Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1515
Mom's Funeral, Family and old friends, Jane mesmerized at bluegrass
Good morning good morning. Greetings from Fairbanks. Jane is sitting behind me teaching her mother about Minecraft. They are going to go to the Children’s Museum today in the old Woolworth building apparently, while I go up to my sister’s house to see my uncle Skip, in town for his sister’s funeral, one day only, flew here from Wisconsin, solo, age 84. Still sharp as a tack, that guy.
You know, I think of myself as not having a large family. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things, in comparison to some other people’s families, it’s not that big. But when they all get together for a funeral, well, there are more of them than you expect: Aunts and Uncles and cousins and second cousins and cousins-once-removed and whatever your brother-in-law’s siblings are, and whatever your brother-in-law’s parents are. A pretty good brood. Plus assorted ex-students of my mothers, some of mine and my sister’s best friends from high school, church members, neighbors. A bigger funeral than I thought it would be.
The situation is she was cremated, and her remains are added to a creche at a cemetary. This is what my father did too, and they are now in the same creche, which is, of course, highly romantic. And placing it at a cemetery gives people a place to go to visit them. And it has a nice view of Denali. Well, in the winter when the trees don’t have leaves.
The cemetery provided two attendants to help out. They were both very, very goth and I appreciated that.
It was sad, of course. But the thing is, this pastor that they use, well, I mean, I’ve now had him officiate my father’s funeral, my mother’s funeral, and a first cousin’s funeral, all in the span of four years. And I gotta say, this guy is phoning it in. I mean, at this point I feel like I have his little speech memorized. But the dude still looks at his note cards. Very weird. I remind myself that this is what my mother wanted.
We had to sing a song, the whole group of people. Methodists love that shit. So at funerals you inevitably get a bunch of friends and family who aren’t Methodists, who are not sued to this weird tradition, don’t know how to read sheet music, don’t even really know how to sing. At the church, with its mighty pipe organ, the non-singers and atonal are drowned out. But at a cemetery on a hill? Pretty bleak.
Jane actually managed pretty well, all things considered. After the first verse, once she learned the tune.
Inside the creche, untouched, was the bottle of Seagram’s Seven we left my dad five years ago. It had not been touched. So I guess he quit drinking in the afterlife.
On to the reception at the Dog Musher’s Hall, which is untouched by time, exactly the place it was when I was a kid and we would throw dances there. Jane loved the field of dendelions and the pasta. She would play with her cousins a lot, but they have yet to be indoctrinated by schooling into the world of sharing and fairness, with the oldest just starting Kindergarten this fall. And Jane could not grasp this kid who was nearly as tall as her was two years younger and still didn’t know all these school rules. But it mostly worked. It was very cute.
A few of my best friends from high school came, Frank and Dave, and my girlfriend after high school Jamie came as well. And that was really great. Good talks, good memories, both of my mom and other things. Our old house on Viewpointe. Which! I learned from my uncle’s sister that they know the person who lives there now! I kinda want to make em beg to let me see the inside but, you know. You can never go back. Or you can only go back so far. Or something.
Emotions hit me one or twice but less than expected. I definitely teared up when Pastor Bob talked about viewpointe and what a welcoming house it was to all people. I teared up late in the night when I remembered later that evening that my sister had asked me to tell people if they had stories to share them with the group. And I completely forgot to do it. I feel so terrible about that. We had great photo books, and people shared memories with each other, but I feel like I let her down with that. The whole thing was pretty casual but I mean, I wish I hadn’t whiffed that.
When my uncle and aunt Jack and Fred were leaving, they told me they were headed to Pioneer Park to go to the Pioneer Pickers, one of those pick-up, Fakebook, inprov bluegrass circle james that my aunt Fred takes place in. Jane didn’t want to go but we just ignored her went anyway. And Jane was mesmerized. She loved it so much. They did “Brown Eyed Girl” (Fakebook’s really gotten more modern since the one from my childhood) and the woman leading that round encouraged the “audience” (just us and one other couple) to join in and Jane loved it. She loved the rules of how the lead in a verse went round the circle. She loved the way each person in the circle got to choose a song in turn. She loved the idea of a Fakebook and how you could just have chords and words and fake a song. She was enthralled by the violinist and totally chill guitar dude who didn’t need fakebooks for any song, just knew them all. The voice of the woman with the mandolin. The clarinet player. Just loved the whole thing.
I am still not fully processing my mother’s death. The funeral did not really do it. I am in the process of reverting my memories to her golden era, to when she was the most important person in my life. Slowly moving back in time like they did with the force ghost of Anakin Skywalker. Still a bit battered by the later years. Still sorta in shock I have no parents anymore. It might be a while.
But I still have a family!
Sitting there watching my dad’s brother and his wife play these songs, with my daughter mesmerized, while we’re all at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, Alaska. Well, reader, I got hella choked up.
Family, continuity, tradition. That’s the stuff.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.