Earlier today, someone told me that after my mom dies, maybe I’ll “have a renaissance. Like Grandma Moses.”
[long silence]
While I’m deciding just how insulted I should be, let’s talk about some weird things that have happened to me over the years
The weird just seems to find me no matter where I go.
Even underground.
In the words of Taylor Swift, “It’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”
At one point, I was really into caves. I convinced my parents that we should drive south to Tennessee to visit Mammoth Cave. Along the way, we would hit Ruby Falls and whatever other holes in the ground we came across.
Now, this was when I was young. I rode roller coasters back then, and drove too fast, and had no problem with going under the ground and squeezing through rock formations with names like Fat Man’s Lament. All things that now seem completely insane.
So, we’re however many feet under the surface of the earth, and our group has gathered obediently on one shore of a large underground lake while the tour guide prepares to deliver a speech from a lectern that’s been placed on the other side.
The only problem is that someone from the group has decided that they are going to deliver a speech from the lectern, and they won’t budge.
Now, as a teenager, I thought this was both wonderful and horrifying. I was mortified that this was happening, but thrilled because it defied all norms of behavior. People could just do this? Just… do whatever they wanted to do?
I, of course, was not yet cognizant of mental illness and how, yes, some people just did whatever they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it.
While the tour guide spoke to his usurper, a caregiver finally stepped up and ushered the individual away and everything went back to normal. Or as normal as it could be several hundred feet under the ground.
That was nothing compared to my dad’s funeral.
My dad was a worker. He always had at least three jobs — Ford Motor Co., farming, and horse training. So when he finally retired from Ford, he had to find something else to do to stay busy.
Somehow or other, he became a security guard at the hospital.
Now, a hospital is not a particularly safe place to be: not for the patients, and not for the employees. Hospitals are where the drugs are. I remember one story about my dad chasing a guy across the roof.
When he passed away, the funeral home was packed because that’s just the kind of guy he was. Everybody loved Mac.
His sisters and brothers had all come up from Kentucky, all eight of them, and we the family filled the first row next to the casket. An aisle divided the room.
While we all sat quietly and watched people approach the casket and depart, a young woman appeared. She walked tentatively down the aisle, stopped for a moment, and then she started to cry.
A lot.
And then the crying turned into wailing.
I had no freaking idea who this person was, but my boyfriend and I, and all my aunts and uncles, were riveted by this display.
I should probably mention that my relatives were not normal people. They grew up in the hills of Kentucky during the Depression and they ate groundhog for dinner. Things like that.
They had a sense of humor, because if you didn’t, you died.
So when a young woman started having hysterics at my dad’s funeral, they thought it was great. You usually have to pay money for this kind of entertainment.
The girl had to be escorted outside by funeral home staff.
At the funeral dinner, we were all still electrified by the scene.
Today, I feel really, really bad for that girl. My mom managed to share (brimming with her usual empathy—not) that my dad had tried to counsel the young lady at the hospital, where she worked in housekeeping (I think). She was in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend (of course), and I get the distinct feeling that she had latched onto my dad as a father figure who showed her compassion when none was to be had elsewhere.
After my now 20+ years of dealing with girls like her, I get it.
And look, on the plus side, it’s nice to know that my dad was a truly wonderful human being who cared about others and served the public until the very end.
We should all be so lucky as to have somebody who’s that torn up about us kicking the bucket.
This is a terrific story, tribute to your dad, and all around explanation for much of the world's craziness, ie public spectacles in our worst moments. I like to think Lectern Cave Girl and Sobbing Rando Girl were just having very, very bad days. I also use this explanation with bad drivers, even though I know I'm FOS.
"I should probably mention that my relatives were not normal people."
This was 100% implied. :-)