Red Room

Returning from Red’s funeral with my half-sister, the second funeral I had attended, one Mormon, one Catholic. Two religions in which baptism is a form of data entry into vast archives

I had three grandfathers. I never knew my paternal grandfather, Jack “Red” Wiggins, who died when I was small. He had left my father’s family, and then when he was 60, he converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or informally by outsiders “The Mormon Church”) in order to marry a younger mormon widow. My only memory of Red was attending his funeral as a toddler. He lay in his casket in Mormon burial garments, my family and I stood out as the only strangers among the rest of the attendees. My father says he has blocked the experience out.