Grief Part 2

I’ve thought a lot about my father lately. He called this morning to tell me that my grandfather is unconscious. Him being on hospice means that they won’t intervene, so unless he wakes up on his own he will essentially starve to death before the week is out. I can’t say how I’m feeling about that. I leak tears randomly. I have these moments where I’m nearly over whelmed by emotion but it is never at a time where I am free to indulge that impulse so it usually ends with me allowing myself a few seconds to cry followed by several minutes of trying to pull myself back together and recompose my face.

I think about my grandmother often and randomly. I think of questions I wish I’d asked her. My dad is a twin. I wondered earlier if she knew she was having twins before the actual birth. It was 1959 in a podunk town in the depths of the Appalachians. I doubt there was any medical way for her to be sure. But I’ll never know unless someone else though to ask her.

I think about dad because I can’t truly fathom his level of grief. He lost his oldest brother two years ago, his best friend since junior high last year and his mother this year. He’ll likely lose his father in a matter of months, if not days. No matter the depths of my own grief at losing my Mamaw, I know his is greater still. I know that no matter his ability to remain composed and seemingly solid that there has to be a torrent underneath the likes of which I have never known.

—

I meant to write about her funeral and my trip home. It just never felt like a good time. I suppose that’s the ponit though. There is never a good time. Grief and life and loss all hit on their own time. The nuances of your life are irrelevant.

 

It was a good funeral as far as funerals go. On my dad’s side I am blessed with a jovial family. There wasn’t much crying. As soon as I walked in to the home (the same one my family has used for generations) my aunt Dana saw me and lost herself for a moment. I held her somewhat awkwardly and let her cry.

I don’t have the best relationship with my step mother or step sister, yet bizarrely they sought me out immediately after I released my aunt. They were full of questions about my travel and where I live but nothing that ever ventured into the realm of the personal. I sought Dad and escape quickly not knowing what to make of their sudden friendliness. I haven’t seen either of them in more than a decade and they have never been what I would call friendly or kind. I sent my step sister a facebook friend request a year or so ago which she ignored. Yet all of a sudden we were buddies standing in the open, empty room with my grandmother’s corpse.

My step sister (Candi) wore a sundress, my step mother (Jackie) a casual pant suit. Though we have never been nor ever will be a formal family I found their casualness inexplicably offensive. You wouldn’t show up to church in that, how is it appropriate for the funeral of a woman I can’t help but elevate to sainthood in my memory?

Grief turns into bitterness when you’re not looking. It doesn’t need a reason, just a path of least resistance. It’s easier to be angry than to be sad.

Dad was casual while carrying an obviously used tissue balled up in his hand. He laughed and talked with the rest of us, saying with a strange casualness that the band that was going to sing could be heart wrenching and that I should grab some tissue. The last time I saw him cry I was 9 or 10. I didn’t even "see" it then. He turned out the lights while he sat in the hot tub, asking me if I would move in with him if he left Jackie. I found out later that he had caught her in an embarrassingly public adultery. But he didn’t leave.

I hated the funeral people. I always do. The preacher was the only one who felt anything and he’d known my grandmother since he was a boy. The rest wore that mask, the one that looks like sympathy but smells like greed. The woman gave a speech about respect and love that suspiciously herded us into the script that was most convenient for the staff. I hate the order of it, as if it makes it all okay as long as you can make every thing go according to plan.

We were shuffled to the pews reserved for family. It was there that Jackie did the only decent thing I’ve ever known her to do my life. The only pew left had room for just two people. Dad was going to ask the others on it to squeeze together so the three of us could sit. Jackie interrupted and told me and Dad to sit while she went to the pew behind us. I was both stunned and grateful. I spent the service leaned over on Dad’s shoulder while he squeezed my knee. Both of us alternated positions to wipe eyes and noses.

I was sad until the preaching. The fire and brimstone that is the Baptist way always sobers me up. I hate that the call for "savings" and talk about biblical passages. There’s no comfort there for me. It turns something inside me cold and angry. Suddenly this death that is wrenching the life out of me is this catalyst to bring more sheep to the flock. Fuck off. Leave us to our grief. Read us the passages about mansions and the end of suffering if you must but don’t use this as an opportunity for recruitment. It steals the somberness of the moment out from under me. Suddenly I’m thinking anymore about her life or her death, I’m thinking about religion and hypocrisy. Maybe I should thank him for saving me the tissues and the sadness.

My dad had to be a pall bearer. Others would have volunteered in his place but he wouldn’t ask them to. The lady from the funeral home asked him and he agreed without question, not wanting to seem weak or inconvenienced. No other of her 4 living sons undertook that burden.

The graveside service was short. It rained. The funeral home lady said that the sprinkling was her telling us to not worry about her. She’d have said the same if it had been sunny and beautiful. But we all laughed and talked and remembered funny stories. That’s just they way they are. Jackie and Candy never really spoke to me again. I had a short exchange with Candy about her dress getting caught by the wind but that was the extent of our talks.

I couldn’t help but be struck by Jackie’s insistence on referring to my dad as "Dad" whenever she spoke to my stepsister. It was so frequent that it felt deliberate. It was a blow the first time I heard it since the last I spoke to either of them he was still "Eddie" to her. I ignored it. If she feels like he’s her father then I’m glad for her. If not, it was a low blow and it doesn’t deserve being riled over.

—

I drove Dad to the nursing home where my grandfather is after. He didn’t remember that Mamaw was dead. I mentioned that in the last entry. The look on both of their faces will haunt me till I die: Papaw’s face growing long and tortured as the realization came over him, Dad’s shaking and red trying to hold back his emotion. He told Papaw he was sorry but that he couldn’t lie to him. He said empty things about him getting better. He’s not going to get better. His cancer isn’t going away.

But I held them both and tried not to cry.

—

It sucks, all of it. You can be poetic about it or fluff it up however you want but it boils down to it all sucking. I miss my dad a

nd I hate being so far away from him right now. He has this "matter of fact"ness about him when he tells me things but I know what’s going on internally. I know because I feel it, too, but there’s just no saying it. Death sucks. And the reality is that I may be running right back home for another funeral. I could miss it. I was just there so they would understand. But funerals aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living and I wouldn’t miss being there for Dad.

—

There was some drama before she died that Dad told him in this way that was supposed to convey it’s ridiculousness and hilarity but that really told me all I needed to know about how much stress he’s under. I should record it but I’m not even sure I want t remember it.

—

I want to write about happier things. I want to write about babies and trying to make babies and my awesome job but none of it is there now. Maybe it will be later. The best I can do for now is recording that my work sent me a basket of flowers and the department I used to work for sent me a sympathy card. Zac’s aunt Lois sent me one too that had a page long message in it. She’s from a different era where you actually hand wrote letters instead of scrawling out a few hollow words.

—

Death puts life into perspective and I’m suddenly more exhilarated and terrified than I’ve ever been.