What is this feeling?
As most of you know, my great aunt died over Christmas break. Yesterday was the first time I went back to her house.
When I first walked in, a row of shivers ran down my back. I think my body knew she wasn't there, but I couldn't register the thought in my mind. I had always thought she would be in her chair watching TV, shaking slightly. Instead, her living room was covered with various important-looking papers. An ancient shredder was plugged in next to the TV.
Before dinner, I spent a lot of time looking up at the ceiling. It's nothing special, just a wooden planked ceiling. When I was younger, that room seemed like an endless canyon, and the ceiling stretched on for miles. Now, it was lower than I remember, and the rug must have been replaced when I wasn't looking.
She had a picture--kind of like our class picture. Landscape, lots of smiling guys, about fifty or sixty I guess, in black and white. Underneath them on the glass, in red permanent marker (the fat kind) was a key.
X = Known Dead 1961
O = Known Living 1982
Two men had "O"s. Five were blank. The rest had "X"s.
Next to the landscape picture was an old black and white photo of what must've been my great aunt when she was younger. Something in my ear told me so. She looked sad and beautifully tragic at the same time.
I went into the kitchen and looked at a printout my uncle had made. For the past five years, my great aunt had been cheated by (affectionately named) "Mike the Con Man". He and his two cronied managed to get $768,460 out of her, through a cement block fence, gutters, a new kitchen floor ($28 per square foot), and other gifts that put Mike's non-existant children through school. Julia and I could've gone to college on that--her actual grand-nieces.
I've never heard more laughter in that house. Everyone was always so grim, so fixated on when death would come and bite them in the ass. Now, the wine flowed, I drank Pepsi out of a wine glass, we exchanged anecdotes, and I told Ms. Poole's red lace panties joke. We laughed, ate, drank, and were generally merry. My great aunt never wanted wine in her house because my great uncle was supposedly an alcoholic. Word has it, before I was born, my aunt, uncle, mom, and dad left my great aunt and my grandmother alone in the house with a gallon of wine and the fur flew. They wouldn't speak to each other until 10 years later--when I was born.
The effects of the Pepsi didn't wear off until I hit my homework last night. Dad accidentally scooted through a red light because the other car moved up a little. No one was coming, so it was funny. We sang Stan Freeberg all the way home--because Grandma wasn't with us. Dad explained the jokes, I remembered AP US History.
Memories.
I think I'm feeling them now. The Pepsi must have worn off.
When I first walked in, a row of shivers ran down my back. I think my body knew she wasn't there, but I couldn't register the thought in my mind. I had always thought she would be in her chair watching TV, shaking slightly. Instead, her living room was covered with various important-looking papers. An ancient shredder was plugged in next to the TV.
Before dinner, I spent a lot of time looking up at the ceiling. It's nothing special, just a wooden planked ceiling. When I was younger, that room seemed like an endless canyon, and the ceiling stretched on for miles. Now, it was lower than I remember, and the rug must have been replaced when I wasn't looking.
She had a picture--kind of like our class picture. Landscape, lots of smiling guys, about fifty or sixty I guess, in black and white. Underneath them on the glass, in red permanent marker (the fat kind) was a key.
X = Known Dead 1961
O = Known Living 1982
Two men had "O"s. Five were blank. The rest had "X"s.
Next to the landscape picture was an old black and white photo of what must've been my great aunt when she was younger. Something in my ear told me so. She looked sad and beautifully tragic at the same time.
I went into the kitchen and looked at a printout my uncle had made. For the past five years, my great aunt had been cheated by (affectionately named) "Mike the Con Man". He and his two cronied managed to get $768,460 out of her, through a cement block fence, gutters, a new kitchen floor ($28 per square foot), and other gifts that put Mike's non-existant children through school. Julia and I could've gone to college on that--her actual grand-nieces.
I've never heard more laughter in that house. Everyone was always so grim, so fixated on when death would come and bite them in the ass. Now, the wine flowed, I drank Pepsi out of a wine glass, we exchanged anecdotes, and I told Ms. Poole's red lace panties joke. We laughed, ate, drank, and were generally merry. My great aunt never wanted wine in her house because my great uncle was supposedly an alcoholic. Word has it, before I was born, my aunt, uncle, mom, and dad left my great aunt and my grandmother alone in the house with a gallon of wine and the fur flew. They wouldn't speak to each other until 10 years later--when I was born.
The effects of the Pepsi didn't wear off until I hit my homework last night. Dad accidentally scooted through a red light because the other car moved up a little. No one was coming, so it was funny. We sang Stan Freeberg all the way home--because Grandma wasn't with us. Dad explained the jokes, I remembered AP US History.
Memories.
I think I'm feeling them now. The Pepsi must have worn off.