Funerals revisted

I didn't used to understand funerals. My parents would take me to a quiet room, with wooden benches, and everyone would seem so serious. I was a well-behaved child, but I really was anxious to leave. When I was a little kid, I never knew anyone who had died in the funeral, so it was just an unusual break in the routine. And days later I'd forget about what happened and get back to my kid life.

My grandmother and great grandmother died when I was in high school. Neither of the funerals did much for me. My grandmother was an infuriating woman to be around - always complaining about her childhood. She was a smoker, but pretended that she wasn't. Her walls and drapes were brownish-yellow and the thick film of cigarettes covered you as you walked into her house. She got cancer and when we last visited her in the hospital, she hadn't had a bowel movement for many days and looked to be in excrutiating pain. She was laying on a doctor's table with IVs, her stomach was enormous, and her hair was wild. When we talked to her, she rambled on about how little she cared for the treatment she was receiving that was keeping her alive. Finally, before she was sedated, she said, "Oh god, just shoot me now." She said it with anger, like this was someone's fault and they should be held accountable for it. It struck me and I immediately felt mad at her for that - I resented her for it. I still do. Her funeral was a close-casket affair and I remember that I couldn't feel anything, I just heard those words echoing in my head. Days later, back at school, I could still hear those words - that was it. When I think of my grandmother, to this day, that's the first thing that comes to mind - I assume it will haunt me forever.

My great grandmother's situation was entirely different. She was always enjoyable to be around. She had some of the greatest stories, including Depression-era stuff. She had perfect pitch and could sit down at her piano and play old songs she remembered from the 40s. She was frail and skinny - a tiny woman really. She had a shakey voice, but it was kind of cute and refreshing. It was difficult to go to her house because it never smelled that good - it had that "old person" smell that came from not being able to clean well and an indifference to those smells that surrounded her. She had adopted the neighborhood cats that ran freely throughout the city. Outside, she'd leave catfood and milk and dozens and dozens of cats stayed out in her yard. It was kind of creepy, but it was one of the few things that interested her and that she really cared about.

Near the end, she fell and broke her hip. She began to get Alzheimer's. We realized that all of the able-bodied people that physically could take care of her were too busy working to do so. We shopped around and found a decent assisted living senior home for her. We visted regularly, and I watched her mind slowly decay. She would go in-and-out of lucidity from moment to moment. She sometimes felt that she was a prisoner and would try to escape. Her confusion made her scared. She always seemed to brighten up when we'd visit, but sometimes she'd focus on the negative a lot - even if it wasn't true, but what she felt from her incoherent state. The last time I visited her with my father, she couldn't remember me. My dad tried hard to jog her memory, and she made an effort, but it just didn't happen. She actually asked several times about who I was before we left. I felt sick - didn't talk about it at all in the car. What are you when your whole life slips away?

I took part in helping to clean out both of their houses. I felt so awkward in each instance. We discovered my grandmother's collection of books that she had written on the typewriter that she had never made mention of to anyone - ever. About 50-60 books in all. Thousands and thousands of pages. Her secret passion. Most of the stories weren't very good at all - some mix of a female protagonist that was wronged in someway and she'd rise up somehow and get the best of everyone, but the protagonist wasn't really a sympathetic character, and the plots were generally weak. My great grandmother's house wasn't as bad, but some of those drawers obviously hadn't been opened forever. Found a 60+ year old enima bag - I thought that was cool for some reason. Our job in both houses was to find anything of value that we really wanted to keep, throw out everything we knew was basically worthless, and to find family treasures to pass on through the generations. I wasn't very good at this, I didn't know what was what - but it was like a strange walk through history, and through my childhood memories of all of the family gatherings we had in those places.

I've had plenty of dreams since then that have taken place in my grandmother's house. I particularly have dreamt a lot about her basement. They are strange dreams that have little action, like treading water. Often times the house has secret passageways that connect from one area to the next, or, in a way, you have to find these passageways to get around at all. The living room takes on different dimensions and sometimes a sort of sinister fireplace dominates the surroundings. But always you see grandma's green chair in the middle of it all.

I really don't know what these events mean in my life, other than how nebulous they are. My relationship with death is nebulous. What the hell is death, really?

I have one other story from high school - a classmate died in a car wreck that involved drunk driving. We had a class together, but I didn't talk to her much. She was one of the only students in the whole school that would get really mean and angry toward me - I didn't understand it, and I could never process why she was like that toward me. And, once again, her death left me clueless. We had an all-school assembly that ended with everyone leaving the stands in the gym when "I'll be missing you" by Puff Daddy was played over the loud speakers. I was reluctant to leave my seat. I was uncomfortable. I walked down there with everyone else, and then it was over.

Now, it is all a new experience for me. These events all haunt me. I know why people believe in ghosts, the dead never leave us. I have a lot of fresh memories that aren't settling well with me since this former student died. This time it isn't because there was something I didn't like about her - no, this time it was because there was just no reason for such a good person to die. We had just talked a few days before she died, and she was chipper and happy. Everything was going perfectly...

I'm going to her funeral, I hope that this experience does something for me - jolts something awake and helps me heal from all of these memories that have been haunting me on the margins of my life, just around the edges.