Cemeteries and ceremonies.

I love visiting old cemeteries.
I love the peaceful feeling. I love to take photographs of interesting headstones and markers
I feel comfortable and calm in the midst of them.
I like to look at the names and the dates and inscriptions and imagine the people beneath.

But I never go visit my own lost loved ones.
In fact there are a few that I can't even remember which cemetery they belong to.
It isn't that I don't care, it's just that I can't seem to keep it fixed in my mind and that's weird because I remember SO MUCH STUFF. Useless, trivial, obscure stuff.
Maybe I block it out.
Maybe not 'remembering' makes me feel less guilty for not visiting.
I have no explanation.

Anyone else? No, just me then?

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Speaking of cemeteries and such, many of you have been with me here long enough to know how my FINAL WISHES have changed and EVOLVED and how I've even written MY OWN SONG for the memorial.

So once again things have changed and yes, I still want to be cremated and yes, you still have to take a scoop of me with you when you leave, but the majority of my remains I want to be planted with a tree, so I can be the fertilizer. I mean everyone says that shit is the best kind of fertilizer and heaven knows I've been told I'm full of shit enough times in my life that seriously Ima have the best tree EVER and you can SUCK IT. I hope it's a fruit tree because it will have the most fruit, the biggest, juiciest, tastiest fruit ever, many people have said. 
Or it might taste like shit, to which I say HAHAHAHA HAVE ANOTHER BITE, SUCKERS.

ANYWAY. This is what I want: 

If for some reason this can't happen, my second choice is being put into a record (no really, a vinyl record that you play on a record player! YES THIS IS ACTUALLY A THING FOR REALS).

The album I want to be pressed into is, of course, Buckcherry's 15, and specifically the song Crazy Bitch. Alternate choice would be Carol Burnett's sign off song, because that would be appropriate.


So I would like the planting ceremony to be held at dusk, and wherever because why do I care, but I am going to need some hidden fog machines and speakers, because a nice ambiance with ground mist and spooky sounds, whooshes, moans, etc, is sure to freak some people out and make them check the backseats of their cars before they leave and if it's very successful, HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT ME. #SCORE!

MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR ME OR I WILL EFF YOU UP FROM THE AFTERLIFE AND I JOKE YOU NOT, MISSY.

'Tis the season to be...something.

The holidays are hard for some of us.
Some suffer SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). For some their regular depression is intensified. Some introverts are already having anxiety attacks at the thought of peopling, whether with co-workers or family.
Some just can't stand to be around their eggnog-sotted relatives and/or be criticized/ignored/mocked.
SO MANY REASONS.

I usually start feeling some depression and stress around the holidays mainly because
1. So very poor moneywise
B. Cannot buy gifts
III. Buying gifts is the only time I truly enjoy shopping of any kind, and it truly makes me happy

Besides all that, my last grandparent, my last grandma, passed away right around this time last year. Just barely before Christmas, in fact.
And I'm sure missing her hard right now.

She was in the hospital and managed care the last year or so of her life when she needed 24 hour care and the Alzheimer's got pretty bad.  I feel guilty for not spending more time with her - my only excuse is that I have a little boy (well, I know he's almost 24 but still my little boy) who also requires 24 hour care, and now that I'm old and he's heavier I can't manage him in & out of the van the way I used to.

Still. That doesn't make it easier.
ANYWAY I have drifted entirely away from what this whole post was supposed to be about, which was basically a HI GRANDMA, I'M THINKING OF YOU AND I MISS YOU A REALLY LOT.

I've told a few little stories about my Grandma Pat...like she would tell me (I am the oldest grandchild) how when I was a baby and my mom & I lived with her & my granddad while my dad was overseas, she would rush home from work to sit and rock me, and she didn't care if anyone else had dinner or clean laundry because WELL I AM ME, AFTER ALL.

When my kids were babies, she did not trust me to do their laundry and would not let me use some 'cheap bargain basement detergent' on those PRESHUS BABIES, so she would send my granddad over twice a week to pick up the dirty laundry & blankets so SHE could wash them in Dreft detergent.
Hey, I had twins, both on oxygen and heart/apnea monitors so I was not going to argue.

