3My Grandma died a week ago and, for some reason, I'm not sad at all. Is that wrong? I'm only admitting this because I'm hoping someone else has gone through it and can tell me , " It'll be okay. This happens to everyone : This state of not caring." I didn't really know the woman all that well - I mean, granted, I would see her every holiday, every birthday, every other week when my mom would bring her groceries - but we never talked, we never made our acquaintance be a friendship, like when you see someone in the store who knows your family but you don't say anything to them and pretend they're strangers , that's how things were with my Grandma and me. Strange.
I'm standing in front of the mirror, watching myself button up the last of the buttons on my shirt and looking in my eyes - searching for tears, for emotion, but I get nothing. This is just another funeral. I have been to a lot for relatives I never even met and this one is the exact same.
My mom gently knocks on the bathroom door and asks if I'm ready to go. For her sake, I'm pretending like I'm sad about the whole thing - as if it's hitting me as hard as it's hitting her. I don't know why I do it : I guess because I know what it's like to feel sad and wishing someone could relate. There's nothing worse than being sad all by yourself.
"Yeah, I'm ready," I say. I almost laugh because my impression of a depressed person reminds me of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. "Do you know where my tail is, ma?" I almost ask, but I know she wouldn't get the joke and I would look insensitive.
"You doing alright?" She asks.
I look at her and she looks like she's about to cry and my heart breaks. The last thing you want is for someone you love to be in pain of any kind. I look away before I lose it. "I'm doing fine, yeah," I mumble. "You?"
She shrugs and holds back the tears. "As good as I can be, I guess." She looks at her fingernails, probably thinking about what color she should paint them - anything to get her mind off the loss of her mother. After what felt like an hour of silence, my mom sniffed and said, " Well, let's get going. Funeral starts in under an hour and there's going to be traffic." She leaves the doorway and I go back to staring at my hair and wondering if I should comb it.
When I walk out into the family room, my mom's already waiting by the door with her purse in hand and she's staring at something in our front yard, but I don't know what. It could be nothing. She could be lost in the world of her thoughts. I can't imagine how I will be the day of my mother's funeral. I don't want to either.
"You ready to go?" I asked.
She snapped out of the thoughts she was having and looked a little startled. "Yeah," she responded. "As I'll ever be."
On our way there, my mom put on oldies and didn't talk the whole way. The only sound she made was when the Mama's and the Papas" song "Monday, Monday" came on : she cried. I'm not sure why though because it was Thursday. I guess just because of the depressed feeling of the song - they sing like they had lost someone or something in that tune. I almost cry but then remember I'm listening to the Mama's and the Papa's and just stare out my window instead.
There's a minivan driving next to us and a little boy in the back seat sees me and sticks his tongue out and starts making faces. I hate him for a split second and wonder why the hell he would do that to me, doesn't he know this is not a day to be a brat? Then I realized, no, he doesn't. My anger leaves me and I realize how many times I have probably done the same thing this kid is doing : Hating and cursing at someone that cuts me off or rides my tail, ignoring a customer at work because they have a bad attitude - maybe those people have all gone through something that day and I'm judging them too quickly. I flip the kid off as his parents take the exit from the freeway.
When we get to the church, all these people - relatives, I guess - that I have never seen before, all come up to my mom, give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and tell her how sorry they are. My mom smiles and tells them all," Thank you," and that their prayers are appreciated. I don't fall for their fake sympathy for a second. They're all just going through the motions. It's pathetic. I realize I've been doing the same thing to my mother all day and I don't judge them as harshly, but I still don't like them. My sympathy for my mother is real.
We all take our seats in the uncomfortable church pews and the pastor starts talking about how great my Grandmother was and I wished I could have met the person he's describing - a woman that helped out at the church every day, a woman that prayed for Christians and non-Christians alike, a gentle woman with a great sense of humor - this did not sound like the same woman I had grown up knowing. The woman that hated me because I wasn't a girl - apparently she had always wanted a Grandaughter. Suddenly, I got the urge to yell out, " Sorry to disappoint!" but I , fortunately, caught myself before making a sound and just bowed my head and wondered when this whole thing was going to end.
When they allowed an "open forum" for the guests to come up and say a little something about my Grandmother, everyone was just repeating what the pastor had already said and I wished they would have all just not gotten up and said anything. Why go up if you have nothing new to say? I'm not going up.
My uncle Steve - my mom's older brother and the only person I actually recognized - got up and brought an acoustic guitar with him. "I don't have much to say," he began. "My mother and I never really got along because I was the oldest and I think she always liked girls better than guys anyway."
"Amen," I thought.
"But I loved her all the same," he continued. "She gave my sister, Alice, and I everything we needed and always loved us no matter what we did. She was a good woman but, instead of saying the things we have heard today or telling you funny stories I can't remember as well as I would like, I'm just going to play a song that I heard the day I was told she passed. It's a song called 'Don't think twice, it's alright.' by Bob Dylan and it goes like this :
""It aint no use to sit and wonder why, babe, if you don't know by now. And it aint no use to sit and wonder why, babe. It doesn't matter anyhow.
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out the window and I'll be gone. You're the reason I'm travelin' on. Don't think twice it's alright.
It aint no use in turnin' on your light, babe, that light I never knowed. And it aint no use in turnin' on your light babe, I'm on the dark side of the road.
Still I wish there was something you would do or say to try to make me change my mind and stay. We never did too much talkin' anyway. Don't think twice it's alright.
I'm walkin' down that long and lonesome road, babe. Where I'm bound, I can't tell. But goodbye's too go a word, babe, so I'll just say 'Fair thee well'.
I aint saying you treated me unkind. You could have done better, but, I don't mind. You just kind of wasted our precious don't think twice it's alright."
When he was done, I caught myself crying. I guess it's because that song said exactly how I felt : I wish my Grandma and I could have been closer. I wish I would have known her like all these people who stood up today did. I wish my uncle and I would have had a better relationship with her, but that's all too late now. You never really realize how much you miss someone until you realize all the time you lost before they left. And, despite our lack of a relationship, I did still love my Grandma, unconditionally. Weird how someone can touch your heart when they're not even around.