Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff

"I'm trying to get every man involved in art, into experimental music, or painting, or novel-writing." - Harvey Pekar

I don't normally get all that emotional when famous people die -- they're famous, they died, I'm sorry, but so did a lot of other people, so there. That's it and that's all.

But I was genuinely sad when I read the news about Harvey Pekar's passing. Like a lot of people, I learned about him through the movie that was made of his life, American Splendor, the title of which is the same as his ongoing autobiographical comic series. By the time my first viewing of that movie was over, I had a new hero. I went out and got his books because I had to see his work and learn more about this guy. Here was a man who'd spent his life making something great out of the ordinary and the every day, just creating because he wanted to create, because he had an impulse to do something original. I was in awe. Inspired.

Thanks Harvey, for everything. Rest in peace.

"It makes you feel good to know that there's other people afflicted like you."

May my funeral descend into a brawl

I got the weirdest thing in the mail the other day.

Wait. Back up.

So a couple of weeks ago, I had a lot of death going on in my life. I had two funerals to attend in one week, and yet another that I would have attended were it possible for me to be at two funerals in two different cities at the same time. I wrote about one of those funerals already. The funeral I missed was for a coworker of mine, a good man, not exactly a close friend, but a guy I liked a lot, somebody you could share an easy laugh with, and clearly a person who meant a great deal to a lot of folks.

The other funeral I attended that week was for my grandmother. My mom's mom.

This thing I got in the mail the other day, it starts off like this:

Yes, because that's exactly what I need to hear in a form letter from some faceless entity whose name I don't recognize. But that's not the weird part.

But wait, before I get to that, yes, it was my grandmother's funeral the other week. I sort of zipped past that, didn't I? The thing is, well, heh...fuck. I'm not really quite sure how to put this other than to be straightforward and honest about it, so, here goes: I wasn't really all that broken up about it. I feel like a real shit typing that, as if there's some piece of my soul missing, the part that allows you to feel sorrow and grief over the loss of beloved family members who cared for you and loved you since you were a small child, but, well, it's not that simple. Is it ever that simple? It is? I'd like to think that it is, sometimes, in some places, perhaps in indigenous cultures that have managed to remain untouched and unaware and innocent.

Don't get me wrong, I was sad about it. But it wasn't exactly a surprise. The only surprise to me was the fact that she lasted as long as she did. I figured that once my grandfather died, she would follow pretty shortly on his heels, but she managed to stay with us for several more years. And looking through the pictures of her life, there were a fair many of her with me at various ages. Birthday parties, holidays, graduations, moments forgotten, their significance not immediately clear, but still valuable and worth holding onto.

All the same, I can't say that I was particularly close to the woman who was my grandmother. Maybe I was as a little boy, but as I grew older, those bonds thinned. And her funeral was perhaps the strangest service I have ever attended, and it inspired me to demand a promise out of those of you reading this who may one day attend my funeral. And I hope that I don't cause any offense to any family members reading this who may have been there, but the fact of the matter is that there were many moments during her funeral when people were describing their encounters with this woman, my grandmother, and I was sitting there wondering, "who the hell are they talking about?" It was as if these people were describing a completely different humanoid entity whose time had just passed. This preacher person who gave a eulogy, who supposedly had spent a fair amount of time around my grandparents, he wove this narrative that at times made me think, "okay, that sounds sort of like the Mimmie and Papa that I knew," but at other times veered off in other directions and had me wondering things like "um, did you ever even meet these people you're sermonizing about?" or "were my grandparents double agents?" The only part that really rang true was a poem read by two of my cousins, people who, also being my grandmother's grandchildren, saw her in a light similar to the one in which I saw her.

Oh, and then there's the fact that one of the great big happy family photos propped up by the open casket up front for all to see, taken at some holiday years and years past, pictured me standing next to my EX-wife. Awkward?

But back to the strangeness, the letter I received, a letter which came from a company called Algordanza and was signed, apparently by hand, by a person named Christina. This letter goes on to say....

"...one thing that does soothe the pain and bring closure is witnessing your loved one properly memorialized."

"We are the creators of the cremation or "Memorial Diamond" the world's most beautiful memorial."

"...not available to families in the United States until now....now it is available to you."

"...state of the art...treats your loved ones with the utmost respect..."

"Unlike imitation diamonds, the Algordanaza Diamond will be 100% created from the remains of the person you want to memorialize."

I stood in the kitchen staring at that sentence for several moments trying to make sure that I was properly comprehending the familiar yet strange shapes on the paper before me, checking and doublechecking that my brain was accurately piecing the words into sentences, the sentences into ideas. But there was no mistake. This company wanted me to pay them to make a diamond from a dead person's ashes.

My grandmother was not cremated, and nowhere in this letter does it actually say who the hell they are talking about. My wife's aunt was cremated, so I can only assume that these Algordanza people were referring to her, though how they got my contact info or why the letter is addressed to me, I haven't the slightest idea.

So I have to ask a couple of things of you, good people. First off, if you are ever unfortunate enough to find yourself at my funeral, and should you hear a person eulogizing over me, and should this person seem unfamiliar, as if they were not a person that actually knew me in life, and should their description of the man that I was in life ring untrue in your ears and in your heart, I ask, nay, I demand that you stand up in the middle of the service and shout something to the effect of "NOW HOLD ON JUST A FUCKING SECOND!" And when you've got everyone's attention, proceed to describe who I was to you. Give your own eulogy for me. Because dear God, let my eulogy not be left to those who did not know me. And should it descend into a brawl, all the better.

