Memorials

"She got no dirty little fingers

Bloodshot eyes are gone

Tell me I'm wrong."

-- The Black Crowes, "Twice as Hard"

--

Looked up that song because it came on the radio when I was between the bank and work. Upon finishing a left turn, I heard the opening guitar, and after it played a few seconds I was about to switch to CD when the song proper began with a rift shift that sounded a lot like the sliding in Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying." I like Zeppelin, and I like bands that sound like Zeppelin. I let it play. The lead singer even sounds like Robert Plant. I couldn't make out many lyrics but I told myself to remember the ones I could, so as to Google the song when I got to the office.

Later, at my desk, I promptly forgot those random lyrics when I saw the red light on my phone (could be one message, could be twenty, I still haven't checked), the inbox's fifty new emails with subject lines listed in boldface, the barrage of How was your vacation's and Glad to be back's.

All this goes to say, I'm grateful for 92.5 FM The Fox's website. Specifically, the "What Song Was That?" feature, which I guess isn't unique to this station but was anyway very useful this morning. I am now resolved to visit the library on my way home to look for the band's 1990 debut album. Thanks, 92.5 FM.

--

A check was waiting on my desk. My last reimbursement for gas (a teaching artist drives a lot). I separated what was perforated and flipped over the receipt slip, usually saved for no real reason, and made a to-do list. It's been awhile since I've been in my cube. I don't know what I have to do, but I know there's a lot of it.

We're replacing a study guide activity with a whole worksheet about bananas in an attempt to get a corporate sponsor--you guessed it, a produce company--to underwrite a show. Parents are emailing like nuts about the summer camp and auditions in August. I'm performing at KidsFest in three days and have no material chosen.

Someone made me a PBJ and I ate the quadrants while clicking through now-irrelevant emails.

--

On the drive to Pennsylvania, I saw an Ohio road sign heralding our approach to two towns. The sign read:

FLUSHING

BETHESDA

I think this would make a phenomenal punk band name.

--

My grandma is in better spirits than we were led to believe. She was not taciturn or snippy, did not make territorial comments about fruits in the fridge--in fact, on the bookend days of our visit, she poured me some of her 8th Continent, which was delicious and tasted like pudding. However, her health is just as bad, and maybe worse, than what we expected. Shortly after we got there, she went upstairs to get my dad's baby bracelet and returned five minutes later wheezing and leaning on everything.

A few months ago, she went into the doctor's office to ask about the strange lump on the left of her neck (not cancer, thank God), and in the ensuing checkups medics discovered a whole mess of problems that need solving.

The most formidable of which is that three of her heart valves have apparently stopped working. She needs surgery, and she needs to be able to go under during it. She's been passed from doctor to doctor and clinic to clinic all over east PA, being told over and over that her chances of surviving such a surgery are slim. A lifetime of smoking and never winning the lottery, the recent death of her husband, the ever-weakening determination not to become a burden...of course we would come and visit, do some landscaping and get her out of the house.

We took her to Grandpa's grave on Memorial Day, which was hot under a harsh sun. She laid a single pink rose on the stone.

She gave my little sister a brass otter figurine she had received from Grandpa years ago. She gave me his pristine collection of Churchill works, too: six beautiful red hardbacks that would make certain Hillsdalians salivate.

My aunt is officially a lesbian now, at least in my mental classification; I met her wife. They share my grandma's basement and have been waging a war with the back yard for a year now. With health issues ravaging the household, they were in no condition to landscape the patio or clear the shelter house. We took care of it, at least until Nature continues its work.

--

It rained only once and we napped in a stuffy spare room.

Conversations were telling. When my dad's family members saw me reading The Brothers Karamazov, they told me--with pride--that they had just bought the latest James Patterson novel. My aunt regaled me with stories that took place in every airport I could think of, chronicles of her exploits as a traveling salesperson. I was sure they were the sorts of people who would listen to NPR every day; they weren't. They have strong opinions about the oil spill and whether we should be in Iraq. My father, an Air Force veteran, nods and does his best to inform and opine without debating.

--

Both my dad's and mom's sides of the family are scattered worldwide. We have Filipino relatives in the native islands and Germany and Missouri. My dad's brothers and sisters mostly stayed in the northeast, but a few strayed into the South. We don't see extended family much. And while the dimensions of these relatives changes with each sparse visit, our knowledge of them and their lives shifting like globs in a lava lamp, the general impression remains of people who have been tested and brought down by life; who are resigned to getting by if and when they can; who pick their battles with wizened, tired ease; who find intense joy in laughter and storytelling. Most smoke and hate themselves for it, or else they drink. My grandfather died from alcoholic pneumonia--while laid up in a veteran's home he drank a beer that filled his lungs.

Without trying to sound self-righteous, I feel many times that some people would never take care of themselves unless others would first care for them. It's not a matter of initiation, imitation or incentive, but of self-worth, of believing in one's own potential as a person, of stepping back from the cliff of self-pity.

My family sits and listens and observes and cooks and cleans and judges. And we hate ourselves for judging, because what separates also relates.

--

Aside from all this, there were genuine moments of childhood-esque fun. Riding a mower. Building fires. Watching "River Monsters" on cable and shaking our heads at the size of river sharks. Drinking 8th Continent and loving it.

In the Orthodox tradition, there is the beautiful idea that when humans, almost entirely ignorant of God, learn more about Him, they love Him more. I think this can work or not-work depending on your point of view, the stuff you choose to read, etc. It seems to be true for people who are devoted to worldly aims: the botanist who becomes enamored of leaves, the linguist who learns his tenth language, the professor who has had tenure for so long he can't count the years.

Maybe this is true. The more you live, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you love; and so, the more you live, the more you love. Or maybe it's a matter of can's: The more you can live, the more you can love.

I think it works or doesn't work with family, too. And even if it doesn't work, I don't regret this Memorial Day weekend at all.