Outside the funeral home, the WORST funeral home I've ever been to, where conveniently my mother's funeral is already planned and paid for, I met my 13 year old niece Mariah for the first time. She's the daughter of my brother Tom, who is the longest hold out from the family implosion of 1993 (another long story). She looks disturbingly like my ex sister-in-law except with blond hair and feels nothing like an actual member of my family. She's not awkward and she goes to private school, pretty telling if you ask me. I was later informed by my brother-in-law Charlie that Mariah's mother Paula has gotten ridiculously fat since I last saw her which pleased me to no end. We then spent a long while standing outside while those who drove put the vehicles in order by oldest to youngest child at the request of a funeral home employee. Why that was important I don't know.
Just as a bit of background, my parents have 8 living children, 4 boys and 4 girls. This was the first time we've all been together since I don't know when. At least the early 90s but maybe earlier. And it was incredibly weird how we all just kind of slipped back into things being like they used to be. I apparently am still the emotional and dramatic youngest child who fits in better with the younger kids, nieces and nephews, who are actually closer in age to me than any of my brothers and sisters. Rick and Tom are jocks, Ken's the nerd, Janet plays the mom, etc.
When I walked inside I couldn't go near the open casket at the front of the main room. I went immediately to the side room and sat in a chair facing the opposite direction where I stayed most of the morning. It seemed that I was the only one having a rough time with this. Rick talked to me and was understanding of what I was feeling although I don't remember exactly what we said to each other. Then Tom was sitting across from me and asking me inappropriate questions while I was visibly upset like, "So, what do you do?" Are you fucking kidding me you strange person who I used to live with but haven't seen or spoken to in almost two decades?
After a little while Chris and I went to find a coffee shop on Main St. We talked as we walked and I felt significantly better being outside but when we came back I was told I couldn't take my coffee inside and I wanted to start screaming. Janet appeared to be running things, standing by the body and receiving the...guests? visitors? Then my nephew Dan was doing some sort of sermon and his wife, whom I had never met before yesterday, was singing some hymn, Rock of Ages or something. I was getting angrier by the second and ended up walking outside, grabbing my coffee off the ledge near the front door and then slamming the door as I exited. I stood around outside, realized the funeral home was right across the street from the very first place I ever went for psychiatric therapy when I was 14, got a little more angry and started sending Allen text messages about how fucking ridiculous all of this was. I finished my coffee and went back inside only to realize that I was at a
funeral home that didn't provide tissues for the bereaved. I was forced to go into the bathroom and get some scratchy paper towels. I went back to my seat off to the side and noticed that my mother's not crazy sister and brother had also sat over here, separating themselves from the fakery which I thought was very telling and it made me wonder how much they knew about what I knew about my father. At some point, before my outrage took over, I said hello to my cousin Bob and aunt Emily. They informed me very matter-of-factly that one of my other cousins, Brian, their brother and son respectively, had recently been killed in an auto accident of his own causing, telling me basically that it was for the best in his case. Apparently he had drug and alcohol problems. Well, then.
Eventually the service was over and only family was left. Chris, who cleverly referred to himself as a "Paul" bearer (my father's name was Paul), offered to go up to view the body with me but I never did get too close. I went as close as I could, which was still about ten feet away. Standing there staring at this shell that represented so much anger and hatred and pain in my life...I just burst into tears again. Then my oldest brother David put his arm around my shoulders and comforted me. "He ruined her life!" I said to him. As he should, he reminded me that she let him do it, she stayed with him. While I don't 100% agree with this, it is ultimately true, she did stay with him for over 50 years to the detriment of EVERY ONE of her nine children... So she's not entirely blameless.
Last photo I have of my parents together. This was taken the day Allen and I got married, September 20, 2002.
Soon his body was loaded into the hearse and we all drove to the grave site. My brother-in-law Don delivered a surprisingly appropriate eulogy. I think he said something about how some of us had sometimes wished for or dreamed of this day, how he had been a total asshole to his family. Not in those exact words, obviously, but he didn't shy away from the truth. Afterwards, everyone wandered around for a bit, looking at other family graves: My brother Mike, that cousin who was killed in a tractor accident when he was like 12, Uncle Emory, my father's parents and others. Each of the daughters took a rose from the flower arrangement lying on top of the casket. I didn't really want the rose, I just wanted to spit on that damn box. I ending up throwing it away not long after, once we were at the church for the "wake."
