touch you with his sweet caress/now he's leaving you

i have now been to the open-casket funerals of both grandfathers.

http://www.legacy.com/tribnet/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=92833610

i saw my cousin jenny for the first time in 15 years. the rest of the family is a motley lot. my aunt liz was, as usual, impeccably dressed and charmingly effusive. bill and ginger were surly and unpleasant. carl and barb were bickering, the way they were when i last saw them 3 years ago; it is difficult to determine how much is hostility and how much is affectionate. i talked about transvestites and whores with my cousin erron, who had recently returned from thailand ("there are no gay men there, only trannies"); compared tattoos with my cousin jon and his fiancee marion (and silently, jealously marvelled at the functionality of their relationship); met the woman who lived across the street from the family when my mother was a little girl ("you had the BEST COOKIES!" my mother exclaimed). heard stories of my grandfather loudly whistling in the grocery store and the kids embarrassededly avoiding him in other aisles; how when he worked at the bakery they had so many extra doughnuts around that they would give them out at halloween; how today he would have been 78 years old. last week my mother predicted that he would not make it to his birthday. she was right. no matter how lingering and tedious the illness, death happens far too quickly. the last time i saw him was 14 july, my grandmother's 91st birthday. the two of them, my mother and myself went to shari's in puyallup, median age 70. he was already doing poorly but ate a grotesque pile of tapioca pudding with zeal. he was, as usual, wearing his rainbow suspenders. i am grateful to have that image of him, not how he became within his last few days.
it did not look like him at all in the coffin. bill loudly, inappropriately, described how the coffin is "totally flammable" (he will be cremated) and "cost $700. $700 for a thing that's gonna just get burned. or i could have rented one for $600. rented! can you believe that?" he was saying all this in front of the coffin, in front of the shell of my grandfather, in front of oma, who looked glassy-eyed and frail but was wearing a kick-ass turquoise necklace that i repeatedly admired.
but inappropriate doesn't quite begin to explain the prolonged giggling fit that my mother and i endured throughout the ceremony. "we will now play some music that charlie particularly enjoyed" the minister said solemnly, and started... 'flight of the bumblebee,' which is collossally dischordant on its own, and neither of us could help it. both of us were laughing until we were crying, burying our faces in the program, mortified and relieved by the emotion. i have never had a giggling fit at a fucking funeral before. hopefully i will never be so fucking obnoxious again. "you can't take me anywhere" i whispered at one point to my mother, which made her laugh harder.
we both apologized to the minister afterward. he smiled thinly. i do not think he forgave. i will probably be going to hell.
after the service my parents and i went to the spar, in tacoma's 'old town'- ironically, the same place i went after my other grandfather's funeral in 2005. then we drove around tacoma in the cold rain, looking at places they used to live, as my mother and i had done a few months ago. it was a fucking blast. when my parents and i are on the same page, they are the best friends i will ever have.
i started the drive home in yes, my new car. the clutch in pink went out last week and i thought, fuck it. i have always wanted a bug (thanks, henry) and i found one online. she was running well- i had her tuned up just yesterday. i stopped to get petrol, started out of the parking lot, and: the red generator light came on and the windshield wipers stopped. in the middle of the windshield. as did the blinkers and the fuel guage. i pulled over and consulted my "how to keep your vw alive" book, determined that it was probably a fuse, and continued home, through the unseasonable downpour, through hideous construction and blurry brake lights, peering around a wiper that remained directly in my field of vision. i have to pretend to fix a fucking fuse tomorrow, i guess. part of me bought a bug because i fancied the vision of me being a self-reliant, car-fixin', badass kind of lass. moments like these make me remember that i am actually a bit of a technophobic, motorphobic, smack-it-if-it's-broken-and-then-call-someone-else sort of person. it is not with enthusiam that i am facing this. perhaps i can attribute at least some of this to the fact that today has been, shall we say, a bit more loaded than most.
again, i am reminded anew of how much i would love to not be car-dependant.
to clarify: the sweetbreads were kind of a dare. do i still, whilst cringing at the prissy connotations, consider myself a vegetarian? yes. but one does not get the opportunity to eat thymus glands with succulent morel reduction every day. life is short. eat organs. fuck they were tasty.
of course i still have my floofy, ridiculous locks. i am too self-conscious of the weird dent that composes the back of my skull.
this has been a month of exceptional change. a few weeks ago i was walking at night, looked up at the sky, and clearly thought "i am on the brink of something big." big obviously does not always mean 'good', just different. the cycle of life, the stories people tell, the rainwater pooling on leaves, knowing that complacency is always a fucking lie.
and loverboy just started playing. i am most likely the only person in this cafe who is smiling widely about this. 'when it's over'- this is a fucking fantastic song, and that is all.