Wednesday, March 26, 2008

• God Is Powered By Irony.

  It was Good Friday.  I had been composing music for some time that afternoon, probably for a fair four hours or so, when at three o'clock I decided it was time to consume a late lunch.  My current song had reached a snag and there was no way around the musical gridlock.  I came to the conclusion I would feel better after a plate full of leftovers and I left my hovel in the basement towards the kitchen upstairs. I had hardly reached the kitchen when my father walked in and told me to fetch my brother.  It was obvious that both of us had done something wrong to offend him and now our consequence was a lecture.  Two minutes later when my father had us both standing before him, he began his speech, "You'd better sit down."  Neither my brother nor I made any motion towards the couch.  We knew this routine... never recede, never surrender.  But there was something different, "Please," his voice was quiet now, "Please, sit for me."  Nothing.  We stood our ground and met his stare, which in that instant began to melt away into sorrow.
  
  "Chuck's dead."  My father choked out as he stumbled forward into us and began to cry.  Shane and I had caught him awkwardly, and as we held him there it began to dawn on us what the news really meant.  Our grandfather was deceased, gone, and dead.  He would not be taking us on boat rides in the Chesapeake; he would not be getting plastered at our holiday party; he was not human anymore.  My grandfather was now a corpse.  And as we supported my father, whose grief was now falling in droplets upon our faces, I restrained my urge to cry with him.
  
  After we had calmed my father down, I realized I didn't want to be home when my mother arrived.  She would probably be worse stupor, Chuck being her father, and I couldn't bear to see her in as much pain as my father was going through.  He was now taking up his spot on the couch, and went to snatch my coat so I could escape to the local park to walk of my elegy of doubt.  I opened the door into the garage, and came face to face with my mother.
  
  My mother doesn't cry.  She walked into the house, past me, through me, and placed her gym bag on the counter.  The door where she entered was still hanging open, and I stood there against the cold, unable to move.  My father couldn't find the words to address her.  I could hear his befuddled thinking from the other room, and my mother, who, for the first time in my eighteen years of existence, broke down.  I stood there for what felt like an eternity, in that clichéd way where, suddenly there was nowhere to go.  It was overcast outside, and I could see it on the other side of the garage.  I wouldn't want to die on an overcast day.
  
  My grandfather died in Florida.  That morning, he and my grandmother went to the Tampa airport to pick up my cousin and uncle.  The airport was ninety away.  He drove and picked them up and drove them back to his house.  There was a good three hours when he could've just had a heart attack at the wheel.  He didn't.  They got back to the house, changed into their bathing suits and went to the beach, my grandparents, my uncle and my cousin.  They drove to the beach and began to set up shop... towels, blankets, sunscreen, and my grandfather got a big beach umbrella from the car.  He slammed it into the ground, and just stood there for a moment, closed his eyes, and fell backwards into the sand... dead.
  
  Now that Easter is over, the Funeral is tomorrow.  I won't be around until Saturday because my precious computer and I will be parted for the duration.  I don't know what to think of funeral.  I didn't really know him that well.  I mean, it's sad, but I'm sure he's a better place.  Or a reasonably priced morgue.  My mother hasn't cried since Easter morning.  She's doing better, trying to look on the bright side.  My family cancelled its Easter Luncheon, but the good news is for the next week I'll be consuming parts of an eleven-pound ham we didn't cook.
  
  News keeps trickling in.  Odd coincidences, some so unexplainable.  Chuck was a damn good Catholic.  Devout, if you will.  He died on Good Friday.  Right next to where they set up on the beach was a minister and his wife, who later showed up at the hospital with flowers.  A teacher, who was evidently on the beach at the moment this all occurred, came to comfort my twelve-year-old cousin.  Chuck didn't die at the wheel, other the entire family would've died.  When he was declared dead at the hospital, there was a priest already there, and was going to a sermon at the hospital, but instead gave Chuck the last rites.  The entire community where my grandmother lives in Florida decided to have a massive wake for him.
  
  The most ironic part was that since my mother was six, Chuck had been telling his family that one day he would, "just up and die... right on the beach... of a heart attack."  Fifty years after first making that remark, he made it come true.  And against all that shock, the crying, the confusion, the drinking...
  
  He gave us fair warning.

  • 11:56 PM
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