Today’s story is about Amber Grey, who spent much of her twenties saying yes to drugs. To support her habit, she whored, lied, cheated, and stole. There’s not a member of her family she didn’t exploit at one point or another, and eventually they all wrote her off–all of them, that is, except for her twin brother, Mitch. When Amber hit rock bottom, Mitch was the one who picked her up. He got her into detox, took her in afterwards, and provided tender and tough love as needed. Clean for five years now, Amber credits Mitch for saving her life.
A week ago, Mitch was badly injured in an accident and died within hours. Flying his body from New York (where they both lived), to Memphis (where they grew up) for burial, Amber was sure her family would be hostile; to her surprise, they welcomed her warmly. Mitch had been in regular correspondence with them and had told them how she had changed, and, happily, they believed him. Agreeing that she should give the eulogy, her mother in particular encouraged her to stay in Tennessee as long she needed if she needed support to stay clean.
Amber & Mitch are the youngest children of a brood of six, the rest of whom are members of a Pentecostal church pastored by their father; Mitch’s funeral is being held there. The program for the funeral (which their church calls a homecoming celebration) misleadingly implies that Mitch was a born-again Christian. The obit says he was “saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost” at nine–true enough, but leaving out that he was pressured into that by their parents, and that he vocally and explicitly repudiated Christianity to them when he was eighteen. When Amber was getting clean, Mitch cautioned her about Twelve Stepping, opining that reliance on a higher power was just a different sort of dependence; as he lay dying, he rebuffed the hospital chaplain when asked if he wanted to make his peace with God, saying he couldn’t be at war with an imaginary being. When Amber tried to point all this out to her siblings, they cut her off. Their parents, her siblings say, are inconsolable in their grief and need to believe that Mitch is in heaven; they certainly don’t need to be humiliated in front of their congregation. And, anyway, who’s to say that Mitch didn’t see the light at the last minute?
The night before the funeral, trying to write the sort of eulogy her siblings suggest, Amber was so grieved and stressed that she went out to score. Luckily she remembered Mitch’s last words–he made her promise to do whatever it took to stay clean–and so she went to a meeting instead. When she told her story, one of the members encouraged her to write a eulogy Mitch would approve of. So she ended up with two versions. One toes the family line; the other talks about all the reasons Mitch was the best person she ever knew, and that includes his atheism, which informed his ethics, his personality, and his love for her.
Which brings us to the funeral, the first two-thirds of which consisted of gospel songs, professions of faith, and one outright sermon. Every minute of it has pissed her off more than the previous one. The emcee has just announced that Amber is the next person to speak. She has both eulogies at hand. Which should she deliver?