by Pam From Hell

Created on: April 15, 2011

Blizzard Farewell

Blizzards in Michigan are not for the weak or faint of heart. They are brutal, unforgiving, and can ruin any plans, including “farewells.” The day of my Grandmother’s “farewell” was just this type of day. Wind and snow advisories would be ignored because postponing wasn’t an option.  Besides, we were Michiganders who had driven through blizzards worse than this. Or so we thought.

The attendance at the funeral home was minimal since nobody wanted to brave the elements. We had driven from out of town, so we didn’t have a choice. It was do, or die. (No pun intended.) By the time the blizzard has escalated to a full blown whiteout, it was time to go to the cemetery.  Was fate to smile down upon us and let it be nearby the funeral home? No, fate was outright laughing at us, because it was a good ten miles away.

The drive to the cemetery was a harrowing one, with icy snow accumulating on the windshield wipers, causing them to stop periodically. My father was driving, my stepmother was in the passenger seat, and they both had to keep reaching outside their windows, snapping the wipers against the windshield to clean them. Every time they opened their windows, my brother and I in the back seat got pelted with icy snow that was blowing with gale force winds. It didn’t take long before we all looked like icy drowned rats.

We were in the car directly behind the hearse, and my father's cousins were in the car following ours. The visibility was so bad that we could barely see the glowing red tail or brake lights of the hearse. Needless to say we were all nervous wrecks, on the edge of our seats, trying to make visual contact with the hearse. My brother displayed his nervousness by jabbering incessantly, my father kept muttering obscenities, and my stepmother choked back quiet little sobs of terror. I was praying my father wouldn’t hit the hearse in the rear end.

With slight glimpses of the tail lights, the hearse turned right, and we followed. My father suddenly blurted, "Everybody look and see if they are behind us ... I think at that last right turn, they turned left!" We looked, and sure enough, no car could be seen. They had turned the wrong way. Were they also blinded by the blizzard, or were they giving up and heading home? We would never find out, and we never saw them again. They vanished in the great white abyss.

We finally reached the cemetery and huddled as a group to keep from falling. We made our way to the tent and the few chairs that were ready to take flight at any moment. The flapping tent sounded like it was going to tear apart. It was like a scene in a bad movie, with the mortuary people struggling to stay standing, and the pastor waving from side to side as he tried to remain professional as he spoke. We couldn’t hear a word because of the deafening roar of the wind, and any attempts at lip reading were out of the question because we had to keep our eyes closed most of the time to keep the snow from pelting our eyes. After only a mere five minutes, the pastor finally shouted at the top of his lungs, "Well ... that's it - I'm out of here, and I think you should be too!"

We left, made it back without getting creamed on the roads, and knew we would never forget that blizzard, or that she was probably watching from above, laughing at us the entire time.

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