Funeral Tip #1
If loved one dies in relatively normal way (all parts intact), see the REAL dead person not the waxed up funeral home action figure.

Funeral Day
Shaking like a dry drunk. Keep it together before I speak by pretending that the organist is playing hockey arena ditties.

What’s with the God stuff? Grandpa hated religion(s). All of them.

My turn. Already? Told my cousins to make faces at me or pretend to pick their noses. Got up there and couldn’t look up. Didn’t want to see those grieving faces.

Still, I heard them.

Abide with me was way too long. Last week I found a 52-sec. version by Thelonious Monk.

Childhood

Funeral Tip #2
Always make sure SOMEONE who was intimate with the ex-lifer speaks at the service. Nothing more cold than leaving it to a stranger.

Pallbearer time. All us grandkids. Don’t have far to go. Cold and heavy.

It was all show. Too cold to bury him. I figured that the hearse — which is the symbol of transference and closure — was going round the block, might stop at Tim Hortons first for a coffee, and then head back to the funeral home and put gramps back in the freezer.

Reception at uncle’s place. He’s a great guy. Wish he was my pops.

Post-funeral was maybe the hardest. We’d all been weaved together for the last four days, day and night. It kept us from truth, from solitude, from cold, hard sorrow. Maybe we also feared the death of the family. Gramps was the train station to our trains. Where we gonna go without a station?

While the choice is still ours, we return to our homes, families, lives.

In death we found life and love, but for how long? How long before we slip, fall and forget?

Post-Funeral Tip #1
Grief never goes away.

Since then
Friday, January 30, four days since the funeral. This is my first attempt at anything beyond grief. For some reason I figured I’d be fine the day after the funeral. Nope.

It feels like the ultimate breakup except that there’s no form of appeal. No letters, calls, begging cause there’s no one to perform for. OK, I guess church folk would say that I could pray to God.

I did go out and buy the bible. Figured it might be a good read.

You know how when you turn the TV off you sometimes see the outline of the previous image lingering on the screen? That’s precisely how I feel right now.

January 30, 10:00 pm: A late night drive to my grandparent’s old place, where I was born. Just sit in the car watching that old house, remembering and creating. Didn’t stay for long. The house was sold last fall and I quickly realize that a strange car idling in a lane for 10 minutes is not normal.