So, I guess I'm not being used as an example in my dad's class of being completely insensitive. In a way, I find it funny and in a way I find it insulting. My parents have had this habit of letting me know information in a matter-of-fact way for some time now. The thing is, I don't have a problem with it in the literal sense, but the reason they do it, or the reason I presume they do it, sucks.
I guess this is the way my dad's lecture goes, "There are all types of personalities, take my kids for instance. My father-in-law is in a nursing home and my son is nearly in tears and my daughter says, 'Well, he's old.'" The audience roars. I'm the punchline, not the crying boy, me, the realist. What? Did I actually expect he'd live forever? Does it mean I won't be sad he's not around? He's had a full life and, from what I can tell a pretty good one. He's 83, going to be 84 on December 22.
In a conversation I had with my mother where she told me this story I was telling her how glad I was that Papaw and Nana were getting cremated. I think funerals are seriously just about the most disrespectful thing you can have for a Human. Let me rephrase that. I think viewings are the most disrespectful thing you can have for a Human. Maybe one day I'll change my mind. She said, "Yeah, will it's kind of hard for us because I can't imagine his body being burned. Like, I know Cathy (my aunt) always thinks of his hands." I said, "Well, take a picture." I mean would you rather have your daddy's hands burned up or rotting for all of eternity to be eaten by bugs? As if urban sprawling isn't enough, now we have to waste a bunch of land burying bodies that in several hundred years will be ignored, tombstones forgotten? The irony of it all is that I love graveyards. I don't want someone to go to a graveyard to remember me though. I want them to go to a rock show, the Grand Canyon, Austin, anywhere and pay homage there if you feel the need to do so at all. I don't want one image of rememberance to be of me lying in a casket.
Okay, so I guess maybe I am a little bit cruel, but I get so tired of this whole image that death is so morbid. That morbid is some sort of synonym for death. As if married and having babies is a synonym for happiness. I'm kind of happy for my Papaw because it's just not about me. It's not about if I'm comfortable or not all the time. I can't imagine laying up in a nursing home, blind as a bat, barely aware of what's going on most of the time is fun and exciting. Who knows though? Maybe it is. Just put me straight into the dementia ward. Those guys can get away with anything.
And my mom just keeps talking about it like we're all supposed to cry and be upset all the time. It's not like I'm not upset! It's not like I won't miss him, but I've seen these things happen before. My Aunt (mind you, my crazy aunt) told my mom that she had a dream and God told her that Papaw would live until his next birthday (you know, the one that is just a little over a month away). Well, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he lasted out a few more birthdays. How soon is motherfucking now?
My mom keeps saying, "I don't think he's cried about going blind once." Well, maybe he doesn't want to? Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe it's kind of like a game. "Guess who's in the room now and where they're standing". Are we so vain that we think we know what everyone else is thinking all the time? That they have to mourn every little thing that we consider wrong with them?
I don't know. I'm sure some of you, maybe most of you are utterly appalled by my disertation of death. Good for you, you're not like me. You're hopefully an individual with your own line of thinking.
I had a few things happen to me in my late teenage years that helped put these things into perspective for me and still have things happen to me every day that make me wonder about people and their lives and the lies we tell ourselves every day.
First of all, being diagnosed with bipolar over and over and over again. Now, I've been manic-depressive my entire life, but I didn't start trying drugs for them until I was 17. I didn't have any proof or talk about it before then. Of course, talking to a bunch of 17 year olds about your mental problems, does not help your mental problems in the least bit, but chalk it up to a lesson learned. That I had to relearn when I was 19. Oh, the illusion that college kids are so much more mature than high school kids. If nothing, it's mostly likely worse because you think of yourself as more mature somehow.
Second of all, having a tumor the size of a softball. It wasn't that big of a deal when you look back on it, but the deal my family made out of it was much bigger. I went through being told that I was having a hysterectomy, to being told I would be paralyzed in my left leg, to being told I had a 30% chance of having cancer, to having my mother write my obituary and have it read to the entire church.
Third of all, I met a guy in college that ended up with a brain tumor. He was told that he had basically a 10% chance to live. I knew the guy, we talked, but we didn't hang out, but I remember it really upsetting me. I remember crying and praying for him and suddenly it just came to me like a bolt of lightening. Who do these motherfucking doctors think they are? God? No one can give percentages. Everything is 50/50. Miracles happen all the time and we discount them for science and numbers and for what purpose. To scare the bejeezus out of people? That's mature. I stopped crying immediately at that realization.
Point being, why worry about something that we can't determine. Why worry about things that haven't happened yet? If we did that, there wouldn't be time for the great things. Our friends, going to the park, a good photo shoot, relaxing with a fan-fucking-tastic book, hitting the road and just going until you run out of gas, running like Phoebe!
So, I will not be bitter and morbid about this, no matter how much I am being pushed to try to be. I may have to go to a funeral (although the point of buying a casket when you're being cremated is beyond me), because God forbid I don't. But, what if I don't cry? I'm uncomfortable with other people crying, especially my family because I have trouble buying it. Then again, I'd be a hypocrite if I pretended that it was about my comfortability.
Okay, I'm not done yet. I guess I've been saving up these past two weeks or so.
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