Going to Pleasant Hill church was not what I had wanted to do or what I had planned on doing, Chris and I were supposed to go to lunch at the Howard House but he forgot to drive or something. So there I was, at this church that had given me so much grief over the years. Oh, look, it's Mrs. Kramer, who made me sing in front of everyone as a child (with a microphone!) when I knew perfectly well that I couldn't sing. And there was that time that she made me and Sally Richarts play our flutes for the congregation. She was a fucking nightmare task master, I definitely want to talk to her for longer than necessary. There's Mr. Kramer, showing an appropriate lack of interest in both me and what's going on around him, thank christ for old men. Here's someone named Brenda, remember her? Um, oh, yes, of course. I'd love to talk to her for an uncomfortable amount of minutes about her children who were significantly older than me who I didn't hang out with.
Finally the food was ready. If you haven't heard me talk about it before, there are four food groups in Cecil County: Meat, Bread, Cake and Diet Soda. I was actually eating meat at this point in time but I was still freaked out when I looked at the aluminum tray of grocery store fried chicken and saw an actual chicken feather. On
fried chicken. So naturally I exclaimed, "There's a feather on that piece of fried chicken." "That's not a feather," my sisters said indignantly as they tried to place it on my aunt Emily's plate. So I removed the feather and, sticking in their face, simply said, "Look at it. Feather." Emily, who is pretty much blind, was grateful that she didn't end up eating a feather.
My cousin Faye showed up at some point and was awesome and funny, cursing every once in a while. I noticed for the first time that she has this weird facial tic, which once discovered was hard to stop watching. Cousin Bob tried talking to me about buying a house and other adult things, he's not too much older than me but was obviously unaware that I'm not really an adult despite my appearance and so I just sorta smiled and nodded as well as I could until I could get away. When everyone that was not immediate family had left, we had Charlie bring over the box with the hidden house cash in it and we counted it out into eight equal piles. Then we took photos in the church proper, often waving our individual stacks of cash around. It was glorious. And probably for the best that I not publish the photos now that I think about it.
When we got back to Janet's house later that evening my brother Ken was nearly in insulin shock from taking too much after his blood sugar went through the roof from eating too much so we had to get him some juice and more food. He's like a genius computer nerd but obviously not so genius about his health. Me, Janet, Ken, Diane and Charlie sat around talking. I was able to get Janet to pay me for my train ride from Philly to Newark, DE. I
thought she had thrown a $10 bill in my bag. Turned out to be a $50 from the petty cash stash. I was pleased. Ken had on a Cthulhu t-shirt without realizing it and I was shamed. Chris and I were planning on going out later because I really needed a drink after all that happened that day. I was so tired and Chris wanted to take me to some bar in Wilmington but we settled on something closer, Howard House in downtown Elkton.
We sat at the bar and had some drinks and talked about life, my shitty father, shitty friends. The bartender was clearly ready to close up shop around midnight. It was a Wednesday night in Elkton, after all. We went back to Janet's and my nephew Kenny was still up. I guess I was a little drunker than I thought, even though I'd only had two shots of whiskey and three beers at the bar. I started going on about how it was all thanks to me that the younger kids had had it so much easier as teenagers. I paved a path through hell so they could get away with so much more. I found out recently that my nephews Kenny and Brian are somewhat legendary for their hacking and hijinks at Rising Sun High School. My sister-in-law's stepson, a soon to be senior at the school, was in awe when I told him I was related to them. I was so proud. Then we talked about
Sophia Lamar for a while before I absolutely had to get some sleep around 2am.
The next day the family was going to clean out the house where I had lived off and on with my parents from ages 9-19. Truckloads of stuff was sent to the dump. The rest of us loaded up the stuff we wanted to take home with us. Later that evening was the experience that's come to be referred to as Maple Shady. It's like a casino where you can only access the buffet and the gift shop. More on this and the conclusion coming soon in "He did pass away." Pt. III.
