A few days ago, my family attended the funeral for our wonderful Grandma Anna. It was a special celebration of her life. But as usual, when the extended family gets together for any gathering, some interesting things occur.
1. As we pulled into the funeral home parking lot, there was a frail old man standing by my Aunt Jackie's car. I said to myself, "Oh, how nice, a friend of Grandma's has come to pay his respects." But, alas, that was not the case. Old Man Bill (yes, that is what they call him), who is approx. 88 years of age, is my Aunt Jackie's "companion." The question for the next few days was, "You think she gives 'it' to him?" At dinner the first night, my cousin John Thomas, kept saying that he gets scared looking at Old Man Bill because he reminds him of the old dude from "Poltergeist." And, while sitting alone at a table, he said that Old Man Bill looked like the Crypt Keeper, and started doing the Crypt Keeper cackle. If that wasn't bad enough, John Thomas did this after about 5 drinks.
2. Nothing like a funeral can make you discuss how you would like your funeral to be. While at the wake, my sister Sissy stated that she wants to be cremated; she doesn't like the idea of bugs crawling around her dead body. She added that she wants her ashes to be put in a closet (like a pair of shoes, I suppose, because she loves her shoes! I think she has a friggin' underground lair, because there is no way she has enough room in her apartment for all the shoes she owns ... But, I digress). So, knowing that Sissy doesn't really like to cook (although she does cook, and does it well), I said, "You don't even like using your own oven, and you want to be cremated?" Needless to say, Sis called me a spinster with no children ... I guess we're even.
3. After the first viewing, the priest arrived to do a blessing. I like to call the priest, Father AquaNet ... and I will tell you why. Father AquaNet's hair had so much spritz in it, that I could have thrown a quarter at it and it would have bounced back to me. His hair was gray, and had a part in the middle with two gray arches. Father AquaNet stood in front of the room for about 5-8 minutes waiting for everyone to sit down and be quiet. He never smiled. During his blessing, he discussed the obituary that my aunts' put in the town paper. It was beautiful. It was several paragraphs, and included a lot about Grandma's life. So, Father AquaNet decides to do a half-ass job, and says that the obituary was very much like a homily, so he really doesn't need to do one! Ain't right Father AquaNet ... Ain't right.
4. My sisters and I noticed that our cousin, John Thomas, had a tattoo on his neck. This tattoo is big, and is in bold, capitalized font. While at dinner the first evening, Dineen asks me what the tattoo says, and after I stared at John Thom
as' neck long enough, I told her it said, "Tyson." She asked, "Who's Tyson?" I replied, "It's either in honor of Mike, or John Thomas really likes chicken." Any who, it was discovered later on that evening that Tyson was the name of John Thomas' dog that died. That's deep, yo.
