VANISHED PART VI
At eight o’clock, with the funeral
set at eight thirty, Jerrold was forced to make his decision. He would be faithful to his position, to the
deceased protectors of the United States, to their families. He would
allow the funerals to progress. Then he
would take his punishment for the loss of Michael Leonard Smith’s urn box. One way or another.
He called to the gate and let the
guard know it was time to allow mourners to enter. There were ten cars waiting for access to the funeral, all
lined up at the entrance wondering if our country was under attack. The first one in the queue was Janet
MacDonald, Jerrold’s wife.
Janet sped to Jerrold's office, grabbed her flowers and the favorite sandwich
she’d brought with her. She dashed
inside as Jerrold looked up. He was just
getting ready to walk over to the commitment shelter. She walked quickly to him, placing the things in
her hands on his desk and wrapped her arms around him. “Are you alright? What has happened today? I’ve been worried
sick about you.” She hugged him close to
her, damn the protocol.
Jerrold was speechless. He wanted
to take her outside and spill everything he’d been thinking, tell her about the
missing urn, about losing his job and ask her forgiveness for being such a
loser. His head throbbed from the
nitroglycerin he’d just taken, but his heartbeat had settled down and his arm
quit aching.
Tears formed in his eyes as she looked at him, then hugged him
again. She’d never seen him cry and knew
this was a significant point in their marriage.
“I have a funeral,” he said
quietly.
“I know. We’ll talk after. I’ll wait here for you.”
“There are eighteen today.”
“Maybe Mr. Greevy could step in for you just for today.”
Cherrie, who couldn’t help overhearing their words, said, “I’ll find
Harold and I know he keeps slacks and a dress shirt in his truck for
emergencies.” She dashed out the door.
At eight thirty, every car had parked,
every cushion held a mourner for Mrs. Rene Christophson, wife of Lt. Commander
Richard Thomas Christophson, USN.
The minister stood to talk about the deceased as an attendent held the
urn that would be interred in the same crypt as Richard Christophson.
Natalie, who had been waiting two hours for this moment, fidgeted,
annoying the people in the third row where she sat. At last she stood, walked up to the minister
and announced, “This funeral cannot continue.
It is a fake and must be stopped.”
The minister said, “I’m sorry
for you loss, but why don’t you sit down here next to me and I’ll
continue. We cannot deny this fine woman
the last wishes of herself and her husband, the Lt. Colonel.”
“Oh yes we can,” Natalie
blurted out with her voice raised. She
shoved her hand into her purse as several people flinched. She pulled back her hand holding a sheaf of
papers.
“I saw the obituary notice in the newspaper about this woman’s death.”
From stunned silence, the
congregation of the somber men and women registered bemusement, chagrin,
irritation and hostility on their faces as Natalie continued. “I have for a
long time been studying the genealogy of my family to find where I placed in
the world. I am an adopted child whose
birth mother died when I was four years old.
All of her papers were kept for me by my mother’s sister. In those papers I found my birth father’s
Last Will and Testament.” Natalie placed
a set of papers on the minister’s podium.
You will see highlighted here that my father mandated in his will for my
mother to be interred with him in this military cemetery. My mother was a military wife
who moved all over the world as my father was
deployed to Alaska, to Argentina, to Germany and Korea. She bore hardships you cannot
imagine while hauling her five children with her to all these countries and
adapting like an octopus to homes without bathrooms, without running water,
without vegetables, for heaven’s sake, so she could keep our family together
during the time my father was irreverently sent all over the place by his
government. She ultimately died of
malaria contracted in Panama in the 1950’s.” Natalie laid down a death certificate for her
mother, Martina Louise Christophson.
“Meanwhile,” Natalie continued, “my father was captured in north Korea and left in a camp until his apparent release sometime around 1960, but
nobody knew where he was. My brothers
and I were separated and raised by various relatives and adoptive parents. My father apparently was released and either
did not want his family or was so damaged that he forgot about us. In any case, he remarried this woman lying
here today. However, he never bothered to be divorced
before marrying Rene Christophson."
Natalie found the death
certificate for her father, Richard Christophson and laid it on top of the
podium with her other paperwork. “Then he died.”
Jerrold, who’d been standing
to the side of seating benches spoke up.
“Ms., the woman being interred here today was your father’s legal wife,
and her name appeared in his will as being buried with him in this veteran’s
cemetery.”
“But,
don’t you get it? So was my mother’s name.
Yes, my father was apparently a bigamist, probably through no fault of
his own. But my mother is the one who
deserves to be buried with him. She went
through fifteen years of hell with and for him, all out of love.”
Natalie turned to the grievers in the first
row that was dedicated to the immediate family members. “I have nothing against your mother. But my mother was Richard’s legal husband and
in the Federal Benefits for Veterans book, you will find that it’s my mothers
right to be buried next to her husband as mandated by his will.” Natalie added the benefits booklet to the stack
of paperwork she’d set before the minister, who now stood with his mouth open.
At first
the silence was overwhelming.
Then a
bereaved woman in the front row stood up with a tall man, turned to Natalie and
said, “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. My father was not a bigamist and you
obviously have contrived to malign the name of a wonderful human being. Now you get out of here and let us continue
in our grief. My mother died. Can’t you see that?”
“If your
mother is buried in the same crypt as my father then my attorney will sue the
Veteran’s Administration and I’ll go to the newspapers, the television media
and anybody else I can find. Everybody
will know he was a bigamist. Even though
he was my father as well.”
Chaos
reigned after that.
