I�ve gotten to the point where I don�t want to write about this any more. But neither do I want to let the memories go until I�ve stored them somewhere. In a few years I think I'll be glad that I took the time to do this.

Sunday night we had a big family meeting about the funeral arrangements. Mom originally planned to have a viewing with an open casket and a cremation after. I talked her out of the open casket, thank god. The last funeral I attended was for my 26-year-old friend Cynthia, who died in a car accident. Her viewing was a very bad idea. The girl in the casket looked like a poorly-made wax dummy carved by a person who had never met Cyn. A poorly-made wax dummy with head trauma.

I had to tell my mother that I could not look at Andrew�s body, and after about an hour of discussion with her pastor she agreed that she didn�t want to see it either, nor did she think my little brother Cole should be subjected to the sight. You know, that kind of makes it sound like my mother can't make a move without consulting her pastor, which is completely untrue. He just showed up on the doorstep in the middle of our family discussion and we asked his opinion, just to be polite, thinking he might have something valuable to say after the many, many funerals he has attended and presided over. The man is a slow, deliberate speaker, and he was about as willing to commit to an opinion as the average politician. Instead he just shared many anecdotes with tenuous or nonexistent ties to the question at hand.

Alice, who had gone to visit Dad earlier that day, informed us that there was a slight snag: Dad not only wanted a viewing, he was also against cremation. He thought it was important to have a grave site to visit. Mom�s pastor agreed to meet us at the funeral home and attempt to mediate an agreement between my parents. I tried not to roll my eyes, but the effort forced me to go to bed early.

Monday morning at 10 am I went to the funeral parlor with Mom and Stepdad and we arrived just after Alice and her boyfriend. We took a look inside the place, which had a big chapel, a tiny kitchen, and two large, sparsely-furnished parlors. It was nice. Off in the corner there was a showroom with all the latest coffin models. We went straight to the urns and debated the merits of a brass vase-shape versus a square oak box.

When Dad walked in Mom was the first one to greet him and she tried to give him a hug, but he just stood there with his arms limp and said �I don�t want to hug you.� Then my parents argued about a phone conversation they had the day my brother died, when my father called looking for comfort and my mother was still too broken up to give him any. Mom asked him to come into the chapel with her for a private conversation. Alice and I followed them in, because we aren�t stupid enough to leave them alone together. Alice and I stood side by side with an arm around one another. Her other arm was around Mom and I hugged Dad to my side. We stood like that as Mom explained to him the non-viewing memorial we wanted and our reasons for having Andrew cremated rather than buried. She started crying and pretty much begged him, which is the best way to get what you want from my father.

�I can�t stand to think of him in the ground.� She said. �I want to keep him with me. You can do whatever you want with your half of his ashes, bury them or keep them, or scatter them on the water, but I need to feel that part of him is still with me.� Alice and I backed her up, saying that we wanted the same thing, and dad conceded that he would probably like to keep Andrew with him, too. We all cried for a minute, and hugged each other.

That was the last time I saw my mother cry. After that she was all business and strength and she kept the rest of us propped up.

When Amber finally got there we sat down with the funeral director and went through all the arrangements. We saved a lot of money by nixing the viewing, since that meant we didn�t need a casket, embalming, or make-up. Dad felt like he needed to see Andrew in order to believe that he was really dead, and to say goodbye, so the funeral director said that family members could view him as soon as his body was delivered from the coroner�s office. He explained that Andrew would be on a table, covered by a sheet, with his head on a pillow. Because the coroner had done an autopsy, there was no telling what condition the body would be in, so the funeral director agreed to use his best judgement to decide whether the sheet should be pulled back to reveal his face.

We joked about all of Andrew�s piercings and warned the funeral director not to be too shocked. He told us they leave body jewelry in during cremation and everything is included with the ashes.

Dad had more surprises for us. He had already written an obituary, a very touching one, and a friend of his who worked for the newspaper had offered to get it in for no charge. Dad also wanted a religious service. Mom didn�t think Andrew would have wanted it, but she quickly agreed to do as my father requested. Dad had no church connections, so Mom�s pastor agreed to do it.

I got to pick the poem that went into the programs. Dad and Alice liked it right away, but I had to talk Mom and Amber into it. �But he won�t have a grave.� They argued. Exactly. That was a big part of the reason I chose it.

We decided to have a 3 hour service. Family only from 4-5 pm, open to the public at 5 and a service at 6. My parents chose two oak boxes for their ashes, and my sisters even got necklaces with miniature urns so they could each have a pinch of the ashes. I declined the offer of a necklace for myself.

After all the decisions were made Mom sent us out of the room so she could write the check in private. Alice, Amber and I used our cell phones to start calling everyone to let them know the memorial service times.

There are a lot of little details I�ve already forgotten, though I remember in general what it felt like to sit around that table and calmly discuss funeral arrangements. There was this constant nagging feeling that something was missing. No matter how much we talked about �what Andrew would have wanted�, he wasn�t there to give his own vote.