Its weird to see your name on a tombstone.  Besides the dead body in the room, nothing seems as final as this.  I’ve actually never seen my name on a tombstone, and to be fair, it’s not my personal name, it’s my family name, but still.  It’s weird.

I don’t know if it’s as weird as bringing a camera to a funeral, but i am a photographer, and it helps me to remember, so I brought it.

The funeral was a couple days ago, but it’s taken me since then to try to piece together how I feel about it and how I want to frame my public eulogy for this woman.  I still don’t know how to do it.

This is my brother Roderick.  He and I are the only siblings, and so we’re pretty close.  He was a pallbearer, but they didn’t actually carry the casket anywhere, it stayed on a little casket cart and he was one of 6 men who helped kinda steer it.  He’s a good man.  He broke down on the way out of the funeral home.  I asked him if it was for Grandma, and he said no.  He just couldn’t stop thinking about how in 30 years we’ll have to do this for our dad.  He and I both sobbed at the thought of that.  We love our daddy.

These funeral guys really knew what they were doing.  Honestly, it felt a lot like a wedding with all of the preparations they were doing and then just getting to the church, they have flags they put on our cars and other funeral cars that went on ahead with police lights, only the lights were purple, blocking off traffic so we could make our turns.  If the whole thing hadn’t been so solumn, it probably would’ve been pretty cool.  It was a sad, purple motorcade.

I didn’t take any pictures for a while.  Zen was fussing and even though it is my job to take pictures in a church, it still felt really weird.

So here is why I am upset with my grandma.  My dad was raised a certain brand of Christianity.  At age 28, he found a different brand of Christianity that spoke to his heart, and he swapped.  When Helen [my grandma] hear he was joining a different faith, she went to bed for a month.  Literally.  I think to mourn the spiritual death of her son or something, I don’t know.  My dad fell in love with my mom, and my grandparents refused to attend.  My parents asked grandma’s brother to marry them.  This request was refused.  In the end, they came to the wedding, but it was like 4 days beforehand that they agreed to come.  It was tense.

My dad’s parents would come to visit us once every 2 years.  They lived 6 hours away by car, but came only every 2 years.  They never stayed longer than 2 days.  It became a game with my brother and I to see who could be more obnoxious about trying to get them to stay longer.  Not because we wanted them to, because they weren’t fun people, but just to see how many ridiculous excuses they could possibly come up with.  I mean, they were retired, and old, and had nothing going on, but were always in a large hurry to get back to Iowa and leave us as quickly as they came.

Religion was always a factor in our relationship.  Whether it was being told by my cousins that my dadd was going to hell, or being forced to put money in a collection plate when we went to visit, or even being told as a college student that I needed to keep searching for the Truth, because I didn’t have it yet, it was always there.  Always.  Just lurking.  I was different from my cousins and not as good.  My dad was different from his siblings and not as good.  And my mother, well, she just wasn’t good.

This went on my entire adult life.  When I was 20, my parents divorced.  That is a pain that will remain forever, and it truly shattered the world as I knew it.  But this story is not about that.  2 years after my parents divorce is finalized, they start a reconciliation process.  They began dating each other, and going to counseling, and my brother and I begin [prematurely to be sure] to make wedding plans.  He’s going to be the Best Man and I get to be the Maid of Honor, and we start to plan this amazing party and how cool its going to be.  What will we wear, who would marry our parents, and DUDE! we better get some jewelry out of this too, maybe we all get rings, Roderick has already decided he wants my dad’s 10th anniversary ring with the emeralds in it.  This will be fun.

That summer, the summer of 2000, there is a Nix family reunion, and things are going so well with my mom that we all decide we need to bring her along.  I mean, it shouldn’t be weird, because we haven’t seen them anyway since my parents split up.  My grandma hires a photographer to take a family picture.  [Not trusting me, the photographer, do be able to do it with a tripod - and I really could've used the $300 they paid the other guy]  As we all gather for the family picture and are being lined up by the photographer, my grandma takes my mom aside for a moment.  She tells my mom that because she divorced my dad, she has lost the privilege to be in the family picture.  My mom very quickly leaves the lake, telling me that she forgot soemthing and would be right back.  She was trying not to make a scene in front of everyone.  the photographer takes the picture [which is horrible BTW, off center and me on the end with a wide-angle lens, truly a terrible picture] and then my family runs up to the cabin to see why my mom left.

