Here's the situation:
This morning, I woke up, yanked a UConn sweatshirt over my head, and arrived at the gym around 6:30AM. While in the parking lot, I passed a guy with a Tennessee sweatshirt on. Upon seeing my sweatshirt, the cute guy asked me how UConn was holding up in the tournament. To which I said, "Oh, I don't follow basketball. The sweatshirt's my sister's." And kept on walking.
This, people, is why I'm single.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Grave Affair
Well, I've been an awful blogger lately. I can't seem to write an essay that I like. However, I was just going through some of my files here and found this short story that I wrote about a year ago. It was inspired by my mother's experience at her brother's death bed. And I figured, what the hell. Might as well just post it. It's long, but since I probably won't write again for another month or so, its as good as it's going to get.
A GRAVE AFFAIR
The fact was this: He was indigent. The only valuables in the manila envelope were a pack of cigarettes, a Bic lighter, and a twenty dollar bill that she had palmed him the last time she came for a visit. Not even a wallet. Since his credit rating was shit and his license had been confiscated after the last DUI, she assumed there was no reason to carry one.
The last six months had been a drain on her. He never called her, though the hospital did. She dreaded coming home to the blinking red light of the answering machine. “The surgery went well, but we’ve found a cyst on his intestines.” “We placed him on a respirator.” She had formatted her schedule around visits. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she had night courses at the college. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and then again on Saturday morning, she went to visit him. He was dying. She knew he was dying.
The funeral home said that the state only covered the cost of the cremation. Luckily, burning the body down had become de rigueur. Always the economical Yankees, two bodies to a plot was the best use of the family gravesite. His ashes would be entombed with his father’s. Appropriate considering he never moved out of his father house until he lost it due to defaulting on a second mortgage he had taken out on the property. She wasn’t sure how their father would feel about it. She figured she’d find out in the hereafter. If there was a hereafter. The funeral home said that it took two days, and that they would open up the grave. But that was it. No wake. No ceremony. No transportation to the cemetery.
She thought about the chasms of time that opened up in front of her. While she never relished going to the hospital, and often sat there forbearing his stories of woe out of familial duty, they had become a part of her life. An unfortunate habit pattern that made sense at the time, but was no longer relevant. But now those blocks were open. She could take an online course. She thought about getting another gym membership. Maybe a dance class. Something new. Something just for her.
Her daughter said that she couldn’t make it to the small graveside memorial. She had an important project due at work. Her other daughter had vacation plans. She said she would change them, but the way she offered was no offer at all. “No, no. Go. Go.” There were a few distant relatives whom she hadn’t seen since the last funeral. They could be counted on coming. Her husband, though he had no love for the dead brother.
He had been such a happy child; she wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Everyone used to like him. He was funny. He was good looking. He was generous. He was an overgrown child, and therein laid the fundamental problem. He was ill-equipped to be an adult with adult responsibilities. He wanted to be coddled. And somehow, this desire robbed those around him of their ability to love him.
They handed her the ashes in a box. The burnt remains of the human body are heavy. They would not fit in a coffee canister or a petite, tasteful, anonymous vase. Another thing Hollywood got wrong. Laden with her load, she trundled out to her car and placed the box onto the floor of the passenger seat. As she drove up to the cemetery, she felt it was gross negligence to play a rock station with its constant DJ chatter and faux rap songs about sex. She turned the channel first to a country station and then to an easy rock station, but neither seemed to fit the circumstances, and the abundance of commercials made her feel irreverent so she finally just turned it off. She never thought about it before, but without the hearse leading the way or a canopy over the grave, it was amazingly difficult to find the family site. Her sense of direction had never been great, so she took a few wrong turns until she haphazardly came across her cousin exiting a Honda.
She had asked one of her daughters to write a eulogy to be read at the memorial service. “Just a little something.” What she received back was three paragraphs in length that spoke honestly about her brother’s life. A bit too honestly as to appear perhaps snide and mocking. She had decided to trim it a bit. There was no reason why her cousins had to hear the truth about what she had endured for the last half decade, so she left the bits about his golden youth and where her daughter perceived him to be now that he had passed, and left out the middle part. Instead, she added some nice memories of her own. She would read the doctored speech directly from the paper then accredit her daughter.
Five people stood over the hole. The grave marker was overgrown, and the cemetery landscaper had left a note amongst the weeds reminding the family that the church only paid for keeping the grounds neat, however, all shrubs, flowers, and detritus was to be tended up the owners of the plot. She realized that she hadn’t been there in eight years, since her uncle died. And no one else had either from the look of it. The note itself looked as if it might have suffered from a rainstorm though it hadn’t rained for quite some time.
She looked around at the faces peering down into the open hole. There were fewer of them than even she had expected. Four cousins, herself, and her sister. They were the last of the family of her childhood. And they were old. Their visages were somber, but not terribly grief stricken. In fact, if she was to guess, it was their own lost youth they mourned in those moments and not the passing of one of their own. She looked down to the box in her spotted hands.
