They put my father in the ground today.
At least I'm told they did. I wasn't there. In truth, I probably would not have gone to his funeral anyway. But for one brief moment when I was 22, a moment that lasted less than 10 minutes, I had not seen the man since I was 4 years old. So, it's kind of hard for me to work up any tears. For what? I saw the photo in his obituary, and when I try to picture his face in my mind, that's all I see. Try as I might, I simply cannot call up a living image of him. I did maintain a relationship with my grandmother, however — at least to the extent that was possible. Mine has been a life lived at the bottom of, and oftentimes underneath, the Maslow scale. When each day's primary goal is simply to survive into the next one, it's pretty easy for weeks to become months, to become years, and, by that time, to think of that Christmas call, but never make it. Still, I suppose I would have gone, if only as moral support for my gram, if she has asked for it.
She didn't ask for it.
In fact, neither she not anybody from that side of the family bothered to tell me about the funeral at all. Just as no one bothered to pick up a phone and tell me, hey, your father just died at 68. Considering that your grandfather died at 67, and you're 49 closing in hard on 50, you might want to think about getting you shit together. But nope. Nothin'
I can sort of see no one calling, even to say, hey, we know you're father died, and it's a tough break that you never had a relationship with him, but still, it was your father, and we're here for you. After, all, on the one hand, they knew my mother knew, for reasons I'll mention in a moment, and for another, it's now clear what they were here for, for reasons I'll mention in the moment after that.