We found her huddled in a ball, sobbing her eyes out.  When we find out why, my brother and I start crying too.  It’s just too mean.  My grandma shows up and instead of seeing the pain that she caused everyone, points out that she is justified.  When my dad yells at her that he gets to define his own family, and that if his ex-wife is his family that should be good enough for them.  That, if nothing else, as the mother of their grandchildren, my mom deserves some respect.  And that as much as they say they care about family, here he is trying to get back together with my mom, and my grandparents are doing everything they can to prevent it.  That’s when my grandfather says: “She was only ever after your money!” which is just bizarre to everyone, because we’ve all heard stories about how broke our parents were when they got married.  And, it just went on from there.

My parents did not get back together.  My dad met someone new, someone we love, and when he married her, he vowed never to subject her to the same cruel treatment at my grandparents hands.  That my grandparents got to meet Terry at all is a miracle.

I adore Terry, and i think she is an excellent match for my dad.  but as I stood in the funeral home, looking into my grandma’s face for the last time, I couldn’t help but think how differently things could have played out in my life had she been nice at all.  Had she followed at all in the footsteps of the one she claims she worships.  Becuse I gotta say, if you have one of the WWJD questions at a family gathering, there is NO way you would ever be told that you have “lost the privilege” to be in a freaking picture.

Which also explains to my brides why I refuse their requests to leave certain people out of my coverage.  If there is someone at your wedding you don’t want to remember, then don’t put them in the wedding album.  But my photography is not going to be used to punish people.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, Grandma’s funeral was strange.  A ritual of death that I’m pretty sure was designed to give comfort to those people still living.  But it did not.  In fact, I had one woman come up to me and tell my how much my Grandma loved me.  “Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised.  “Did she say that?”

“Oh, well she talked about you all the time, and how she went to Paris to visit you and your newborn sister TWICE!”  Sorry lady, that wasn’t me.  That would be Jim’s family.  “Oh!  That’s right, you must be the other family, living in Oakland!  Oh your grandma told me all about you guys!  She loved visiting you in Oakland so much!”  Sorry lady.  That is Dave’s family.  She looked very confused now, as she asked me who I was.

“I’m Pepper.  I’m Ken’s daughter the photographer.”  Oh, the photographer!  Your pictures of your grandma are just lovely!  Me.  The eldest of the 9 grandchildren, and mother of a great-grandson.  Not a mention from my grandma.  I know, because I asked.  Did she ever mention me?  “Well, uh, I know she had a great-grandson she was fond of!”  Thanks lady….

This felt hollow, like the icing on the cake, but a really bad cake.  I didn’t understand her or know her in life, and I felt the same way in death.  I listened carefully to the words being spoken about her and they seemed mostly generic platitudes, good woman, fruitful life, loved to sew, loved church, but I heard no stories, I learned nothing new, and I really thought I would.  I really thought I would go to this and it would be this learning experience for me.  I could go and mourn the woman that I hadn’t gotten to know in life, but i could know her in death.

Not so.  And when sitting with the cousins afterwards, the ones she had loved the best and spent her time with, they didn’t have any stories to share, so i was left talking about her abysmal cooking and refusing the wear the tight black dress my grandfather brought back for her from the Korean War.  I’m assuming it was a tight dress, I just know she refused to wear it and it was black, it could’ve been anything, maybe something naughty.  She was a very proper woman, and when he was in college my dad delighted in calling her drunk at 3am on her birthday.  Frankly, I don’t know how my daddy, such a jokester and a fun guy, is even related to his parents.  I asked my dad for some stories.  All of his stories involved him doing something dumb or crazy and getting into trouble for it.  Like the time he decided to light a cherry bomb from the kitchen stove, and he opened the front door wide so he could easily chuck it out.  He lit it, and threw it as hard as he could out the front door…

… where it bounced on the screen door and right back into the living, exploding and making a fine mess.  But those aren’t the stories I was looking for.  And I know he felt very sad that he didn’t have any either.  The only thing he could recall was that when they went camping as a family, she was always there, so he took comfort in the fact that she loved spending time with them outdoors.  but since that one line was redacted from the final obituary, I’m guessing that either she really hated the outdoors or maybe just hated camping with the family.  I know my dad was sad that the one thing he felt he knew about her, the one memory he could hold on to, was edited out of the final version without telling him.  He got the paper to read it and save it, and his one line, his one contribution, was taken out.  That’s just sad.

Here we are at the cemetary.  It was quick, and unemotional for the most part.  Lots of prayers that I just didn’t know, so I just sat, somewhat confused.

This is my Grandma’s casket.  This guy is her brother Tom, the one that refused to marry my parents since my dad left his church.  This is the inclement weather shack where they have graveside services not graveside.  It smells like the inside of a log cabin made from cheap wood.  It is very cold inside, and the service is short, a few prayers and we’re done.