The other request is simpler: don't let my ashes get pounded into a diamond. Because that's some tacky ass commemorative plate infomercial roadside attraction bullshit.

Everything Ends

I hit the road at 6:30 this morning. It's only a 2.5 - 3 hour drive to Houston, and the funeral wasn't until 10, but I wanted to be sure I made it on time. When I heard Heidi had passed, I didn't immediately think about going to the funeral. It wasn't until after I'd written about her that I realized, of course, of course I needed to go. It would be almost like missing a parent's funeral.

Saturday morning, my mom called. Heidi's daughter had asked if I would speak at the service. Just a few words, perhaps a funny story or some other special memory that would impart to those gathered a sense of the meaning of the life that had just come to a close. Being asked to speak at a funeral or a wedding is the kind of thing you really can't turn down. If worse came to worse, I could just print up my post about her and read that.

I met my mom in the parking lot of the funeral home and we walked in. There were a lot of people there that I didn't know, but who all remembered me from when I was a little kid. Which left us with not a lot to talk about. As is the style with modern funerals, there was a photo montage playing on repeat. One of the pictures was of me at about age 4 or 5 with a huge smile on my face, my arms wrapped around Heidi, looking exactly like my eldest son when he gives those kind of hugs.

I made it through what I had to say with a minimum of stutters, uhs, ums, and ya-knows. I actually did end up drawing on a few things I said in my post because they were simply the truest things I could say. I debated whether or not to mention the koala bear reincarnation bit, but decided it was the wrong crowd at the wrong time. I also tossed in an anecdote about how, when I was little, I was always a little hesitant about going out of town because Heidi always said she was going to barbecue one, if not all, of our cats. I was always relieved to come back and find them all alive and well. Eventually I figured out that she was kidding.

I had not seen any of Heidi's children in years. They all seemed a bit shell-shocked as the attendees proceeded past them to pay their respects. They seemed to just want the whole exhausting episode to be over. I could see how each of them had grown into looking like one or the other of their parents. Tina looks just like her mom. The youngest son pulled me into a hug and thanked me for what I'd said. I was glad I'd come. It would've been wrong not to.

It's coming back around again

So it would seem that Mr. Boy is clued in to the fact that there is this thing called Christmas coming down the pipe pretty soon. About a week ago, I started asking him if he wanted to get a Christmas tree, and his response has evolved from a suspicious nod of the head to an excitedly whispered "yeah!", delivered with that tone that's reserved for children who are on to something magical and big that promises to blow open the boundaries of their reality.

So tonight we went down to the tree lot and picked out a suitable specimen. "Pick me" said this one tree. "I'll hold your lights and your little baubles with dignity." And so we did. As I tied the tree to the top of our wagon, I felt that familiar twinge of anxiety I get every time I tie something down for transport. See, I'm only good at like 2.5 things, and knot-tying accounts for 1.2 of those, so if my knots fail, if word gets out that an Eagle Scout couldn't even secure a Christmas tree to the top of a car, well the ramifications make my stomach go gurgle. But I got the tree home, in spite of the fact that we had to go to four different stores before we found one that had any tree stands in stock.

With the tree safely secured, it was dinner time at Ashley's folks' place. We've spent a fair amount of time over there lately since The Ash's uncle has moved in with them to spend his last days. I don't know her Uncle Richie all that well since he's been a recluse for most of the years of our relationship, but from what little time I've spent around him, I know that I like him and wish I knew him better. Over these last few days, even with the pain of terminal cancer, he's shown the intellect and spark of a man who is still, in some ways, very much alive.

The after-dinner portion of this evening was somewhat surreal. I played sudoku, Henry played with his grandma and great aunt, and Richie placed his signature in all the necessary places in the document containing his last will and testament. The Ash, her sister, and her dad also affixed their signatures as witnesses. I suppose it should have been a morbid moment, and perhaps from a different perspective it could be viewed as such, but it didn't feel quite so to me. More like family doing what family has to do when presented with painful reality. It was very quiet except for Henry, who wasn't falling for that "let's play 'The Quiet Game'" nonsense.

I was thinking about Richie as I drove home from the semester's very last class period today. It hasn't escaped anyone's notice that this family is about to experience both a death and a birth any day now. And even though this is a Texas December and I was wearing shorts today, it's still the end of the year, and there's still that sense of the world settling down and waiting to be reborn into a new year. And perhaps it was because I was coming home from theology class and my mind was especially open to the beauty of the stories and metaphors that we all live and walk through every day, and perhaps, yes, maybe there was a song playing on the radio that I like in spite of myself, but I got hit with one of those blessed moments of beautiful Melancholy where everything in the world feels intensely connected. Yeah, there may have been a few tears.

Our tree is now standing in the corner of the living room of our little house, waiting for tomorrow when it will be adorned with lights, decor, perhaps the odd action figure. It will be the first Christmas that my eldest son starts to "get it", and my youngest's very first Christmas at all. Maybe we can make ourselves a few memories for keeps.