Returning to the Scene of the Crime

This past weekend was one of heavy debauchery prompted by my boy E.L. & his equally attractive counterparts D & J visiting the city and crashing at my pad. I awoke Sunday morning, however, to find the debauchery disrupted. A voicemail was discovered that would alter the next 72 hours of my life and it’s beautiful routine.

Fast-forward to Monday morning: 4am wakeup call…car service pickup at 5…flight out of Laguardia at 7…layover in Tampa, then on to P’cola…a drive to my parents’ house, a quick change & off to a 4pm appointment with the immediate family...reminders of how some things never change & how new additions like a gorgeous new baby cousin can help distract from the S.O.S. (same ole shit)…many familiar faces mixed with many strangely familiar yet confused demeanors, thinking “ is that guy with the crazy hair & funky glasses Darryl’s boy?” Old people both amuse & frustrate the hell out of me, but what are you gonna do?! Kill everyone at the age of 60?! I digress ;-)

A welcome refrain is the aunt-by-marriage that divorced my degenerate uncle years ago to pursue a better life for herself and for my cousin (who is now pursuing medical school to become a heart surgeon); a welcome aside are the kids I’ve known from infancy whose innocence reminds me of my own (and of the ignorance that could just have easily kept me from stretching my roots beyond Mobile rather than urging me to break away from it).

The biggest highlight, however, on this reel came during the 7 o’clock hour. One of my FAVORITE people in my universe walked through those funeral home parlor doors & instantly made my trip. V.N.M. is technically the first (straight) person I “came out” to (and coincidentally the carrier of one of the greatest hearts I’ve ever encountered)!

Skip to this (now yesterday) morning (after a much-needed decent night’s rest & a French toast breakfast at Le B&B Miller): 10am appointment with the fam at the church were I was raised from conception…a 10:30 cruise out to the cemetery where the remains of my father’s mother are waiting to be reunited with her husband’s body…I join the other pallbearers at 11 to transfer to flag-draped coffin from the white hearse to its assigned plot. Standing in the scorching heat & humidity that disturbingly characterizes an Alabama November, I zone out to comforting thoughts of my family & home that is far from confined to the place & time I find myself snapped back into. The promise-filled goodbyes of relatives are accepted but internally discarded.

A flight back to a welcomed reality brings me to the present. 1am.

Why, you may ask, doesn’t your story speak more of the man whose life & death initiated it?! The answer is simple: the man in that coffin was somewhat foreign to me…my grandfather was an emotionally unavailable man (at least during the part of his life I was alive for). I believe his inability to show affection, coupled with the intense dysfunctionality that has for decades existed among his 4 children (of which my father is the self-assigned diplomat), kept me from ever having that deep Agape love that many people feel for their grandparents.

The fact, however, is none of that matters. I traveled to Mobile to pay my respects, in my own way, on my own terms.

I’m EXHAUSTED & looking forward to recovery. I’ve endured another disruption that the world calls bereavement…I just call it LIFE!!

Refresher Course:
Sometimes life gets in the way of our best laid plans and our subjective expectations…& that’s just fine, if for no other reason than it has to be!
~David Miller, Reality Check Specialist