Another Funeral of Note

The hearse was preceded through the cemetery gate by Channel 9 and Channel 7. This was one week ago today, before the death of Richard Nixon, and it seemed every television station in the L.A. Basin had sent news vans to the Olivewood Cemetery. The cameras had not been invited, but their attendance was no surprise.

The deceased was Gloria Ramirez. Not everyone will recognize the name, for this was a woman who lived her 31 years outside the news. “A simple homemaker,” said the minister who came to bury her. Only as a corpse did Ramirez become public property. The circumstances of death--”that bizarre incident at the hospital,” the Rev. Brian Taylor had put it obliquely at a service the night before--unleashed one of those quirky news stories that occasionally grab the public imagination and don’t let go.

Ramirez had been brought to the Riverside General Hospital on Feb. 19 in cardiac arrest. Her skin, a nurse would recall later, was oily, “like you see on the ground of a gas station.” As blood was drawn, a nurse noticed a strong smell and passed out. Other members of the medical team began to collapse. The emergency room was evacuated. Gloria Ramirez died, and eight weeks of headlines began. Headlines like:

DYING PATIENT BLAMED FOR SICKENING FUMES

And, GLORIA’S NOT AN ALIEN, SAYS DISTRAUGHT FAMILY

And, SHUT COFFIN ORDERED IN FUMES CASE

And, SMELLY BODY TO BE RELEASED, BUT NO FUNERAL HOME WANTS IT.

*

The case was cast as a medical mystery. Even today it remains a matter of contention what caused the powerful stench. Riverside County authorities suspect that the odor came from the body of Ramirez; her survivors contend that the hospital was to blame. More than scientific uncertainty, however, provided what the family attorney would call “the steam behind this story.” A surreal autopsy conducted by investigators in toxic suits and a macabre battle over the remains also kept it alive.

Beyond all that, though, something else seems to have happened to Ramirez. It is an awkward point to make, but she became a gag line--an inspiration for water cooler comedians all over the country. The tiniest wink, the barest smirk, often seemed to play across the faces of news readers as they provided the latest “fumes” update. And radio’s morning talent, a species that thrives on bad taste, could not contain itself. On the very morning she was buried, one team of L.A. deejays offered a concocted “new disclosure” that the CIA and MTV were to blame for the “mystery odor.”

Certainly the death of Gloria Ramirez had elements of a Monte Python skit--slapstick, tasteless. Humor, though, can be a matter of distance, and her survivors found nothing funny in her death. Also, the twittering did not escape their attention. Her brother-in-law has complained of a descent into “a science-fiction entertainment fiasco,” and her sister, Maggie Ramirez-Garcia, said through anger and tears last week that “everyone is making her look like she was some type of freak.”

“Gloria,” the Rev. Taylor said simply at the memorial service, “has not been treated right.”

*

The service was short, simple and sad. It was painful to notice how Buddy, Ramirez’s youngest child, looked away from his mother’s portrait on the pearl white casket, as if to keep himself composed. Restoration of dignity was a main theme. The stories Taylor told about Ramirez were banal and ordinary, and this made them more powerful. For the first time since her death, she was presented in public not as a toxic corpse, but rather as a simple woman who looked after her two children, cooked meals, helped with homework and “made people laugh.”

At the cemetery the next morning, camera crews and reporters were kept at a distance. The family had ordered it. So the cameras rolled from across the road, their operators whistling angrily at anyone who stepped in the way of the shot. The minister sang “Amazing Grace.” The mourners hugged one another, wept and then headed for their cars. A few paused for interviews. Most just drove away, followed by the news vans.

And today, exactly one week later, the cameras--their numbers greatly multiplied--take up positions at a grave site 15 miles to the west, in Yorba Linda. Richard Nixon is to be buried. So far, the posthumous analysis has been uniformly kind to the first U.S. President ever to be chased from office. This kindness seems fitting enough. Speaking well of the dead, allowing them a final dignity, is a basic human courtesy. Gloria Ramirez just got cheated.