Funeral
I want to thank everybody who kept me in mind after my last post about my grandfather's death. Your words and thoughts make a huge difference to me. And from earlier posts, you likely know that my grandfather's was a good death. He was ready and he's no longer in pain.
I am lucky in that this is the first experience of death I've had in my close family. I was not quite prepared for how busy it would be. There was the window of time for my family to view his body, which was more emotional and wrenching than I somehow expected it to be. Then there was the rush of friends and more distant family. I really admire my mother. I watched her push down her own obvious welling grief to admire the flowers, to remind others of good memories. She stood at the side of the line of visitors and shook hands and hugged necks, to exchange admiration for my grandfather. And she laughed with people. I guess, besides not knowing what else to do, I am my mother's child; I pushed myself off the pew and did the same, as much as I was able, with people I remembered and did not, with strangers. I saw value in what she was trying to do and tried to follow suit. As did my brothers.
Then there was the food. Mom and Dad ran everything with the teamed efficiency they always have, with squealing children swarming their feet. We all tried to kick in to help. Then there was the busying of the kids. There was hardly time to stop and breathe, except at night, when everyone dropped to sleep early.
Mostly I felt closer to my family than ever before. Many people took the time to tell me they wished I would come home more often. One aunt called me the "fun uncle". I am good at entertaining kids, I guess. I resorted to the familiar -- ironic, self-deprecating humor. In moments of out-and-out breakdown in grief, I hung on my family and they hung on me. I felt drained and solid driving home.
For the most part. In the eulogies, there was the deserved portraiture of my grandfather as an extraordinary man, as a learner, a teacher, a humble and giving father figure. A mythology was built around my family. The language, the symbology, of that mythology, of course, was acutely, pointedly, Christian. The eulogy ended up being a call for everyone to come more fully to Christ. There was talk among others of funerals being a time to draw wayward family closer and hopefully to see them come back to the fold. I started looking at how this mythology was also built on legacy, on husband-wife romances, on bearing children, and on passing down very particular (Christian)life philosophies and practices. I felt a desire to be a part, a recognition that I was apart, and this frenetic frustration/anger that I consciously lay aside. I find it very hard to lay blame here; I find it very hard to feel more than conditionally welcome. I find it very hard to meld in my own life what I admire of theirs and what other I want in mine.
At the funeral I saw my high school American history teacher. An obvious lesbian. She had the best suit on the hillside, hands down. A hippy-ish woman -- who she did not introduce to me -- stood beside her. She drives tractors and mends fences, tends to a 100+-acre farm herself, ever since her dad fell ill over 20 years ago. She invited me to have lunch with her when I came back in.
Ultimately, I still feel more strongly bonded to my family. I have concrete reasons to admire them, to feel in sympathy with them. There is only this nagging feeling of isolation and distance. Joe thinks I may be pushing that down, letting my parents dictate how I relate to the larger family, supporting their manner of grieving but not my own. He is likely right. I cried over the added distance my queerness adds to the simple fact that my grandfather is already gone. No chance now to be more open with him, no chance to let him see that I have my own -- admittedly different -- path of learning and teaching and giving, that I dream of lateral community, if not the parental vertical one of child-raising that all of them feel bonded over, feel proud of.
On the other hand, I have my own reasons for seeing my grandfather's life as a gift. I pursue things so similar to his own, in different terms. He taught me, even if I pursue knowledge outside the family, too. And, his passing has surely softened people's boundaries for awhile. I think it may be possible, especially over time, for me to accent the points of dovetailing, to gently question, to introduce my own beliefs and symbologies more consistently, to grow into this family more organically. I think I have to let my anger go six feet under, have to find the joy in even-headed and caring assertion, rather than defensiveness.
And I think my grandfather and I can smile together on that: the undrawing of lines.
I am lucky in that this is the first experience of death I've had in my close family. I was not quite prepared for how busy it would be. There was the window of time for my family to view his body, which was more emotional and wrenching than I somehow expected it to be. Then there was the rush of friends and more distant family. I really admire my mother. I watched her push down her own obvious welling grief to admire the flowers, to remind others of good memories. She stood at the side of the line of visitors and shook hands and hugged necks, to exchange admiration for my grandfather. And she laughed with people. I guess, besides not knowing what else to do, I am my mother's child; I pushed myself off the pew and did the same, as much as I was able, with people I remembered and did not, with strangers. I saw value in what she was trying to do and tried to follow suit. As did my brothers.
Then there was the food. Mom and Dad ran everything with the teamed efficiency they always have, with squealing children swarming their feet. We all tried to kick in to help. Then there was the busying of the kids. There was hardly time to stop and breathe, except at night, when everyone dropped to sleep early.
Mostly I felt closer to my family than ever before. Many people took the time to tell me they wished I would come home more often. One aunt called me the "fun uncle". I am good at entertaining kids, I guess. I resorted to the familiar -- ironic, self-deprecating humor. In moments of out-and-out breakdown in grief, I hung on my family and they hung on me. I felt drained and solid driving home.
For the most part. In the eulogies, there was the deserved portraiture of my grandfather as an extraordinary man, as a learner, a teacher, a humble and giving father figure. A mythology was built around my family. The language, the symbology, of that mythology, of course, was acutely, pointedly, Christian. The eulogy ended up being a call for everyone to come more fully to Christ. There was talk among others of funerals being a time to draw wayward family closer and hopefully to see them come back to the fold. I started looking at how this mythology was also built on legacy, on husband-wife romances, on bearing children, and on passing down very particular (Christian)life philosophies and practices. I felt a desire to be a part, a recognition that I was apart, and this frenetic frustration/anger that I consciously lay aside. I find it very hard to lay blame here; I find it very hard to feel more than conditionally welcome. I find it very hard to meld in my own life what I admire of theirs and what other I want in mine.
At the funeral I saw my high school American history teacher. An obvious lesbian. She had the best suit on the hillside, hands down. A hippy-ish woman -- who she did not introduce to me -- stood beside her. She drives tractors and mends fences, tends to a 100+-acre farm herself, ever since her dad fell ill over 20 years ago. She invited me to have lunch with her when I came back in.
Ultimately, I still feel more strongly bonded to my family. I have concrete reasons to admire them, to feel in sympathy with them. There is only this nagging feeling of isolation and distance. Joe thinks I may be pushing that down, letting my parents dictate how I relate to the larger family, supporting their manner of grieving but not my own. He is likely right. I cried over the added distance my queerness adds to the simple fact that my grandfather is already gone. No chance now to be more open with him, no chance to let him see that I have my own -- admittedly different -- path of learning and teaching and giving, that I dream of lateral community, if not the parental vertical one of child-raising that all of them feel bonded over, feel proud of.
On the other hand, I have my own reasons for seeing my grandfather's life as a gift. I pursue things so similar to his own, in different terms. He taught me, even if I pursue knowledge outside the family, too. And, his passing has surely softened people's boundaries for awhile. I think it may be possible, especially over time, for me to accent the points of dovetailing, to gently question, to introduce my own beliefs and symbologies more consistently, to grow into this family more organically. I think I have to let my anger go six feet under, have to find the joy in even-headed and caring assertion, rather than defensiveness.
And I think my grandfather and I can smile together on that: the undrawing of lines.