Some words were said by one of the cousins; she delivered her speech; the box was lowered into the ground. It was neat and perfunctory. Nothing like his life. They walked back to their cars, unburdened. They had done their duty and met the obligation of another generation. Now they would eat and catch up on each other’s lives in less than two hours.
As she drove, she wept. At the red light, she rooted inside her purse. It took only a minute to find his Bic lighter. She flicked the wheel over and the flame sprang to life.
A GRAVE AFFAIR
The fact was this: He was indigent. The only valuables in the manila envelope were a pack of cigarettes, a Bic lighter, and a twenty dollar bill that she had palmed him the last time she came for a visit. Not even a wallet. Since his credit rating was shit and his license had been confiscated after the last DUI, she assumed there was no reason to carry one.
The last six months had been a drain on her. He never called her, though the hospital did. She dreaded coming home to the blinking red light of the answering machine. “The surgery went well, but we’ve found a cyst on his intestines.” “We placed him on a respirator.” She had formatted her schedule around visits. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she had night courses at the college. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and then again on Saturday morning, she went to visit him. He was dying. She knew he was dying.
The funeral home said that the state only covered the cost of the cremation. Luckily, burning the body down had become de rigueur. Always the economical Yankees, two bodies to a plot was the best use of the family gravesite. His ashes would be entombed with his father’s. Appropriate considering he never moved out of his father house until he lost it due to defaulting on a second mortgage he had taken out on the property. She wasn’t sure how their father would feel about it. She figured she’d find out in the hereafter. If there was a hereafter. The funeral home said that it took two days, and that they would open up the grave. But that was it. No wake. No ceremony. No transportation to the cemetery.
She thought about the chasms of time that opened up in front of her. While she never relished going to the hospital, and often sat there forbearing his stories of woe out of familial duty, they had become a part of her life. An unfortunate habit pattern that made sense at the time, but was no longer relevant. But now those blocks were open. She could take an online course. She thought about getting another gym membership. Maybe a dance class. Something new. Something just for her.
Her daughter said that she couldn’t make it to the small graveside memorial. She had an important project due at work. Her other daughter had vacation plans. She said she would change them, but the way she offered was no offer at all. “No, no. Go. Go.” There were a few distant relatives whom she hadn’t seen since the last funeral. They could be counted on coming. Her husband, though he had no love for the dead brother.
He had been such a happy child; she wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Everyone used to like him. He was funny. He was good looking. He was generous. He was an overgrown child, and therein laid the fundamental problem. He was ill-equipped to be an adult with adult responsibilities. He wanted to be coddled. And somehow, this desire robbed those around him of their ability to love him.
They handed her the ashes in a box. The burnt remains of the human body are heavy. They would not fit in a coffee canister or a petite, tasteful, anonymous vase. Another thing Hollywood got wrong. Laden with her load, she trundled out to her car and placed the box onto the floor of the passenger seat. As she drove up to the cemetery, she felt it was gross negligence to play a rock station with its constant DJ chatter and faux rap songs about sex. She turned the channel first to a country station and then to an easy rock station, but neither seemed to fit the circumstances, and the abundance of commercials made her feel irreverent so she finally just turned it off. She never thought about it before, but without the hearse leading the way or a canopy over the grave, it was amazingly difficult to find the family site. Her sense of direction had never been great, so she took a few wrong turns until she haphazardly came across her cousin exiting a Honda.
She had asked one of her daughters to write a eulogy to be read at the memorial service. “Just a little something.” What she received back was three paragraphs in length that spoke honestly about her brother’s life. A bit too honestly as to appear perhaps snide and mocking. She had decided to trim it a bit. There was no reason why her cousins had to hear the truth about what she had endured for the last half decade, so she left the bits about his golden youth and where her daughter perceived him to be now that he had passed, and left out the middle part. Instead, she added some nice memories of her own. She would read the doctored speech directly from the paper then accredit her daughter.
Five people stood over the hole. The grave marker was overgrown, and the cemetery landscaper had left a note amongst the weeds reminding the family that the church only paid for keeping the grounds neat, however, all shrubs, flowers, and detritus was to be tended up the owners of the plot. She realized that she hadn’t been there in eight years, since her uncle died. And no one else had either from the look of it. The note itself looked as if it might have suffered from a rainstorm though it hadn’t rained for quite some time.
She looked around at the faces peering down into the open hole. There were fewer of them than even she had expected. Four cousins, herself, and her sister. They were the last of the family of her childhood. And they were old. Their visages were somber, but not terribly grief stricken. In fact, if she was to guess, it was their own lost youth they mourned in those moments and not the passing of one of their own. She looked down to the box in her spotted hands.
Some words were said by one of the cousins; she delivered her speech; the box was lowered into the ground. It was neat and perfunctory. Nothing like his life. They walked back to their cars, unburdened. They had done their duty and met the obligation of another generation. Now they would eat and catch up on each other’s lives in less than two hours.
As she drove, she wept. At the red light, she rooted inside her purse. It took only a minute to find his Bic lighter. She flicked the wheel over and the flame sprang to life.
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