At this time of a significant funeral in my life, I am thankful for family. Family are those people who act a lot like me, and are forced in my face at times like this, when we all have to come together, and I get to see myself in them. That is when I get to reevaluate my behaviors, and decide which to cut out in order to make a little less of an ass of myself.
I suppose wisdom has arrived when we realize that the ones who we love are the ones with the most power to hurt us. I am not ready to shed a tear at the funeral. If anything, I am still angry at the dead. I am angry at the dead for the amount of pain she has caused me. But again, wisdom arrives when I realize that I spent more time with her than anyone at her funeral barr her two sons. I was already in the position to be hurt because of that.
And now she goes into her grave, Grandma Joan. I’ll miss the good times. As for the last ten years, those will have to work their way out of my mind.
I have not had a lot of communication from family when I have needed it. In fact, there has been pretty much none. Then, to sit through a funeral for the family matriarch and see not a tear shed, was a surprise. To hear that others talked about how frustrating she was at the end, came almost as a surprise. Almost. It validated me just to know that they knew. I wish I knew that much earlier on. But then, that is where the communication comes in, doesn’t it?
Some shared memories of her, and the frustrating times are what sprang to mind. I shared not a thing. But had I, it may have gone something like this…
I remember the anniversary dinner she shared with her husband in Lompoc, the romantic time they tried to have together, and the look on her face when the phone rang, and she smiled, knowing what it was, and her excitement at the news of the birth of my cousin, Brandon. I remember working with her in her vegetable garden behind the house in Oceanside in 1978. I remember her shock and sadness when her little chihuahua died in the night in the living room of the house in Norwalk, her face buried into grandpa’s chest. I remember countless hours sat next to her in church. I remember the terrible nood,es she would try to reheat after having boiled the starch out of them the night before. I remember the fishing at the beach in the summer of 78, and taking turns each day either catching lots of fish, or nothing. I remember the very unusual RV grandpa bought, and how proud they both were to drive around in it while people looked on, heads cocking to see what in the world it was. I remember the trips by car and by airplane back to West Virginia, grandma sat in a lounge chair and red shorts between the old Foor house and the cemetary up behind it while I mowed the lawn on a riding lawnmower.
But most of all, I remember that she tried her best to do her best for her family and her faith. In the end, I think her faith won out, which was not necessarily great for some of her family, but that is where faith has got it wrong. Families can be together forever. But the impulse to respond the minute that is threatened is to throw the family out before the faith. She was a victim of that mentality. In the end, that was not her fault.
Goodbye grandma. I’ll miss the you of the earlier years. And I will do my best to forget these last ones. You always promised to haunt me when you go. You don’t and I’ll get a Ouija board and come pester you instead.
KJB