A Dead Body's Thump

This really happened to me when I was 9 years old. It scared the heck out of me then and over the years still scares me - even now, 45 years later.

My father died of a heart attack when I was 9 years old, while I was at school - in the 4th grade. Needless to say it was very unexpected and you can imagine a 9 year old's perception of the whole situation. In the mid 60's it was protocal for Italian families to have a viewing at the funeral parlor for 3 days - 2 hours during the day and 2 hours at night and then the funeral on the 4th day. Since I was young, my mother tried to have me stay with relatives instead of being at the funeral parlor but I cried and insisted I be allowed to go, wanting to be close to my mother. During one of my funeral parlor visits, I remember standing by the foot of the coffin. I can still see myself, that little 9 year old girl in a pretty flowered dress standing there, totally petrified seeing my father dead in a coffin. I still remember so clearly the black suit he was wearing as he lay there, his shiny, black, pointy shoes and the way his hands were positioned on his chest with rosary beads entwined within his fingers. As I was standing by the foot of the coffin petrified, just staring at the coffin, my maternal grandmother was kneeling at the coffin, crying inconsolably. All of a sudden she wrapped her right arm over the coffin and before I knew it my father's body was falling out sideways, as my grandmother pulled the coffin up towards her. I remember my eyes bulging as I saw the shiny, black, pointy shoes coming towards me. Some people in the room ran up to grab the coffin from her and laid it back into position. As they did this, I heard the thump - the sound of my father's hard body hitting the back of the coffin as it laid back down. I'll never, ever in my life forget the sound of that hard thump. "Thump." Still today I can picture those black, shiny, pointy shoes, like it was just yesterday. Whenever I am at the sink in the bathroom with the door open, from the side of my face I see someone standing outside the door wearing those same shiny, black, pointy shoes and just standing there. I always look to make sure no one is there, even though I know - sort of - that no one is there. After all, I'm usually home alone when it happens.

So that's my scary story. It really happened to me and it scared and scarred me for life. I hate funeral parlors and don't go to viewings. Even cemeteries - especially the mausoleums in them scare me. I remember one time I used the bathroom in a cemetery and when I came out of it there was a guy talking on the telephone outside the door. I never jumped so high and I told him, "You scared the heck out of me." Still 45 years later I am petrified of dead bodies and death, and I don't understand death.