The truth is, in recalling the words of my eulogy, I’m not sure if what I am now reporting is what I actually said or what I wish I had said or even if I dared to speak at all, I was so wiped out physically and so emotionally drained by all the events of the past days. But assuming I did speak, I believe this, more or less, was the content. I believe I went on for a bit, addressing Ma directly, assuring her that I was carrying out her wishes to the letter, exactly as she had communicated them to me when she had trapped my hand under the weight of her thigh so near to the opening of the birth canal through which I, followed by my twin brother, Shmelke, had made our entry into this world of woe, hoping, I guess, that she would find some way to express her approval and gratitude from the other side in the presence of these onlookers, a simple thank-you, some small token of appreciation and recognition, it was the least she could do. The rest of my eulogy, as best I can remember, was focused on speculation as to why Ma had wanted to be processed in this particular way, so alien to someone of her background and lifestyle. If she was thinking along environmentally friendly, ecological recycling lines (which I doubted), I might have speculated that it would have been more sustainable for her to have requested to be laid out on a mountain-top like carrion in the Parsee way and devoured by vultures; I would have done whatever she asked, she could have counted on me. In any event, in choosing between burial and cremation, clearly she preferred to leave a greater carbon footprint than to take up extra space on this already overcrowded planet. Finally, in conclusion, I played with the idea that Ma had chosen to avoid a traditional rite because at all costs she did not want to be called a Woman of Valor, an Aishet Hayil, which is how every respectable dead religious Jewish woman is summed up and characterized in the eulogy at her funeral and on her gravestone regardless of how she may or may not have conducted her life. Charm is false, beauty is vanity, a God-fearing woman, she will be praised, and so on—this is the Aishet Hayil, the grunt in the army of husband and sons, laughing all the way to the end of time. Ma wanted no part of that—that was my hypothesis. She’d rather go up in smoke. I turned to the great corpse at my feet, supported by the eunuchs as it was partially propped up against the platform on which I was standing, and addressed it directly. “So Ma, I just want you to know that you have made your point. Rest assured, you are no Aishet fucking Hayil.”