she knew we had bad days sometimes, too, she felt we
would understand. Half the class ending up hugging her and comforting her.It was the first time in my entire life an adult had apologized to me for anything. And if
Martha Carter could make a mistake and apologize, then so could I. I don't remember a lot
of things about English literature, but I will never forget that moment of being taught the
power of integrity. Because of her I have always apologized to her son and her
grandchildren when I lost my temper.Speaking of temper, Martha Carter had one-the kind that could remove paint and a layer
of hide. She was not without her flaws. Her energy and ability could be overwhelming at
times. Sometimes I avoided her because she always seemed so organized. She didn't have
much patience with sloppy thinking. If you got into an intellectual discussion with her,
you'd better have your facts right and your homework done, or she'd eat you alive and
you'd feel so dumb you wanted to hide under a chair. Her virtue was a little hard to take,
too-she didn't lie and she didn't cheat, and she was rough on those who did. She was so
independent you wondered if she ever really needed anybody-there was so little she could
not do for herself.It took me years to understand that the reason she came on so strong is that she had to be
strong all her life-she had no choice. She had so much death and sickness to deal with-
She had to work and raise a family alone-and she knew there was nobody to fall back on.
Her strength armored her weaknesses.When she was dying, I was astonished when she told me she had been scared all her life.
She wasn't afraid of anything anymore. Typically, she made a joke of this by saying that
she had always wanted to have a quiet little place in the country all by herself and now she
was going to get it.If you want to know if she was a successful parent, all you have to do is look at the lives of
Hannah and Alan and how they are with their own children, and the answer is yes. In a
conversation between just the two of us, Martha said that of course she loved her children
as any mother should, but when she stepped back and looked at them with her most
critical eye, she also really liked them, admired them, and was proud of them.I knew Martha Carter at several stages of my life and hers. What amazed me is the way
she continued to change and grow until the day she died. When she retired from teaching,
she said she was also retiring from being a respectable matron. She let her hair grow
long, stopped wearing serious clothes, bought a pickup truck to drive, and moved to a
tiny house with a huge yard so she could raise the garden of her dreams. She traveled,
did volunteer work, and took ballroom dancing lessons.For exercise, she took up walking. She didn't like sitting around making small talk, so if
you wanted to visit with her, you had to go for a walk -- and she could walk forever. On
her walks, she was still the "Chief Investigator," "Inspector Carter," always looking into
whatever interested her, talking with strangers, and marching right into people's yards to
see flowers that attracted her attention.As she grew older and her friends began to die, she said she needed younger friends and
some new ideas. So she went back to the university to study art and art history and be
with the younger generation.About five years ago, when she was seventy-five years old, the family was a little surprised
to get a call one Sunday night asking for one of us to pick her up at Norway Hall because
she was unable to drive. We didn't know what on earth she was doing at a dance hall and
couldn't imagine her too drunk to drive. She wasn't drunk -- she had sprained her ankle
while dancing. That's how we found out she had taken an interest in traditional New
Orleans-style jazz. When bands she liked played at the Norway Hall on Sunday nights, she
went to listen and dance. She said it was a lot more comforting than church sometimes.Martha Carter and I had a rich relationship. She was my mentor. And I loved her with all
my heart. And I give my family fair warning: I plan to be as alive as she was for as long as
I live. When I'm old and you wonder where I am on weekends, look for me at Norway Hall.
And if anybody wonders why, I can say my mother-in-law drove me to it.
Jennifer moves to sit beside her husband and children, and there is quiet again-only the
sound of a slight breeze moving the leaves of the trees.
The minister introduces Fred Ambler, the trombone player in the band. He's a plump,
balding, middle-aged man-a little ill at ease with speaking.
Well, I'm really glad I came today. I didn't know all these things about Martha. I just
thought she was this neat old lady who showed up from time to time and helped out the
Jazz Society by selling tickets at the door and putting up decorations. She was a pretty
good dancer, too. When she called me a couple of weeks before she died and asked if the
band would play at her funeral, I didn't quite know what to say. I know this is a New
Orleans tradition, but our band had never done it, and we didn't know what to play. But
she did. She picked out all the tunes -- some because she liked the name of the song and
some because she liked to dance to them.
minute we'll play "His Eye is on the Sparrow"; and at the end, "When the Saints Go
Marching In." During the reception, she asked us to play "Gimme a Break," "My Bucket's
Got a Hole in It," "Making Whoopee," and "Muskrat Ramble," among others. Tomorrow
night there's a party at Norway Hall -- potluck supper at six and music and dancing until
nine. Mrs. Carter paid for it, so it's free and you're invited. She asked me to say to you that
if you don't know much about our music or how to dance to it, come anyway, maybe you'll
learn something you can use. Thank you.
Fred Ambler walks over to where the rest of the band is standing in the shade of some
trees, and the band plays "His Eye is on the Sparrow" and "I Know He Watches
Me" in slow tempo, with solos all around.
After a long pause, the minister stands alongside the grave once again, holding an
envelope in one hand.
Martha Carter was not an official member of my church, though she attended on
occasion and we were casually acquainted. It was a little surprising to get her call about a
month ago asking me to conduct her funeral, saying something like "My time has come,
Reverend, and you're my man." I was a little taken aback at first, but after helping her
arrange the service, I feel as though I had won an important honor-the Martha Carter
Funeral Award.
all, considerate of the needs and feelings of her family and friends. HER wishes were not
her first concern. She wanted to make sure that this service was as inclusive as possible
and that there was time for people to have their own thoughts and not feel imposed upon.And, as you might expect, she wanted the last word.
The minister holds up the envelope for all to see. On the outside, in her handwriting, it
says, A Note from Martha. He tears open the sealed envelope, takes out a folded
note, and reads aloud:
All in all, I've had a wonderful life. Thank you all for
your part in it.
put on my dancing shoes and went. You do the same.Goodbye.with love,
Martha
The minister shows the note to all and says,
The legacy of Martha Cater is not the dry residue of death. She left behind the sweet
taste of the fine wine of life. When I think of Martha Carter, a voice in my head says, "I
hope I live and die as well as she has." And another voice, perhaps Martha's, replies:
all of you. And of course, you are invited to the dance tomorrow night. Finally, a request:
At the end of the service, will you please stop by the grave, take a handful of dirt, and
place it on Martha's urn. She wanted her family and friends to bury her.And now, let us join in silent prayer, each in his own way
(Silence)
We are grateful for Martha Lee Olson McBride Carter, for her example -- of how to live
and how to die.
The minister picks up the small wooden box that has been sitting on a table at the end of
the grave, places it in the concrete vault below, scatters a handful of dirt on it, and moves
on as members of the family come to do the same. The band strikes up "The Saints"
and marches off down the driveway, stepping lively, blowing strong.