so it goes
i took my mom to her best friends funeral today
her friend was also the mother of my childhood best friend
i had a dream on friday afternoon that she had died and woke to the phone ringing to hear my friend tell me her mother had died thursday night
which raises my success with death dreams to at least 85%, my father being the main exception to the rule as i am ALWAYS dreaming that he has died
my friend and i couldnt stop looking at each other in disbelief at the funeral that we are already at the point of putting our parents in the ground
even my deliquent father made an appearance which i had not expected
i sat between my mother and her other surviving best friend
and after they took the gifts up at the middle point and the woman started to sing the ave maria they both grabbed my hands
and it sounds dumb, but i could feel all that grief go through me
the whole time in church i was terrified i was gonna make a mistake and do the sign of the cross backwards or some shit
but its amazing how ingrained in you that all is
even if you dont remember it you do it
my mom was telling me that she remembers her parents going through this
that all of the sudden everyone they knew started dying and it was one funeral after another
which is like something my dad said when the last of his great aunts died
that the next people in line for the coffin was his generation
i couldnt even think of anything to tell my mom to try and make her feel better
ive buried enough of my friends but most of us have a bit of time left to raise some hell yet
the weirdest thing was her giving me two silver dollars to put in my purse before i left but she wouldnt tell me what they were for just that i had to take them because she didnt have pockets
and all i could think of was that they were for the ferryman, i have no idea of what she intended them to be, and now i dont know what to do with them except to throw them in the canal like i do with all things that confuse me in strange nature
all i know from today is that i had better be the first one to go at the end
because i dont want to hang around and be the keeper of all the secrets and stories and what has to be forgotten but has not
her friend was also the mother of my childhood best friend
i had a dream on friday afternoon that she had died and woke to the phone ringing to hear my friend tell me her mother had died thursday night
which raises my success with death dreams to at least 85%, my father being the main exception to the rule as i am ALWAYS dreaming that he has died
my friend and i couldnt stop looking at each other in disbelief at the funeral that we are already at the point of putting our parents in the ground
even my deliquent father made an appearance which i had not expected
i sat between my mother and her other surviving best friend
and after they took the gifts up at the middle point and the woman started to sing the ave maria they both grabbed my hands
and it sounds dumb, but i could feel all that grief go through me
the whole time in church i was terrified i was gonna make a mistake and do the sign of the cross backwards or some shit
but its amazing how ingrained in you that all is
even if you dont remember it you do it
my mom was telling me that she remembers her parents going through this
that all of the sudden everyone they knew started dying and it was one funeral after another
which is like something my dad said when the last of his great aunts died
that the next people in line for the coffin was his generation
i couldnt even think of anything to tell my mom to try and make her feel better
ive buried enough of my friends but most of us have a bit of time left to raise some hell yet
the weirdest thing was her giving me two silver dollars to put in my purse before i left but she wouldnt tell me what they were for just that i had to take them because she didnt have pockets
and all i could think of was that they were for the ferryman, i have no idea of what she intended them to be, and now i dont know what to do with them except to throw them in the canal like i do with all things that confuse me in strange nature
all i know from today is that i had better be the first one to go at the end
because i dont want to hang around and be the keeper of all the secrets and stories and what has to be forgotten but has not