The chapel of the funeral parlor was filled with Aunt Bettie's friends seated in dainty wooden folding chairs, with the family all positioned at the front. Floral arrangements, some large and bright, some small and subdued, flanked her plain wooden casket, making the plain light-green room quietly resplendent. Great thick mauve curtains hung stately around the windows and behind the bier. Large round side tables each held brass lamps, accompanied by bowls of mints or small flower baskets. Off in a small side room an organist played mournful hymns from an old hymnbook. Aunt Bettie herself was made up in a way that she'd never been in life. Her hair was fluffed up and her final coat of makeup gave her more rosy cheeks than I ever remembered her sporting. She even had a heavy, dark-rimmed pair of glasses that were far darker than what she usually wore.

Aunt Bettie was my mother's sister. She made her own way in life, enlisting in the Navy during World War II, where she served as a parachute rigger. She married after the war, but it only lasted long enough to produce my cousin. Aunt Bettie worked as an LPN in a pediatrician's office. When I saw her at work, I would see her in the waiting room doorway in her starched white uniform and cap, tall and business-like, calling her young patients back to their exam rooms. There wasn't much money in nursing then; Aunt Bettie and Patty lived in a walk-up apartment that wasn't in the best part of town. She had a car for a while, but when her eyesight got too bad to drive she depended on the bus for transportation.

My relationship with Aunt Bettie was a strained one sometimes, particularly during my boyhood days. I was her only nephew on her side of the family, and I brought more rambunctiousness to family gatherings than my sister and cousins did; far more than Aunt Bettie deemed proper. Aunt Bettie was the absolute maven of propriety! I learned that well as a little boy, when I spent many Sunday mornings wedged in between her and Grandma in a hard middle pew at the Methodist church. Fidgeting was rewarded with an owlish stare; giggling won me a shaken shoulder and a hissed "Stoppit!"

I pushed Aunt Bettie's patience all the way to the end one Sunday when, after the ushers had taken the filled offering plates to the front of the church to be blessed by the minister, I noticed that they all stood with bowed heads and hands folded in front in almost the same pose one would assume at a urinal! I knew what I was thinking wasn't nice, especially in church, but I couldn't focus on anything else. My stomach started to shake. I tried holding my breath, but in an instant the shaking was all the way up to my throat. Before long the whole pew was vibrating with stifled mirth. Sure enough, the requisite shoulder shake came swift and sure. But it didn't cure the giggles. I tried to force myself to be still; I put my head down and squinted my eyes closed. I even held my breath some more. But the only thing that holding my breath did was force me to gasp in a huge gulp of air. My quivering little body couldn't contain all that air and I expelled it, still struggling to contain myself.

That's when the snot bubble happened.

As usual I didn't have a handkerchief, so I crumpled up my bulletin to wipe my nose. I tried to crumple quietly, but Aunt Bettie could stand no more. I disappeared in what must have looked like a mini-Rapture and found myself dumped in the nursery.

The service began. The room grew hushed; the minister took her place at the podium. She read some standard Bible verses and gave a nice memorial talk using stories she'd culled from her visit with the family. When she was done, my cousins got up to sing. The girls sang beautiful harmony, which made their performance all the more appropriate. Barb, who was closest to Aunt Bettie, didn't want to stand in front of the assembled mourners. So the four of them went into the anteroom with the organ. A few introductory notes warbled and the cousins began their song. I looked around the room. The men in their dark suits sat almost at attention, faces rigid. A few of the ladies bowed their heads and clutched hankies. My sister leaned over and whispered, "Do you think anyone wonders why they went to sing in the closet?"

I looked at my aunt in her casket and remembered the many Sunday mornings we sat together in church. I remembered the owlish stares and shaken shoulders. I even remembered late-night calls to her as a nervous new father, long after she'd retired.

And my stomach started to shake.