(no subject)
They put the nice mahogany one in a concrete box so it doesn't rot so the body inside doesn't rot so this whole ritual can be all the more bizarre and we stack the concrete boxes like storage containers in ports and harbors and on carrier boats and spray paint them gold and carve patterns and crucifixes and sell the nicer ones at discount retailers Walmart and Costco.
We said paid our final respects while the ridiculous reverend with her crazed hair and ecstatic, drugged smile played Funeral March while the teary-eyed cousins and myself laughed in disbelief. We had to tell her to stop. And while I stood there and inhaled in those last moments in front of the made-up leftover of my Gung Gung -- "Scott! Turn around!" My great aunt, fulfilling her role as the obnoxious and disrespectful oddity, armed with a camera, after an hour of strangling my own tears. My brother started his speech with a remembrance of my Gung Gung's rides about the living room. He pretended he was a horse. I remembered laughing. And then there was a photo Paul found. Me in Gung Gung's lap, smiling. And for that hour, I sat remembering the warmth. That unconditional love -- however childish, however illogical love you only find in family. And finally seeing what was left. That the last image in my memories of him, alive though unconscious and hospitalized, are to be replaced by this. This painted thing that could never be anyone. She found that the most opportune moment to photograph me.
We buried him at a slant, high heels slipping and stabbing the wet dirt, the elderly grabbing onto the youths, children confused and screaming. An earthy Titanic.
And we inhaled Chinese food. And we went home. And we watched movies. And we listened to music. And we sat for too long at computers. And we laughed. And...
"It's all over." My uncle. Reluctant to acknowledge it. The ands.
I want to cry still. It's there still.
We said paid our final respects while the ridiculous reverend with her crazed hair and ecstatic, drugged smile played Funeral March while the teary-eyed cousins and myself laughed in disbelief. We had to tell her to stop. And while I stood there and inhaled in those last moments in front of the made-up leftover of my Gung Gung -- "Scott! Turn around!" My great aunt, fulfilling her role as the obnoxious and disrespectful oddity, armed with a camera, after an hour of strangling my own tears. My brother started his speech with a remembrance of my Gung Gung's rides about the living room. He pretended he was a horse. I remembered laughing. And then there was a photo Paul found. Me in Gung Gung's lap, smiling. And for that hour, I sat remembering the warmth. That unconditional love -- however childish, however illogical love you only find in family. And finally seeing what was left. That the last image in my memories of him, alive though unconscious and hospitalized, are to be replaced by this. This painted thing that could never be anyone. She found that the most opportune moment to photograph me.
We buried him at a slant, high heels slipping and stabbing the wet dirt, the elderly grabbing onto the youths, children confused and screaming. An earthy Titanic.
And we inhaled Chinese food. And we went home. And we watched movies. And we listened to music. And we sat for too long at computers. And we laughed. And...
"It's all over." My uncle. Reluctant to acknowledge it. The ands.
I want to cry still. It's there still.