Even the postman cried.
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The experience of the stillbirth in 1997 was sad and horrifying, devastating, Karp says–but beautiful, too. She’s captured the subtle, illuminating moments, and the grim and high comedy, in Still, a monologue she’s performing this month at Live Bait Theater. The piece grew out of something she wrote for the memorial service for her daughter, Mary. “I wrote how I found out she had died at the doctor’s appointment,” she says. “What it was like pushing her out, how we held her and dressed her, and what she looked like.” The do-it-yourself service was followed by what she, a nonpracticing Catholic, and her Jewish husband refer to as “the Irish shiva.”
In Still, she says, “The food runs amok and overtakes the house. I walk away as party trays spread through the dining room, then the living room, the family room, until all the tables are covered with food. The doorbell rings all day long….My dad makes sure there is plenty of beer. In my Irish family whenever someone important dies we always give them a big drunk send-off the night of their wake. I am surprised that we are doing this for my daughter, though; she didn’t drink. People come. Some bring food or a card, some cry and bring me stories of loss; some are afraid of me and feel shy. One woman stands in my dining room and cries, ‘I brought a cranberry bread! I brought a cranberry bread!’ as if fearing the small bread will get lost amid the immense trays of turkey roll ups and rugalach. She needn’t fear. I will never forget her fucking cranberry bread.”
