grandpa newton
at some point i have to stop intellectualizing this process and actually start talking about loss in my life...
the first time i became aware of loss was when i was three, i suppose. my grandpa newton (my mom's dad) had died, and we drove to kentucky for the funeral. my grandma ruby (she was my step-grandma, but i didn't understand such things, as i had never known my blood grandmother) was there. i remember pulling up to her in our station wagon with the wood paneling on the side, and my mom hugging her through the car window. it was raining, i remember, and i couldn't tell what on her face was rain and what was tears. she had on one of those translucent rain hats that grandmas always wear when it's raining to protect their hair. she was wearing a berber coat, or at least i think she was.
the kids didn't stay for the funeral, i'm sure of that, but where we went i can't remember. and what remains of the rest of the day is lost in a mess of memories that might have been from that actual day or might have been from any other of a number of indistinguishable visits to my parents' families in kentucky.
i don't really remember my grandfather newton. i think my mom once told me that i had met him a few times. when i see photos i can conjure up a vague image of a skinny man, tall-ish and handsome-ish (but that could just be from the vantage of a small, faggy boy who is both terrified of and sexually obsessed with all adult men), with skin not unlike beef jerky and a kind voice. the thin, sweet smell of pipe tobacco hangs in that pseudo-memory.
i have always been jealous of people who know and love their grandparents. i never knew mine. a loss of a different kind, i suppose -- loss of something one never had?
daily dharma: Right livelihood has ceased to be a purely personal matter. It is our collective karma. Suppose I am a schoolteacher and I believe that nurturing love and understanding in children is a beautiful occupation. I would object if someone were to ask me to stop teaching and become, for example, a butcher. But when I meditate on the interrelatedness of all things, I can see that the butcher is not the only person responsible for killing animals. He does his work for all of us who eat meat. We are co-responsible for his act of killing. We may think the butcher's livelihood is wrong and ours is right, but if we didn't eat meat, he wouldn't have to kill, or he would kill less. Right livelihood is a collective matter. The livelihood of each person affects us all, and vice versa. The butcher's children may benefit from my teaching, while my children, because they eat meat, share some responsibility for the butcher's livelihood.
the first time i became aware of loss was when i was three, i suppose. my grandpa newton (my mom's dad) had died, and we drove to kentucky for the funeral. my grandma ruby (she was my step-grandma, but i didn't understand such things, as i had never known my blood grandmother) was there. i remember pulling up to her in our station wagon with the wood paneling on the side, and my mom hugging her through the car window. it was raining, i remember, and i couldn't tell what on her face was rain and what was tears. she had on one of those translucent rain hats that grandmas always wear when it's raining to protect their hair. she was wearing a berber coat, or at least i think she was.
the kids didn't stay for the funeral, i'm sure of that, but where we went i can't remember. and what remains of the rest of the day is lost in a mess of memories that might have been from that actual day or might have been from any other of a number of indistinguishable visits to my parents' families in kentucky.
i don't really remember my grandfather newton. i think my mom once told me that i had met him a few times. when i see photos i can conjure up a vague image of a skinny man, tall-ish and handsome-ish (but that could just be from the vantage of a small, faggy boy who is both terrified of and sexually obsessed with all adult men), with skin not unlike beef jerky and a kind voice. the thin, sweet smell of pipe tobacco hangs in that pseudo-memory.
i have always been jealous of people who know and love their grandparents. i never knew mine. a loss of a different kind, i suppose -- loss of something one never had?
daily dharma: Right livelihood has ceased to be a purely personal matter. It is our collective karma. Suppose I am a schoolteacher and I believe that nurturing love and understanding in children is a beautiful occupation. I would object if someone were to ask me to stop teaching and become, for example, a butcher. But when I meditate on the interrelatedness of all things, I can see that the butcher is not the only person responsible for killing animals. He does his work for all of us who eat meat. We are co-responsible for his act of killing. We may think the butcher's livelihood is wrong and ours is right, but if we didn't eat meat, he wouldn't have to kill, or he would kill less. Right livelihood is a collective matter. The livelihood of each person affects us all, and vice versa. The butcher's children may benefit from my teaching, while my children, because they eat meat, share some responsibility for the butcher's livelihood.
posted by higgypiggy at 9:40 AM
1 Comments:
I can still remember my uncle's death vividly -- or rather, I remember my aunt (my mom's oldest sister) and my grandma getting out of grandma's tan boat of a car, saw them tell my mom something, the three were crying in the street, and I knew it was Uncle Eddie. That was the first death I knew (besides our fish, one of whom (One-Eye) I overfed and killed)...
That funeral was the only time I ever saw my brother cry. Well, really, he'd cry all the time to get us in trouble, but he was sitting there and wouldn't cry, and my aunt Jeannie (another of my mom's sisters) telling him it was OK to cry and he finally let loose. That was the hardest part of the funeral for me, because I didn't see my brother as a geeky nerd (like everyone else saw him). I saw him as tall, strong, and incredibly smart. At that moment I saw him broken, and that was another loss for me.
Now, as a parent, I see my sister and my brother both wanting to be "Uncle Eddie" to my little boy. I suppose we were all affected similarly by him, in his death and in his life.
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