In my family, mocking and sarcasm is how we show we care...and we care A LOT.
Like the year at Christmas we told grandma that we had numbered all her stories because she told them SO MANY TIMES at EVERY FAMILY EVENT ... so when she started to tell a story, one of us would shout out something like "ELEVEN!" or "THIRTY-THREE!" and we would all laugh hysterically while grandma said "I DO NOT LIKE YOU CHILDREN. BRATS."

Or the time we were looking at dresses (she was one of those kind of Baptists where they don't dance and the women don't wear pants, only dresses or skirts) and I pointed one out and she said
"But that's an old lady dress."
I said, "Well by definition, ALL your dresses are old lady dresses."
"I hate you. Brat."

Actually grandma wasn't one to dish out sarcasm, but she did love to laugh, even (and sometimes especially) if the joke was on her. She had no ego, and would laugh at the most ridiculous, nonsensical things.
Like her favorite joke, which wasn't even a joke, but one of us would always say it because we knew she would laugh and of COURSE then we would laugh.
"What did the bee say to the flower? I'm GONNA STING YOU."

Not even a joke, right? But always a guaranteed laugh from grandma.
And my uncle, king of sarcasm (and sort of mean, and often an asshole, but hey family) would say,
"Hey mom, come stand over here and let me take a group picture of you,"
which was TOTALLY dickish and rude but grandma laughed and laughed, because let's be honest, she was the closest thing to Mrs. Claus you'd ever see. Very short and VERY round and cute as a fuckin' button.
She loved telling that story too, and laughed every time.

If you're of A Certain Age, you've seen all the Brady Bunch episodes a fafillion times and you remember Jan & Aunt Jenny...wherein Jan finds an old photo of 'herself' that turns out is actually Imogene Coca in disguise as Aunt Jenny and OF COURSE Jan is a shallow little spoiled beyotch and doesn't want to be 'ugly' like Aunt Jenny even though Jenny is like super cool and popular.





So (TRUE STORY) when I was a teenager I found an old picture of 'myself' at around 5 years old that I later found out was actually MY GRANDMA, so naturally (me being me) at the next available opportunity I showed the photo to grandma and said SAY, HOW OLD WAS I IN THIS PICTURE? and of course she said it wasn't ME, it was HER...and I figure you can guess what happened next.
I pretended to cry and wailed DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO LOOK LIKE YOU WHEN I GET OLD??
"I hate you. Brat."
She said that to me a lot.
I have no idea why. Probably she loved me the best but didn't want anyone else to know and be jealous.


Her funeral was particularly hard for me, because it's one of the first funerals I've ever attended that I actually (sort of) wanted to get up and say something - but I was frozen in place and couldn't. Also I cannot possibly be trusted not to say something completely inappropriate because that's what I do.
I did manage to do the one thing I usually avoid at all costs because I feel it's a horrible, traumatic tradition...walking past the open casket at the end of the service.

But I wanted to say goodbye to my last little grandma, with her blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick and Estee Lauder Youth Dew scent.

I stopped to look, and remember, and when I whispered, "Hey grandma, remember that time you ruined Christmas when you died?" it was no surprise that I heard her laughter in my ear.
I'm pretty sure it was followed up with "I hate you. Brat."

In Remembrance

I'm a little wrathful toward facebook's "algorithm" just now - it was two days after the fact when my newsfeed decided to show me a post regarding the passing of a special, sweet man whom I've known since I was about, oh, 16 years old. Then of course I felt like a jerk offering my condolences so late.

His name was Robert Zabel, and he was the husband of a dear lady who is a friend and my high school drama & debate coach, and he drove our drama/debate team bus.
Mostly my memories of him are simply of his presence, quietly waiting in the background...his thereness. He drove the bus to our tournaments and contests; he shuttled us to hotels and kept us fed and watered. Good weather, bad weather, outrageously early mornings and very late nights, he got us where we needed to be and put up with a lot of shenanigans - well, you can imagine what a busload of drama/debate kids was like, especially coming home after 3 days of intense competition. The jocks had nothin' on us for rowdiness, we were just a lot funnier and smarter.
Robert was patient and cheerful with us...he maybe barked at us once or twice over the years when we were really out of hand, but far less often than we probably deserved. Come to think of it, I'll bet he liked the early mornings on long trips because we would usually sleep for a few hours.