I love that my dad drove his Corvette to his mother’s funeral procession.  Have I mentioned how much i love my daddy?!

It was a long day, and Zen fell alseep in my dad’s arms during the final ceremony.  I think it is supposed to be graveside, but with all the rain and Grandpa’s poor health, that didn’t happen.

I don’t know what happened to Zen’s shoes.  I promise, he had them on earlier in the day.

My Dad is an amazing Grandpa!!!  I feel so grateful to know that he will be a positive force in my son’s life, that he will be there for him.  Cause i love my son too!  Not enough to make sure that he has shoes on in the rain, but enough… 

Everyone headed back to the church for food I guess, but I didn’t feel anything, I still felt pretty empty and I wanted to feel something.  Roderick and I circled back and stood for a little while in the rain staring at the headstone with our name on it.

So here we were, just standing in the rain by an empty gravesite looking at a blank headstone and trying to make some sense out of it all, and he looked so sad…

So I told him to look really sad, you know, for the blog, and it had the intended effect.  He started laughing and we walked back to the car together.  I think that’s my happiest moment of the funeral, making my brother laugh, and then putting our arms around each other as we walked back to the car in the rain.

After everyone had had their fill of funeral potatoes, someone suggested we go outside for a family picture.  This is supposed to be a recreation of another picture from like 40 years ago on the same church steps at someone else’s funeral.  It seems strange that everyone is smiling, considering we were just at a funeral an hour before inside that building, but in talking with the cousins, I’m guessing they felt the same way that I do.  Empty inside, not knowing how to feel, since I guess none of us knew Grandma very well.

A 4-generation shot.  My son, my dad, my grandpa, and my brother.

So here is my obit for my Grandma.

She was a lousy cook.  Really lousy.  She confided once to me that she didn’t know how to cook anything when she got married, and her first meal to Grandpa was so bad he spit it out, told her he was going out for a burger and that she was a wife now and she needed to learn how to cook!  The other army wives taught her a few basic recipes, and she was so proud that 50 years later, no one ever knew that she couldn’t cook.

Sorry grandma, but everyone knew.  And the one time we went to your place for Thanksgiving dinner, Dad whispered to us to eat what we could, shovel into our napkins what we couldn’t, smile and tell you how delicious it all was, and that we’d be going out for Taco Bell as soon as we left, which would be early.  And we did.  My dad told me how Friday was Hot Dog night, and that you boiled the hot dogs and toasted the buns.  I said “Broil?” and he said nope.  Boil.  You boiled hot dogs.  Every Friday night.

She loved to sew.  I think.  It was mentioned several times during her funeral, so I’ll put it here.  But I don’t recall you spending an awful lot of time doing it, but then again, we didn’t really see you a lot.

She was a judgmental woman who never showed me much affection.  I personally never heard her speak of hell, but she disapproved a lot.  This isn’t right, that’s not good.  She was afraid of heights, or at least was afraid of driving with me up a mountain.  She came to my high school graduation and my wedding, she she hit the highlights, while completely missing everything in between.  I briefly considered finishing the two classes in my degree and graduating just to get her to come out to visit, but I decided the reward wasn’t worth the effort.  Plus I’d lose the ability to proudly proclaim at family gatherings that I am a college dropout.

The coolest part of the funeral was that all of the cousins who were 21 and older went out for a drink [except me, I stayed in the hotel with Zen] and I thought that was pretty awesome, that they all got to hang out for a little bit.  Even cooler yet, my Uncle Dave went with them and ended up buying.  My Uncle Dave is pretty awesome.

Grandma, I didn’t know you at all in this life, and to be honest, I have no clue what happens after we die, so I don’t know if we’ll get another shot, and I don’t know that I care.  But, thank you for giving life to my father, cause if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.  I wish I could say something better, but I just didn’t know you at all.  I just wish you could’ve been happy with the granddaughter that you got. I wish we had been close.  i wish that I mourned your passing right now.  But I feel nothing, and I don’t know what to make of that.

As for me, I’ll be fine.  I’ve got another grandma, who frankly kicks ass, and if there was an Olympics of awesome grandmas she would win the gold.  And if she didn’t her grandkids would mug whoever did to get it for her.  I’ve got an awesome little family of my own, and some pretty spectacular parents.  Overall, I think I’m pretty good.  I’m sure you cared for me in whatever way you were capable of, but it was something i will never understand.  I wish you the best on the next leg of the trip, whatever that is.  Goodbye Grandma.

Pepper

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 4:22 am and is filed under Your Moment of Zen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.