He was always there waiting patiently, and we always knew he would be. He would wait, and bring us home safely. Every time.

Robert had spent the last few years in some pain, I think - it seems as though every time the doctors could fix or control one thing, something else would happen and he was in decline. I can't speak for him, but perhaps it was some kind of a relief for him to let go of the pain and illness at last.
I haven't seen him in many years, but I feel his presence is still there waiting patiently, for his family, for those of us who knew him, to join him one day...and he will bring us home safely. One last time.

For the Zabel family, my heartfelt condolences. I share your sorrow.

'Til Death Do Us Part

I think about death a lot.

I mean, I don't actively worry about it, but I think about it. It hovers in the back.
Regarding my son - I've told you before about my Cher moment, every morning. You know in the movie "Mask", near the end when the school calls and says Rocky isn't at school and she looks at his closed door? That look is how I feel in the mornings before I step across the threshold of my son's room.
He wasn't predicted to live past infancy, then doctors said it was doubtful he'd live past 12 years of age, and then they told me he'd not make it into adulthood.
But he's 18 now and all I can do is pray for at least 18 more years.

I think about death a lot.

I'm not, in actuality, a morbid person, but I think about it. More aptly, the thoughts pop into my head and my imagination takes over to give me worst case scenarios.
Regarding my daughter - whenever I read something or watch a show about head injuries that can be the cause of death several years later, I remember rushing home from work because my daughter had gashed her head open on a branch & fallen off a pony. Took about, what, 10 staples, I think? I've blocked it out. But I worry over that. I had to wake her up every two hours that night, to ask her name, my name, the day, where she was...scary stuff. She never cried though, not the whole (4 fucking hours) we were in a cubicle in the ER, not when the doctor (FINALLY) started rinsing the blood away from the wound, not when they were stapling it closed. Not a tear.
But I imagine subdural hematoma and frontal lobe damage and all sorts of other calamities.

I think about death a lot.

I'm not really scared of dying, I'm scared of the unknown. And possible pain. Because I am a baby like that.
Regarding myself - mostly when it concerns me, I think about my final wishes and how you people better make sure they're carried out correctly. But when I worry, I think: I don't want to outlive my children. I don't want my daughter to have to be the one to find me. I don't want to be home alone with my son when it happens.
As a single parent, I have to think about these things. I mean, sure I'd love to fall asleep peacefully in my bed, but what if that happens and my daughter, my CHILD, has to be the one to find my body? Because EW. And also traumatic. And also I wouldn't be around to pay for her therapy to recover from it.
And what if she is gone - moved out, or on vacation or away for the weekend and I'm home with just Joshua? That worries me the most, I think. Because who would know? I don't have any "just dropped in for coffee!" kind of friends who would come over regularly. My phone is often dead or at least buried at the bottom of my purse where I can't hear it, so friends & family are used to me not answering calls or texting back right away.
Who would know? What would become of Joshua? It hurts my heart to think of him here, stuck in bed or his wheelchair with no one to feed him or give him juice or change his diaper or pay attention to him or turn on the TV or change the dvd for him. THAT, my friends, is a scary fucking thought.

I think about death a lot.

I don't brood over it, or actively seek out the thoughts of death, I don't plan my own (sometimes I plot yours, though)...but it's always there, that little dark cloud in the back of my mind.

PS: I also think up ways to haunt you. Because COOL.

An Original Song

Most of you have read here that when I die I want to be cremated...and I have some specific "funeral rules" that I want followed.
Just now I was getting my son ready for bed (which has nothing to do with anything, I'm just filling space), and I came up with an original song that I plan to pre-record and have played during the service.

It will be sung to the tune of that old "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner" song.

Ready? ALL TOGETHER NOW:

When I die I want to be cremated
That is what I really want to beeeeee
And when I am a big ol' box of ashes
Everybody gets a scoop of meeeee.

Halleluja. Amen.

PS Some of you were totally humming the tune while you read that.